Cincinnati
AFL-CIO
Labor Council


Friday, April 23 2021
The PROAct National Week of Action

April 26 - May 2, 2021
Trumka: Chauvin Verdict Just The Beginning
Statement from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on the conviction of Derek Chauvin:

We are relieved the jury delivered justice for George Floyd’s family. Floyd’s murder shocked our collective conscience and sparked a movement for change that has inspired America over the past year. While this verdict is welcome news, the work of dismantling systemic racism and white supremacy is just beginning. As members of our communities and representatives of union public safety professionals, the labor movement has a unique role to play in changing this culture of policing. We are hard at work developing a public safety blueprint for change, and we look forward to using our experience and influence to heal this nation through liberty and justice for all.
Ohio AFL-CIO President, Tim Burga Calls On Business To Pay Fair Share To Fix Ohio Unemployment Compensation System
For the past decade, Ohio Republicans have yet to fix Ohio's broken unemployment system. Last week, Governor Mike DeWine has called on the legislature to tackle the issue, but rather than adjust the corporate taxable wage base to be in alignment with the national average, (which is lower than any of Ohio's neighboring states), the business lobby is calling on Republican legislators to limit eligibility and cut needed benefits to workers.
 
In an interview with WCBE's Andy Chow, Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga said, "When you look at how frontline workers have put their health on the line to get us through this pandemic I think we're going to see an opportunity where the employers will understand that they need to step up and just do the average with what the rest of the country is doing to help move the system into a solvency place."  
 
In the interview, the business community believes workers should take a decrease in benefits. President Burga disagrees, saying Ohio has a long history of extending a helping hand to workers laid off through no fault of their own, and this gives our state a competitive workforce advantage.  
 
"The American Labor movement is helping our country and its citizens to Build Back Better!"
We are living in an exciting, hopeful, and promising time in the greater Cincinnati area and throughout our country. Through collectively and collaborative action, we are getting the COVID-19 vaccinations, with many thanks to the front-line workers and volunteers who are working at the distribution centers/locations. In Washington, D.C., we finally have a President and administration that truly advocates and fights for all union members and working families, especially with recent passage of the American Rescue Plan Act. Finally, despite our setback with the Amazon-union organizing drive in Alabama, thousands of workers across the country are standing up, fighting back, and exercising their rights to organize and unionize. As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka continues to emphasize: The American Labor movement is helping our country and its citizens to Build Back Better!
 
Next week, the AFL-CIO and all union affiliates/members will be celebrating a National Week of Action (Monday, April 26th – Friday, April 30th) with Protect the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) events, our 2021 Workers Memorial Day online celebration, and May Day actions. Additionally, on Tuesday, April 27th, with the Dayton-Miami Valley AFL-CIO Labor Council, we are scheduling an event to honor Lee Wong, an Asian-American U.S. Army veteran, and West Chester Township Trustee, for his years of public service, leadership and strong advocacy/support for unions and working families. To best honor workers who died in 2020 due to workplace accidents or work-related illnesses, we must continue to “fight like Hell” for union members and all working families in America. 
 
To promote our rights to Free Speech, Peacefully Assemble and to organize and collectively bargain as a Union, we need U.S. Senator Rob Portman to join U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and forty-eight other U.S. Senators to pass the PRO Act! For far too long, the U.S. national labor policy, related federal laws and regulations have failed to keep up with the changing economy and workplace environment of the 21st century. Senator Portman has repeated stated his support for American workers; we need to call Senator Portman and demand that he co-sponsor and vote YES on the PRO Act!
 
Locally, the Cincinnati AFL-CIO and our Keep Cincinnati Safe committee partners, are asking all Cincinnati residents to Vote NO on Issue 3, the Housing city charter amendment. If passed as written, Issue 3 will force the City of Cincinnati transfer over $50 million dollars out of its General Operating and Capital funds to the Housing Trust.
 
