21 minute read
Union Matters
NY Cannabis: Get your LPA, or get left behind!
Stuart Appelbaum
President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Twitter: @sappelbaum. www.rwdsu.org
If you want to take part in the new adult-use cannabis industry in New York, you will need a labor peace agreement (LPA), and you need to start getting your LPA in order today. If you don’t take care of this now, you’ll regret it; prospective operators who fail to have their paperwork in order will miss out on the first set of licenses.
The RWDSU has been a key stakeholder in helping shape New York’s cannabis industry—beginning prior to the passage of the Compassionate Care Act which brought medical cannabis to the state—into a responsible industry that creates good jobs and stronger communities. Part of this effort was to make it necessary for any company entering the industry to obtain an LPA. With the passage last year of the MRTA (Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act) which created the adult-use industry in New York, an LPA is again legally required for anybody seeking to enter the business. It’s part of what made MRTA a responsible piece of legislation centered around making social and economic justice—including for workers—a priority in this new industry and recognizing the importance of creating good jobs for New Yorkers.
An LPA is a written and mutually agreed-upon document between a bona fide, established labor union, and an employer—in this case one that is licensed to operate in the cannabis industry. A cannabis employer agrees to never interfere with a union organizing campaign or to intimidate or threaten workers who are trying to unionize. In return, the union agrees that it will not picket, strike, boycott, or otherwise interfere with a cannabis employer’s business. Essentially, LPAs create a neutral environment that prevents the conditions where workers may feel their only recourse for gaining a voice on the job is through a workplace action. Instead, workers’ rights are respected, and workers are entirely free to determine for themselves whether joining a union is the best path for them.
An LPA does not require employers to have a unionized workforce, and it does not interfere with whom employers choose to hire. It simply means workers can unionize if they want to, and union campaigns can proceed without unfair interference from employers. Cannabis companies will not have to negotiate union contracts unless their workers choose to organize. LPAs level the playing field and ensure fairness when it comes to workers and unions.
And that’s good news for both workers and their employers in any industry; union workforces have lower turnover, better pay and benefits, better relationships with their employers, and workers who see their jobs as a career. They are more invested in both their employer’s success, as well as that of that of the full industry.
Together, New York’s cannabis industry and New York’s unions are building a sustainable new industry that helps build our communities. The RWDSU is making it easy; visit cannabislpa.com for more information on LPAs and to start the process of securing one. It’s quick, it’s easy, and will help you meet one of the requirements to enter New York’s emerging cannabis industry. And if you take care of the paperwork now, you won’t be left behind as this new industry takes off in the Empire State.
Rail workers strike averted—contract still in question
By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO
Special to the AmNews
A nationwide railroad worker strike was averted last week when the Biden White House brokered a lastminute agreement.
But the all-night bargaining session in Washington, D.C. with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh which led to that agreement remains tentative as railroad workers have already been heard grumbling about what they are reading in the new contracts and threatening they might still strike just before the midterm elections.
If any of the 12 rail unions that represent rail workers fail to ratify a new contract, the strike could still take place. Railroad workers have been negotiating with rail owners for years now with demands for higher pay and better working conditions. One key sticking point was that workers wanted railroad owners to grant them the ability to take days off for medical care without being subject to discipline.
The AFL-CIO, one of the unions representing rail workers, has been publishing what it calls “Freight Railroad Worker Stories” on its blog site. The blog about Willette Thomas of TCU/IAM explains that “Since 2015, seven major railroad companies made $146 billion in net profits off the backs [of …] workers. That’s the most money they’ve ever made in the history of railroading— even more than the Gilded Era railroad robber barons. During this same time period, the companies eliminated 45,000 jobs from the industry. Instead of recognizing the value of these workers, the companies have enacted massive job cuts and offered the remaining workers a net pay cut and worse health care benefits than they have now. This is unacceptable.”
