Greetings from Burgh, where Payday is excited to see the Milwaukee Bucks, the team that started the NBA strike last year, win the NBA Finals.
Local workers on strike in rural South Georgia yesterday
In the small, 4,000-inhabitant community of Pelham in South Georgia, low-wage workers went on strike on Tuesday to demand higher wages and better treatment.
“We ask for justice, we ask for answers. If it takes a week, two weeks, we’ll be out here, ”Pelham City representative William Almond, Jr. told WFXL. “We’re going to make our voices heard and get them out into the open, and hope the public can help us raise awareness.”
See WFXL for more information.
Ridesharing drivers strike nationwide
Across the country, the Rideshares Drivers United group has urged consumers to stay away from ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber as many drivers have organized protests across the country.
“The pandemic really highlighted our vulnerability for us as the market dried up,” Daniel Russell, a member of Rideshare Drivers United, told The Guardian. “Now is the time to take action.”
See The Guardian for more information.
Make a donation to help us cover the “Retail Workers Rebellion”
Throughout the United States, retail workers and other low-wage workers are rising, quitting their jobs, and demanding better working conditions.
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Puerto Rican truck drivers strike
In Puerto Rico, truck drivers hauling groceries and retail goods went on strike across the country today. Bloomberg has the story:
Edwin Marrero, president of the Truckers Broad Front union, said the group hopes to enter into negotiations with the federally appointed Fiscal Oversight and Management Board, which controls the finances of the bankrupt island.
The strike “will be permanent until the board sits down with us and we reach an agreement,” Marrero told WKAQ radio in Puerto Rico.
The board of directors has objected to government regulations that would increase freight tariffs for private contracts as well, saying the measure is against the 2021 budget.
Please visit Bloomberg for more information.
Consumer shoplifting at Walgreens receives exponentially more media coverage than wage theft at Walgreens
Recently, a video of a young black teenager riding a bike with a bag full of stolen property from a Walgreens store in San Francisco went viral. Local media used the video as evidence that shoplifting in San Francisco has increased dramatically, while evidence shows that shoplifting has decreased.
However, as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has documented, citing FAIR’s Julie Hollar, the media spent much less time covering how Walgreens stole millions from its workers through wage theft:
FAIR identified 309 published pieces in the 21-second video, being a combination of Nexis and. was used Google Advanced search to find every article published by a news agency, from the video’s release on June 14th to July 12th – a 28-day period.
Compare this to another Walgreens-related theft story: the comparison of a November class lawsuit against Walgreens for wage theft and labor law violation filed by employees in California for $ 4.5 million.
A multi-million dollar settlement struck after a two-year legal battle should have been national news, not to mention a major topic in local California media. However, FAIR couldn’t find a single general news agency reporting the comparison, from November 2020 to July 2021, using the same search parameters as in the shoplifting video above.
Further information can be found under FAIR.
News that happens elsewhere
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Love & solidarity,
milk