Despite Labor’s strong support for more affordable housing options in Cincinnati, we cannot risk the loss of City public services (including public safety, emergency response, trash collection, health services, parks and recreation), the loss of hundreds of Union member jobs (AFSCME, IAFF-Firefighters, Building Trades, CODE, etc.), and the potential bankruptcy of the City Retirement System (pension) which will happen if Issue 3 passes. Issue 3 is ill-conceived, will cause more harm than good, and we deserve a better, more collaborative, and inclusive solution for affordable housing in the greater Cincinnati area.
 
As always, I thank you for your leadership, representation, and collective actions on behalf of your union members, and for all union sisters and brothers. When we stand up together, fight back together, and work collaboratively together, the Cincinnati Labor movement will always WIN together! 
FACT SHEET: The American Jobs Plan
While the American Rescue Plan is changing the course of the pandemic and delivering relief for working families, this is no time to build back to the way things were. This is the moment to reimagine and rebuild a new economy. The American Jobs Plan is an investment in America that will create millions of good jobs, rebuild our country’s infrastructure, and position the United States to out-compete China. Public domestic investment as a share of the economy has fallen by more than 40 percent since the 1960s. The American Jobs Plan will invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the Space Race.

The United States of America is the wealthiest country in the world, yet we rank 13th when it comes to the overall quality of our infrastructure. After decades of disinvestment, our roads, bridges, and water systems are crumbling. Our electric grid is vulnerable to catastrophic outages. Too many lack access to affordable, high-speed Internet and to quality housing. The past year has led to job losses and threatened economic security, eroding more than 30 years of progress in women’s labor force participation. It has unmasked the fragility of our caregiving infrastructure. And, our nation is falling behind its biggest competitors on research and development (R&D), manufacturing, and training. It has never been more important for us to invest in strengthening our infrastructure and competitiveness, and in creating the good-paying, union jobs of the future.

Like great projects of the past, the President’s plan will unify and mobilize the country to meet the great challenges of our time: the climate crisis and the ambitions of an autocratic China. It will invest in Americans and deliver the jobs and opportunities they deserve. But unlike past major investments, the plan prioritizes addressing long-standing and persistent racial injustice. The plan targets 40 percent of the benefits of climate and clean infrastructure investments to disadvantaged communities. And, the plan invests in rural communities and communities impacted by the market-based transition to clean energy. Specifically, President Biden’s plan will:

White House Also Released A State-by-State Fact Sheets to Highlight Nationwide Need for the American Jobs Plan
The White House released a state-by-state fact sheets highlighting the urgent need in every state across the country for the investments proposed by President Biden in the American Jobs Plan. The fact sheets highlight the number of bridges and miles of road in each state in poor condition, the percentage of households without access to broadband, the billions of dollars required for water infrastructure, among other infrastructure needs. 

Individual fact sheets for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico can be seen HERE.
Why Does Ohio Need President Biden's American Jobs Plan? For Starters, We Have An Infrastructure Grade Of A C-
For decades, infrastructure in Ohio has suffered from a systemic lack of investment. The need for action is clear: Ohio’s infrastructure received a C- grade on its Infrastructure Report Card. The American Jobs Plan will make a historic investment in our nation’s infrastructure.
 
Labor Unions, corporate CEOs, Governors and Mayors from different political parties are supporting President Joe Biden's American Jobs Plan because it makes the long-overdue investments in the counties physical infrastructure, broadband, and manufacturing while also addressing the current health and care infrastructures that have been overlooked for too long. 
 
Everything You Need To Know About The PRO Act
Add Your Name: I Support Workers’ Rights
The PRO Act empowers working people to organize and bargain in the workplace. It also sets consequences for union-busting corporations.
 
If you think workers have a right to organize, free of intimidation and union-busting, add your name.


The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act passed in the House with bipartisan support, and President Biden has urged Congress to send it to his desk.
 