Willette Thomas, a Jacksonville, Florida-based crew dispatcher who works for the rail-based freight transportation company CSX Corporation explained that, at the height of the pandemic, she and her colleagues were implored to continue working. They were told they were essential workers but were not treated as such: “We showed up, we worked with no contract, no raise, and never an offer for hazard pay of any kind,” Thomas said.
“I never felt like an essential worker. I was never recognized as an essential worker. I get it. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a nurse. But when the railroad said that I had to come to work every day because I am an essential worker but I never received any essential worker benefits from it, that was disheartening. There was no COVID pay when we were out sick. We had to use our own entitlements to maintain financial stability—if you had entitlements. I had my daughter and a newborn grandson at home. There was always the scare of coming home and giving my family COVID, which I did. My daughter got it. Thank God, the baby was fine, but there was always that fear.”
Union members are still looking over the negotiated contracts. When the agreement was initially announced the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
See RAIL WORKERS STRIKE on page 29
Assemblymember Reyes introduces SIT Act in state assembly
By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO
Special to the AmNews
A newly proposed law in Albany looks to aid workers who have jobs that require them to stand on their feet for their entire shifts.
The new Standing Is Tiring Act (SIT Act), which is primarily sponsored by Bronx Assemblymember Karines Reyes, looks to ensure that workers with jobs that require standing have the ability to take a seat during parts of their work hours. The act “requires employers to provide suitable seats to all employees where the nature of such employees’ work reasonably permits seated work.”
Standing all day has been demonstrated to be physically taxing and the SIT Act would require employers to allow employees to sit at work as long as doing so does not interfere with the nature of their work. According to the proposed law, New York State’s Department of Labor will decide which jobs would also allow for periods of sitting and which would require employees to constantly stay on their feet.
The language in the proposed law states, “This legislation presents a reasonable step in this direction: requiring employers to provide employees who can sit with the ability to do so and preventing employers from constructing workplaces to force prolonged standing unnecessarily. This simple change to New York’s labor laws will provide relief and increase productivity for many of our hardest-working neighbors.”
Reyes, who chairs the state’s Subcommittee on Workplace Safety, in the past worked as a registered nurse. She says she knows exactly what it’s like to have to be on your feet all day; the extensive health problems that come with such jobs have been well documented. “Prolonged standing at work has been shown to be associated with a number of potentially serious health outcomes,” a 2015 report published in the journal Rehabilitation nursing: the official journal of the Association of Rehabilitation Nurses reports: “such as lower back and leg pain, cardiovascular problems, fatigue, discomfort, and pregnancy-related health outcomes.
“[T]he Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) (2014),” the journal article adds, “has reported that working in a standing posture on a regular basis can cause sore feet, swelling of the legs, varicose veins, general muscular fatigue, and low back pain, stiffness in the neck and shoulders, and other health problems. According to the CCOHS report, prolonged standing effectively reduces the blood supply to the muscles resulting in the acceleration of the onset of fatigue and causes pain in the muscles of the legs, back and neck, as well as pooling of blood in the legs and feet which leads to varicose veins. The CCOHS suggests that job design can reduce the ill effects of working in a standing position by changing working positions frequently, avoiding extreme bending, stretching, and twisting, pace work appropriately, and allow workers suitable rest periods.”
New York State’s proposed SIT Act has so far been referred to the Labor committee which will check to see if the bill would be feasible.
Give Trump a seat in a cell
EDITORIAL It seems Trump has run out of ways to attack President Biden when he claimed he would have gotten a better seat at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. First of all, it must be determined if he would have been invited. And what in the world does it matter where one sits at a funeral when a large number of world leaders were expected?
This is merely another attempt to mock and humiliate Biden, who to date has no response to something that can only be construed as another annoyance from a denier, who should be concerned about the mounting allegations of criminality.
“If I were president,” Trump wrote, “they wouldn’t have sat me back there. In Real Estate, like Politics and in Life, LOCATION IS EVERYTHING!!!”
