Ba-Dump-Bump: Bernie Does Chicago
by | Aug 21, 2024 5:56 pm | Comments (2)
Chicago — Bernie Sanders did stand-up Wednesday. To urge labor Democrats to stand up to their own party.
Labor
100s Rally For "Strike Ready" Hotel Workers
by | Aug 19, 2024 2:02 pm | Comments (9)
Asher Joseph Photo
"STRIKE READY" Omni workers rally outside the hotel.
Hundreds of protesters filled a downtown block on Yale’s move-in day to throw their support behind Omni Hotel workers who are ready to strike, if necessary, as they bargain for better pay, healthcare, and pensions in a new contract.
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Very Spicy Chicken, & 401(k)s
by | Aug 14, 2024 1:34 pm | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photos
Haven Hot Chicken's Jason Sobocinski: 25 spots by 2025!
Chicken aplenty at Wednesday's presser.
Haven Hot Chicken co-founder Craig Sklar ticked through the ways that the local Nashville-style fried chicken takeout restaurant strives to be a responsible employer in an industry too often beset by low pay and high turn-over.
Hourly employees start out earning above minimum wage, plus tips. There are ample opportunities to rise the ranks to trainer or shift lead or even into corporate. All workers are eligible to receive employer-provided healthcare after they reach six months on the job.
Fellow business co-founder Jason Sobocinski quietly interrupted, pointing at Sklar from the side of the press conference and urging him not to forget another perk. “401(k),” he said.
Opinion: Why The Carpenters Union Endorsed Steve Winter
by | Aug 12, 2024 11:02 am | Comments (3)
Thomas Breen file photo
Building a changing city, at YNHH's new neuroscience center.
Ernest Pagan is the president of Carpenters Union Local 326.
New Haven’s landscape is transforming. At this point, it’s undeniable.
Continue reading ‘Opinion: Why The Carpenters Union Endorsed Steve Winter’
Hearst Reporters Seek To Form Union
by | Aug 8, 2024 7:51 pm | Comments (14)
Martha Shanahan photo
Hearst reporters (and New Haven residents) Brian Zahn and John Moritz bring pizza to their union-hopeful colleagues at the news chain's Meriden office Thursday.
New Haven Register reporters and their Hearst newspaper chain colleagues across Connecticut have moved to form a union — to gain a “seat at the table” for workplace negotiations around pay, in-person office policies, and how artificial intelligence is used in the news.
Starbucks Workers File For Union Elections
by | Aug 8, 2024 3:35 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Hamden, Woodbridge Starbucks workers have filed for union elections. New Haven (pictured above) not on the list.
Workers at Starbucks cafes in Hamden and Woodbridge filed petitions for union elections on Wednesday, alongside 13 other locations across the country that are hoping to join the more than 400 stores that have already won their unions as part of Starbucks Workers United.
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Omni Hotel Workers Vote To Strike
by | Aug 7, 2024 9:32 pm | Comments (20)
Jabez Choi Photos
Isadora Milanez and Carla Vallati embrace after 93-0 strike authorization vote: "We all deserve better."
Omni workers explain on paper why they're willing to strike.
Omni Hotel workers unanimously voted to authorize a strike Wednesday night — in a bid to win better pay, healthcare, and pensions amid ongoing negotiations over a new union contract.
The vote doesn’t mean that the Omni’s housekeepers, front desk agents, cooks, and other employees will immediately stop coming to work. But it does mean their union can call a strike at any time.
Workers Bring Theft Claims To Labor Dept's Door
by | Aug 5, 2024 9:48 am | Comments (21)
Jabez Choi photo
Keeping the worker-pay pressure up on the labor department.
Immigrant and worker advocates with Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA) rallied outside Hamden’s state Department of Labor offices to demand wage compensation for wrongfully unpaid and underpaid workers.
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Elicker, Smart Testify In Pay-Bump Trial
by | Aug 2, 2024 1:42 pm | Comments (8)
Thomas Breen photo
Mayor Elicker on the witness stand: City labor relations office handles this stuff.
City Clerk Smart: I signed the amendment.
Can the Board of Alders grant raises to unionized employees through the city budget process without those pay bumps also being ratified by collective bargaining agreements? Or do union contracts have the final word on how much covered municipal workers are paid?
Those questions sit at the center of a bench trial that began Friday morning in a fifth-floor courtroom at the state courthouse at 235 Church St.
The trial marks the latest legal entanglement between the legislative and executive branches of city government, raising questions about who has the power to provide money to which city workers, and why.
NHPS Chief Of Staff Steps Down
by | Jul 24, 2024 2:06 pm | Comments (15)
Jordan Ashby file photo
Back to Georgia goes former Chief of Staff Michael Finley.
New Haven Public Schools is down a chief of staff as of last week. Now, the district is hoping to fill the critical cabinet position as the 2024 – 25 school year draws near.
A Sidewalk Comes To Crescent Street
by | Jul 12, 2024 2:48 pm | Comments (9)
Laura Glesby Photo
Percy Dagraca, balancing carefully to avoid leaving a footprint.
Fresh concrete dried quickly on Crescent Street under the hot sun.
The long-awaited sidewalk-in-progress across from Beaver Pond Park is the product of years of neighborhood advocacy, political bureaucracy, geometric problem-solving, and now physical labor.
Hopkins Alums Petition For Palestine Protester's Spouse
by | Jul 9, 2024 4:21 pm | Comments (14)
Elchanan Poupko
Still of Charlie Rich from Westville altercation video.
(Updated) A group of Hopkins alums are calling on the Forest Road private school to reinstate an employee who was put on paid leave five months ago following a verbal altercation between his wife and a neighbor over the war in Gaza.