Before that can happen, we have to pass it through the Senate.
 
Recently, Sens. Angus King (Maine) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.) publicly supported the PRO Act after months of organizing. Our calls and letters are working.
 
Let’s show the Senate: Across the country and across party lines, we support workers.
 
 
In Solidarity,
Team AFL-CIO
Accelerating the Energy Transition:
Infrastructure, Jobs and Equity
Our clean energy policies must learn from the past if we’re going to build an equitable future. We need policies that invest in every community. We need jobs that aren’t just green, but also are good-paying union jobs. To kick off Earth Week, the Labor Energy Partnership brought together leaders for a livestreamed event on Monday, April 19, to discuss our shared future and the work that needs to be done.
Working For Working People!
Vox Operántium ― “The Voice of the Worker!”
When you hear the term “VO,” most of us think of either a brand of Canadian whiskey or shorthand for the audio term “voice-over.” Well, from this day forward, we at the Cincinnati Labor Council are going to do everything we can to have you re-think that term and associate it with our newest venture – an audio/video studio for amplifying the voice of working people.

From now on, when you here VO, we want you thinking Vox Operántium ― “The Voice of the Worker!” Yes, Vox Operántium is Latin for “voice of the worker,” which is not only the name for our new A/V venture, but it is intended to be the voice for Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council’s one-hundred-plus affiliated local unions and the tens of thousands of hard-working Sisters and Brothers we are honored to serve.

So why an Audio/Video Studio? Well, each year we must do more with less and in what we must transform into an asymmetric war on the considerable forces arrayed against Labor. Over the past several decades, union membership has steadily declined while American productivity grew a full six times faster than compensation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1983, 20.1% of employed Americans were members of a union. By 2019, that share had decreased by roughly half to 10.3%. So, make no mistake: America’s labor unions, once a stalwart of the American economy, are in danger of fading into oblivion, and with them, America’s best defense against increasing income inequality and the promises made that are inherent in the “American Dream.”

Well, we say NO MORE! As wealth inequality accelerates, essential workers organize for pandemic protections, and President-elect Biden makes promises to be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen,” public support for unions is rising. Richard Trumka, president of The AFL-CIO said “Now, unions are at an all-time high when it comes to favorability ratings.” Half the workforce said they would join a union today if given the opportunity because they know that without the power of a union, workers are helpless.”

Labor’s gallant response to the coronavirus pandemic has amplified public support and fully illustrated how vulnerable workers are without the safety, security, and solidarity of a union. Up till recently, what most American thought of as the common laborer -- the every-day, ordinary American worker -- was quite frankly invisible. And then Covid came along and suddenly, while everybody else was staying at home, these very same every-day, ordinary American workers became the ‘essential workers’ – the people that provided America with essential services such as emergency responders, the folk driving buses, and delivering food, and taking care of sick people, and making us better. Now people saw these workers and the dignity that they represent.

Well, that is our mission! To step up onto this rising tide and provide a megaphone for the every-day, ordinary American worker. And by the way, I would include a very special and heart-felt thank you big shoutout to Bill Froehle, Cincinnati AFL-CIO President and Business manager Plumbers, Pipefitters, & MES Local 392 for allowing us the space/conference room for the studio. Together we will make every effort to be that microphone that levels the playing field for working people across greater Cincinnati, Southwest Ohio and beyond. Now is our time and this is our voice. Vox Operántium ― “The Voice of the Worker!”

Join us this coming Wednesday evening for the maiden voyage Vox Operántium ― “The Voice of the Worker!” as we launch with this year’s Worker’s Memorial Day Tribute. Join Pete McLinden, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council, Bill Froehle, President, Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council and Business Manager, Plumbers, Pipefitters, & MES Local 392, Brian Strunk, Vice President, UAW Local 647, Tim Burga, President, Ohio AFL-CIO, Deacon Royce Winters, IAFF Local 48 and our special guest, Ken Montgomery, OSHA Cincinnati Area Office Director. The Springboro HS JROTC Color Guard will provide the Presentation of the colors along with the Pledge of Allegiance, Shon Estee Hubble will share her immense talents singing The National Anthem and “Lift Every Voice And Sing,” and Deacon Royce Winters, IAFF Local 48 Chaplain will provide our Invocation and Benediction to both welcome us and send us on our way.

