Sarah Hughes

Washington Mental Health Workers Win Safety Strike

Nurses and mental health techs at a Tukwila, Washington, facility have won their safety strike after three and a half months on the picket line.

Interview: Why I’m Voting No on the IATSE Hollywood Basic Tentative Agreement

Sixty thousand film and television crew members are finally set to vote on tentative agreements announced in mid-October. Emboldened by the high turnout for their strike authorization vote, many members are continuing to speak out about the long hours and dangerous conditions they endure to produce profits for Netflix, Amazon, and Disney.

Shocking Death on Set Shows What’s at Stake in IATSE Film and TV Crew Contract Fight

The union representing 60,000 film and television crew workers reached a tentative agreement with Hollywood producers October 16. The deal averted a first-ever national strike by the Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE), which was set to begin the next night—at least for the time being. The contracts will be voted on in the next several weeks.

Kaiser's Outrageous Two-Tier Wage Proposal May Provoke a Massive Strike

At midnight on September 30, the national agreement expired between Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance of Healthcare Unions: 21 locals representing 52,000 workers. Now 35,000 of them have authorized strikes.

The heart of the conflict is a two-tier wage proposal, a rarity in health care. The company wants to create regional wage scales for everyone hired after 2022—meaning a giant cut in pay.

Kaiser isn’t hurting financially; last year it netted $6.4 billion, and it even returned $500 million in CARES Act funding to the federal government.

Two Thousand Hospital Workers Strike in Buffalo

Two thousand nurses, clerical workers, technologists, and service workers have walked out of Mercy Health in Buffalo, New York, in an open-ended strike over the hiring and retention of workers throughout the hospital.

At 6 a.m. on October 1, the sky just starting to lighten, an already full picket line cheered the night shift workers flooding out the front doors to take a stand against Catholic Health System (CHS), which owns Mercy Hospital of Buffalo and two other hospitals in the area.

'If Your House Is On Fire You Run': Workers Strike for Safety At Understaffed Mental Health Center

A terrifying scene unfolded the evening of August 1 at Cascade Behavioral Health Center in Tukwila, a suburb of Seattle. A volatile patient had stolen a badge and set of keys from an employee and was running between treatment units for mental health and addiction, taunting patients, vandalizing offices, making lewd comments, touching female staff and patients, and lashing out at attempts to restrain him.

A “Code Gray” was called—a signal for staff to rush to help restrain the man before he could hurt himself or others.

Massachusetts Nurses Face Down For-Profit Health Care Giant Tenet in Daring Strike

On the same day that their employer announced it had made more than $400 million in profits during the Covid-19 pandemic, the nurses of St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, declared their intention to strike.

“St. V’s” is part of the Dallas-based Tenet Health—one of the largest and most profitable for-profit hospital corporations in the country. It is refusing to back down on the number one issue for nurses: safe staffing ratios.

As of this writing, close to 90 percent of the 800 nurses have been on strike since March 8.

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