In many respects that may be true, but we are fortunate that his seat at the funeral was not reserved, and the real state of his location would be conveniently behind bars, and way to the back in solitary confinement.
The tempestuous Trump is obviously never going to accept defeat and quietly retreat from the world stage, and to think of his presence at the Queen’s funeral is the epitome of asininities with an emphasis on the first syllables.
What he clearly doesn’t understand or understands all too well, is that he is not related to the Queen with hardly an inch of royalty and his seat would have been no better, and possibly worse.
But most Americans besides his ever loyal base are aware that this is nothing more than Trump clutching at straws, continuing his role as mischief maker, clinging to an evanescent power.
Trump, we have a seat for you and it’s right down front in a courtroom on the witness stand facing a litany of charges with our fingers crossed for your conviction and imprisonment. And that’s a location that is EVERYTHING for us!
Jackson Mississippi has a water crisis. Is there a permanent fix to it?
By JAMES B. EWERS JR. ED.D.
You and I live in the greatest country in the world. That is what we believe.
It is the land of the free and the home of the brave.
It is my opinion that we take so much for granted in America. Food, clothing and shelter have always been staples of the American way of life. Some simply have it in more abundance.
Countries around the world struggle mightily to have these everyday necessities. In our United States, we are not without our trials and challenges. For example, if you live on the West Coast, you are prone to forest fires. If you live on the Gulf Coast or in the Midwest, you will be subjected to hurricanes and tornadoes respectively.
Wherever we live, nature will find us. We adjust our lifestyles to them, and we live our lives accordingly. I know where we live, we prepare ourselves for hurricane season each year. Please know that I am quite familiar with the terms hurricane warning and hurricane watch. So, these natural events happen to all of us.
The state of Mississippi had a natural weather event recently that affected the quality of life in the capital of Mississippi. The Pearl River overflowed, and its capital, Jackson was victimized by it. The natural news painted a dark and disturbing picture of the City with Soul when describing what was happening there. People had to leave their homes with barely the clothes on their back.
The scene was sad, and residents lost a lot. Homes were flooded and valuable possessions were lost. The flooding led to thousands of residents not being able to drink the water.
Drinking water is basic to our existence yet many of the residents in Jackson were denied this fundamental right. Voices at all levels have weighed in on this water problem. All seem to agree that this water issue needs some immediate attention and an overhaul. According to reports, the city had been under a boil water advisory since July 30.
Last Monday, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said, “Today the tanks are full. Water pressure is solid.” He added, “While there may be more bad days in the future, we have, however, reached a place where people in Jackson can trust that water will come out of their faucet. People in Jackson can trust the toilets can be flushed.”
I am on the outside looking in at the comments made by the governor. Is it a victory because the toilets will flush, and the water will come out of the faucets? I did not see in these comments the words clean and safe. Did you?
It is my thinking that you want your water to be clean and safe. We cannot forget Flint Michigan. The FEMA official seems to think so as well. He believes it is too soon to say when all Jackson residents will have safe water to drink. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said, “The focus right now is making sure we can get bottled water out.” On CNN’s “State of the Union,” he said, “There has been a lot of infrastructure damage that has been present for many years.”
Chokwe Antar Lumumba, mayor of Jackson agrees with him. He said, “As I have always warned, even when the pressure is restored, it’s not a matter of if these systems will fail, but when these systems will fail.”
Comments made by both elected officials suggest they see the problem differently. This problem is going to be front and center for a while. The citizens there cannot let it fall off the radar screen. Politics instead of humanity have come into play. The mayor is a Democrat, and the governor is a Republican. Put politics aside and give the people what they want.
What they want is clean drinking water.
James B. Ewers Jr. Ed.D., is a youth advocate, consultant, author and president emeritus of the Teen Mentoring Committee (TMC) of Ohio.
AMNEWS READERS WRITE
Open letter to Mayor Eric Adams
Elinor R. Tatum: Publisher
and Editor in Chief Kristin Fayne-Mulroy: Managing Editor Nayaba Arinde: Editor Cyril Josh Barker: Digital Editor
I’m a resident of New Jersey, by way of Texas, and also a military veteran. I am writing due to my most recent observance of the news, regarding the transportation of thousands of undocumented immigrants being bused and flown to various states throughout the country. I’m curious to know if the health status of these individuals is being considered. The nation as a whole, in fact the world has for two and a half years been subjected to public health scrutiny. You yourself Mr. Mayor have even made a point of firing public service workers such as municipal workers, essential workers such as hospital staff, teachers, police officers, and firefighters who would not take the coronavirus vaccine. You said it was for public safety, and most of the city complied. But, there has been no mention in the news informing the American public about that very important concern with the new population that is being brought in. Seeing how we have battled, for the last two years, the COVID crisis, now that mask restrictions are being relaxed, and schools are back in session, some level of normalcy has
started to become a part of the larger majority’s everyday life. So, there could very well be a resurgence of a COVID-19 crisis, or even an increase in the monkeypox crisis. So why have we, as tax paying citizens, not been told the process of determining the medical conditions of people being transported throughout the country? I’m a homeowner, family man with children, approaching retirement, and I am in the age range that some might say I should be really cautious regarding health issues. I am just curious to know. Chairman of the Board, CEO and Publisher Emeritus Sincerely, Anthony Tapscott
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the New York Amsterdam News. We continue to publish a variety of viewpoints so that we may know the opinions of others that may differ from our own.
ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS
The Biden administration finally got a long-overdue win. A drone eliminated al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, but no doubt that successful feeling will not last long. In fact, we already know his likely replacement will be Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian national and long-time alQaeda emir.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, America’s devoted ally Israel last month killed at least two leaders from the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They, too, will be replaced in short order.
Unless the West cripples the source of Islamist ideology that connects these various terrorist organizations, killing leaders from al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, or any other deranged and violent groups amounts to nothing more than an interminable game of whack-a-mole.
Put another way: if the West does not actively work to dismantle the underlying philosophy that serves as the nexus for these Islamic terrorist groups, then we will never end the scourge of global Islamic terrorism.
Consider America’s Afghanistan policy. Following the Biden administration’s short-sighted, feckless, and deadly abandonment of Afghanistan last year, the Taliban not only violated all agreed-upon terms for the U.S. withdrawal, but it has resumed providing safe haven to the very Islamic terrorists who took aim at the Twin Towers on Sept. 11.
In the end, Biden’s policy has cleared a path to another 9/11-style terrorist attack. But this isn’t the worst part of the West’s failed policies directed at Islamists and Islamic terrorism.
The organization at the root of the world’s radical Islamic theology is the Muslim Brotherhood. Most Americans know the name al-Qaeda since it was responsible for the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil, but the Muslim Brotherhood has been sowing the seeds for anti-American murder for decades on a global scale.
The Muslim Brotherhood operates under different terrorist banners around the world, using al-Azhar University in Cairo to provide cover and an imprimatur of legitimacy to the legions of students it indoctrinates in its radical teachings.
The Muslim Brotherhood is exposed in tremendous detail by Cynthia Farahat in her new book “The Secret Apparatus,” which should be required reading for anyone interested in looking at why the world must confront this serious threat to our security and future. As Farathat points out, the Muslim Brotherhood has helped spawn the most vicious and capable jihadist organizations including ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and numerous others.
Because of Biden’s reckless withdrawal, Afghanistan now serves as the command and control center for jihadism under the violent leadership of the Taliban. In fact, al-Zawahiri officially pledged allegiance to the Taliban on more than one occasion, and we should expect this oath to be fulfilled by his successor al-Adel.
According to Farahat, the Muslim Brotherhood benefits from the West’s ethnocentric arrogance that serves to maintain our general ignorance about the organization and its goals. She points out that “Jihadist groups conceal their operational discourses in Islamic terminology, religious edicts, and sermons, most of which are obscure to Westerners.”