For further information on how to find this special event, see the Workers Memorial Day flyer included below.
Beyond Issue 3: Seeking a Comprehensive, Collaborative Solution
FCA AND MORAL MONDAY DISCCUSIONS
ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING & ISSUE 3 - PART 2

Monday, April 26 – 10 am

Beyond Issue 3: Seeking a Comprehensive, Collaborative Solution

  • Jill Bryd – Home Health Nurse Manager- City of Cincinnati Health Department and CODE Vice President
  • Greg Courtland – Operations Supervisor at City of Cincinnati and CODE Board Member 
  • Peter McLinden – Executive Secretary–Treasurer ,Cincinnati AFL– CIO Labor Council

Time: Apr 26, 2021 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)


Meeting ID: 711 2115 3088
Passcode: gDcgq3
Housing affordability data and research determining the level of need in our community: upcoming discussion at next week's Housing Our Future session.
We know housing affordability is a persistent challenge in our community. Our focus has to be on reducing the affordability gap by implementing the recommendations in Housing Our Future.
When making policies that impact how people live, it's important to have good data to help direct public investment to make sure it is helping the people it is meant to help.

This is certainly true in the case of determining regional housing needs for households with low- and very low-incomes. In light of recent conversations about housing data among members of the Cincinnati City Council's Affordable Housing Subcommittee, it is worth revisiting the methodologies used by Housing Our Future authors in determining housing need and recommending appropriate levels of response. In our upcoming Housing Our Future: Affordable Housing Basics panel discussion, we'll do just that.

In the ongoing conversation about housing affordability, the 2017 Housing Affordability in Hamilton County study is often cited. It led to the more than two years of work committed by the Housing Our Future Steering Committee and numerous community stakeholders to create the Housing Our Future Strategy. The study estimated the need for affordable housing in the urban areas in Hamilton County, including Cincinnati, Norwood and St. Bernard, to be 25,301 units for both homeowners and renters. During a recent meeting at City Hall, Council members reviewed another estimate that the affordable housing gap in the city might be closer to 8,000 units.

Arriving at a number to represent affordable housing need in our community relies on the consideration of all factors that affect housing affordability, including geography, community demographics and socioeconomic indicators. The simple calculation used to estimate our housing need at 8,000 units as a proportion of the total need identified for the metropolitan region by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) in their 2021 Affordable Housing Gap Analysis does not account for variation in where the lowest income renters live throughout the region. The NLIHC report also only estimates housing need for renter households and only provides summary data at the regional level because their researchers do not recommend using their source data for any geography smaller than a metropolitan region.

The need for housing affordable to low- and moderate-income households is real and profound in the neighborhoods in which we work and throughout the city. The 2019 five-year American Community Survey estimates that 50,907 Cincinnati households paid more than 30 percent of their income on housing. The NLIHC Gap Analysis reports a 5% increase in housing need in the region from 2016 to 2021. Housing affordability is a persistent challenge for many in our community.

We know that we need to work to increase housing affordability, and we anticipate the need for affordable housing to increase as a result of the lasting economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our focus has to be on reducing the affordability gap by implementing the recommendations in Housing Our Future.
 