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700+ Youth Now @ Work
by | Jul 3, 2024 6:00 pm | Comments (4)
Jabez Choi photo
Youth@Work participant David Uzuka: "It's a great opportunity."
The city’s youth employment program welcomed 748 students aged 14 to 21 into the workforce this summer, across more than 100 worksites.
A press conference celebrating the Youth@Work program — which kickstarted July 1 — was held Wednesday afternoon at Hill Regional Career High School, right outside a gymnasium filled with kids playing basketball.
Drug Rehab Workers Seek New Jobs
by and | Jul 3, 2024 3:10 pm | Comments (1)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
Adam Enders, Jamen Vandervort, and Sandy Enders at the job fair.
Jamen Vandervort’s family went “from three house incomes to just one” when he and his father suddenly lost their jobs at a drug rehab clinic that closed amidst corporate chaos.
So on Tuesday the father-son duo joined dozens of their former colleagues at a job fair designed to help get Retreat Behavioral Health’s abruptly unemployed back to work.
Fumiatti Fills New NHPD Mental Health Post
by | Jul 1, 2024 4:38 pm | Comments (5)
Allan Appel Photo
Fumiatti: Continuing a mission.
A veteran neighborhood top cop is taking on a new assignment: Helping fellow officers as well as the community deal with trauma.
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OD Prevention Workers Sought After 2 Resignations
by | Jun 28, 2024 10:20 am | Comments (0)
Thomas Breen file photo
At November's launch of Overdose Prevention Program.
A recent pair of resignations has left the city looking to fill two vacancies in a four-person program designed to combat overdoses by building relationships with people who use drugs and guiding them towards safe housing, medical care, and other supportive services.
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Mills Elected Nat'l Union's 1st Female Prez
by | Jun 24, 2024 3:52 pm | Comments (3)
Laurel Leff Photo
Gwen Mills running city-changing New Haven aldermanic campaigns in 2011.
A second labor leader who honed organizing skills in New Haven has ascended to the top of the national UNITE HERE union.
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Eviction Leaves Migrant Workers Homeless
by | Jun 7, 2024 4:53 pm | Comments (6)
Edgar Becerra and Josue Arana (center) join ULA for Friday's protest.
Edgar Becerra and Josue Arana packed their belongings into a total of two mid-sized suitcases and a backpack. On Friday morning, they stepped one last time out of the house at 200 Peck St. where they’d lived for the past year. They did not know where they would be sleeping that night.
The eviction culminated a months-long court battle revealing the triple power of one local business’s role as an employer, landlord, and visa sponsor to the temporary migrant workers it hires.
NHFD Appoints First Female Asst. Chief
by | Jun 3, 2024 9:43 am | Comments (4)
Allan Appel Photo
Chief Alston badges new Asst. Chief Samuel.
When Shakira Samuel was growing up in Westville/West Hills, she didn’t think the helping professions — teaching, nursing, library work — to which little girls were traditionally directed might include the fire service.
Roll the clock ahead a few decades, and on Friday afternoon in a special meeting of the Board of Fire Commissioners, Samuel was voted the first ever female assistant chief in the history of the New Haven Fire Department.
Guv Signs Paid Sick Days Expansion
by | May 28, 2024 1:24 pm | Comments (21)
Thomas Breen photos
Paid sick leave advocates celebrate ...
... Gov. Lamont's signing of bill, alongside Lt. Gov. Bysiewicz and State Sen. Kushner.
The bill doesn’t single out female workers as such.
But everyone who took the microphone to speak at a packed, celebratory press conference heralding the expansion of the state’s paid sick days program made clear on Tuesday that this law — freshly signed by the governor — is meant to make Connecticut a more family-friendly place, by helping women stay in the workforce.
"Truth-Seeking" Arson Cop Wraps Up
by | May 23, 2024 1:06 pm | Comments (12)
Paul Bass Photo
Aurora: "Bittersweet" retirement call.
For the second time in 11 days, someone left behind a Molotov cocktail somewhere in New Haven.
“Think they’re connected?” Detective Joe Aurora’s supervisor asked him about the two incidents.
“I don’t know,” he responded. But he did know he was headed down a “rabbit hole.”
Plaza Demo Done; Building Jobs Sought
by | May 22, 2024 3:29 pm | Comments (19)
Laura Glesby photo
Raymond Thompson and Jean Jenkins at Tuesday's meetup.
A rendering of ConnCORP's anticipated Dixwell redevelopment.
Now that the old Dixwell Plaza has been knocked down and remediated, Terrance Lee wants a chance to help build it back up alongside other New Haveners.
Judge OKs Migrant Workers' Eviction
by | Apr 17, 2024 2:07 pm | Comments (7)
Edgar Becerra and Josue Mauricio Arana in court.
Laura Glesby Photo
Edgar Becerra protests his former employer, MDF Painting and Power Washing, before the eviction proceedings.
A judge has ruled that Edgar Becerra and Josue Mauricio Arana must find a new place to live, ending an eviction case that sparked protests over alleged exploitation of migrant workers.
Staff-Strapped 911 Keeps Saving Lives
by | Apr 16, 2024 3:14 pm | Comments (11)
Paul Bass, LinkedIn Photos
911 stalwarts Joe Vitale, David Mancini, and Kenya James.
One of the year’s 164,949 emergency calls to New Haven’s 911 center came from a man at the edge of a bridge. Kenya James answered it.
Refugee Guides Kids To Safe Passage
by | Apr 1, 2024 1:15 pm | Comments (5)
Daphne Geismar photo
Feras on the job on Nash Street.
Feras celebrated his first job in the U.S. Monday morning by walking into traffic — and slowing down cars.