In other words, we believe at face value what they tell us in English and are totally oblivious to what they are really saying in their cloaked language which motivates and mobilizes murder. However, “if you know where to look,” according to Farahat, “it is not too difficult to ascertain their real goals.”
Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and other organizations are largely products of al-Azhar University of Cairo and its long-standing ideological program controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. While alAzhar is often falsely painted as “a widely respected and leading institutional authority on moderate Islamic thought,” Farahat’s research shows that it is in reality an epicenter for radical Islamist ideology.
Among countless jihadists and convicted terrorists who received their theological indoctrination at al-Azhar are the founders of alQaeda and Boko Haram, Abdallah Azzam and Abubakar Shekau, respectively.
Assassination fatwas (religious edicts) also serve to connect AlAzhar with jihadists. Fatwas may include an open order to torture and murder all non-Muslims, as well as excommunicating moderate Muslims, deeming them infidels who should be murdered. This is essentially contract killing.
Last February, al-Azhar scholar Ahmed Karima issued a fatwa excommunicating from Islam the moderate Muslim author and commentator, Ibrahim Issa, over a minor religious disagreement. Al-Qaeda responded by ordering Issa’s assassination.
American policymakers need to pay attention to what is hiding in plain sight. Western governments, particularly the United States, must dismantle the Muslim Brotherhood. Doing this will require working with Egypt to cleanse al-Azhar University of the radical Islamist ideologues who churn out classes of anti-Western zealots.
Until we do so, we should resign ourselves to protracted struggle and brace ourselves for more murder and mayhem at the hands of Islamist terrorists.
Armstrong Williams (@ARightSide) is manager / sole owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the year. www.armstrongwilliams.co | www.howardstirkholdings.com
CHRISTINA GREER PH.D.
I don’t think I am being alarmist or histrionic when I say clean water may be the new frontier for battles to come. As we hear more about the tainted drinking water in Baltimore, MD, we see images of the black water coming out of the faucets in Jackson, MS, we hear conflicting stories about possible arsenic in the water in some of New York City’s housing projects, and we remember that Flint, MI has been without clean drinking water for years now, I fear clean water could become a scarce resource in years to come.
The shameful part of the lack of clean water in cities large and small is a disinvestment in infrastructure over years and in some cases decades. For many cities, their lack of investment in changing lead pipes that carries the clean water to homes and apartments has led to harmful and undrinkable water for far too many communities.
For example, New York state has some of the cleanest water in the United States. However, clean drinking water is only as good as the pipes that carry it. When lead from pipes gets into the water supply and renders it undrinkable, it no longer matters that the clean water comes from northern areas that are pristine and protected from chemicals and pollutants. Once dangers exist in the water supply, it is incredibly difficult to reverse the course.
The good news is that there are ways you can test your water as well as contribute to the collective effort to keep information about our water supply readily available for scientists and those who work to protect our water supply.
During the Bloomberg mayoral era, he implemented the 311 system where you can either call or log onto www. portal.311.nyc.gov to request a lead in drinking water test kit. This easyto-use kit is truly a great resource to the city and its residents. The kit is completely free. The address labels are provided so you do not have to worry about postage. The box is provided. And the entire testing process takes mere minutes.
It is incredibly important that we know how clean our drinking water is in our homes and apartments. It is also important for the city to know which buildings, blocks, and neighborhoods have potentially dangerous levels of lead in their water.
Getting your water tested is a small task you can complete to contribute to the larger effort to help assess our city water quality. In doing so, you are contributing to a larger effort that could help catch any issues that arise in the water supply. We are on this planet together and in this city together, getting your water tested is just one small step towards helping protect all residents of New York City. Call or log on to 311 today to get your kit!
Christina Greer, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Fordham University, the author of “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream,” and the co-host of the podcast FAQ-NYC and host of The Blackest Questions podcast at TheGrio.