We hope you'll join us for next week's discussion, including insight into research methodology and data review presented by Liz Blume, along with an overview of fair housing and systemic racism presented by Jeniece Jones and a primer on current funding sources available and development practices employed in building affordable housing by Bobby Maly; Robert Killins, Jr. will also discuss the need to invest in housing affordability today to produce more housing, preserve the housing that exists and protect households facing housing insecurity.
Housing Our Future: Affordable Housing Basics

As a housing strategy for Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Housing Our Future recommends a variety of policies, programs and initiatives to produce and preserve affordable housing, protect vulnerable residents from housing insecurity and implement systems changes to increase housing affordability. In this webinar session, panelists will provide context on housing affordability in Cincinnati and Hamilton County by revisiting an understanding of the current housing need, reviewing resources available to develop affordable housing and discussing the lasting effects of systemic racism in housing. 


Thursday, April 29th
10:00am - 11:15am

virtual (WebEx); registration required
Issue Three Action Opportunities!
Two Important "PRO Act National Week of Action" Events:
Workers Memorial Day and a Salute to Lee Wong
Sisters and Brothers,
 
As you are likely aware, the Labor movement is engaging in a national week of action to pass the PROAct next week, April 26 - May 1, encompassing Workers Memorial Day and May Day. Attached is important information for a couple of events that are taking place that we want to throw light on and ask you to join us.
 
First, on Tuesday, April 27, there is a gathering to honor Lee Wong, West Chester Township Trustees (President) for his years of dedication, servant leadership and duty to the country. Please come be a part of this important Dayton/Miami Valley and Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Councils joint event.
 
Second is our Workers Memorial 2021 Program which, due to the continuing COVID-19 restrictions, will be a social media live-stream event this year. Please join us this Workers Memorial Day, April 28, to honor the victims of workplace injury and illness and to keep fighting for the promise of safe jobs for all workers. It will be the premiere event broadcast from the CLCD's new state-of-the-art production facility. This year’s theme is: “A Post-COVID-19 America: What to Expect At The Workplace.” Join us to revitalize and mobilize our alliance for a safer and healthier work environment.
 
Flyers for each of these events are below. Please download, print and distribute these flyers liberally to your rank and file. Also, please use these flyers to redistribute via email and through your various communication channels and efforts.
 
Thank you for all you are and do.
Your CLC Team
NOON TODAY: Join Gov. Tim Pawlenty for a Discussion on Race, Policing, and Reconciliation
Join Braver Angels today, April 23rd, at 12pm ET for a special discussion with former MN Governor Tim Pawlenty in the wake of the verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin.

Organized by American Purpose Magazine, the discussion will focus on America's recent racial reckoning, the protests and unrest of the summer of 2020, race and policing in America, and reflections on the Chauvin trial.

The conversation, which will be MC'd by Braver Angels Ambassador John Wood, Jr. and American Purpose Editor Jeffrey Gedmin, will explore the moral questions and challenges of leadership in tumultuously divided times, the ways in which public discourse affects our leaders' decision-making, and how we as citizens might better understand the constraints and opportunities public officials face in their positions of responsibility. And it will examine these questions in the context of race and policing in America, and the events in Minnesota of the past year.

Global Confirmed - 144,176,429

Global Deaths - 3,063,883

U.S. Confirmed - 31,883,816

U.S. Deaths - 569,696
Global Map        U.S. Map


Ohio COVID-19 Dashboard
Overview

ODH is making COVID-19 data available for public review while also protecting patient privacy.


The State of Ohio COVID-19 Dashboard displays the most recent preliminary data reported to the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) about cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Ohio by selected demographics and county of residence. Data for cases and hospitalizations is reported to ODH via the Ohio Disease Reporting System (ODRS), and verified mortality data is reported via the Electronic Death Registration System (EDRS).

Hamilton County
Cases
77,945
Hospitalizations
2,913
Deaths
1,165
Clermont County
Cases
19,397
Hospitalizations
803
Deaths
228
Brown County
Cases
5,855
Hospitalizations
57
Deaths
55
Butler County
Cases
37,638
Hospitalizations
1,197
Deaths
568
Warren County
Cases
23,835
Hospitalizations
688
Deaths
291
Other News For and About Working Americans: