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U.S. NEWS Tuesday 29 augusT 2023

White House highlights how administration is helping unions

By FATIMA HUSSEIN tion that claims it is friend-
Associated Press lier to unions, membership
WASHINGTON (AP) — As numbers are still waning
worker actions continue nationally. A January BLS
from Hollywood to De- report states that 11.3 per-
troit, and new labor unions cent of U.S. workers were
crop up at firms like Star- represented by a union
bucks and Amazon, the in 2022, down by 0.3 per-
White House on Monday cent from a year ago.
was highlighting its effort to Globalization, automation
bolster worker organizing and the deterioration of
throughout the U.S. legal support to workers
President Joe Biden is over decades has brought
counting on critical labor down union participation
support as he campaigns numbers, administration
for a second term in office, officials said. Hollywood
holding his first re-election writers have been striking
campaign rally at a Penn- since early May and have
sylvania union hall in June, not yet made a deal with
declaring: “I’m proud to be the studios. Starbucks work-
the most pro-union presi- ers have unionized at more
dent in American history.” than 350 stores across the
The White House and Trea- country and a collection
sury on Monday issued a Striking writers and actors picket outside Paramount studios in Los Angeles on Friday, July 14, 2023. of Amazon workers have
joint analysis on what the Associated Press joined the International
administration sees as the Brotherhood of the Team-
importance of unions, and bor movement, as union port labor organizing and the pandemic, have been sters, in hopes of gaining
also the White House efforts election petitions in 2022 bargaining, told report- increasingly willing to walk union recognition.
to safeguard and bolster bounced back from the ers unions were critically out on the job as employ- Most recently, auto work-
them. There is “evidence pandemic to their highest important. “When union ers face a greater need for ers represented by the
that unions strengthen the level since 2015,” the analy- workers bargain for higher workers. The Cornell School United Auto Workers union
middle class and grow the sis says “and public opinion pay, it increases pressure of Industrial and Labor Re- which still has not endorsed
economy” by raising wag- of labor unions is at its high- on non-union companies lations Labor Action Track- Biden’s 2024 presidential
es of members and improv- est level in over 50 years.” to raise pay as well to stay er logged 424 work stop- run voted overwhelmingly
ing health care, retirement Vice President Kamala Har- competitive in the labor pages which includes 417 to give leaders the author-
and predictable schedul- ris, who leads the White market,” she said. strikes and seven lockouts ity to call strikes against

ing plan benefits, accord- House Labor Task Force, Workers calling for higher involving approximately Detroit car companies Stel-
ing to the analysis. created to work with fed- wages, better working con- 224,000 workers in 2022. lantis, General Motors and
“There have been recent eral agencies to use their ditions and job security, es- Despite the coverage of Ford if a contract agree-
signs of a reinvigorated la- existing authority to sup- pecially since the end of strikes and an administra- ment isn’t reached. q

Judge dismisses lawsuit by sorority sisters who sought to block a

transgender woman from joining

By MEAD GRUVER bylaws don’t define who’s drew widespread atten- places and elsewhere, “The allegations against
Associated Press a woman. tion as transgender people while others push back. Ms. Langford should never
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A The case at Wyoming’s only fight for more acceptance A federal court cannot have made it into a legal
judge has dismissed a law- four-year public university in schools, athletics, work- interfere with the sorority filing.
suit contesting a transgen- chapter’s freedom of as- They are nothing more
der woman’s admission sociation by ruling against than cruel rumors that mir-
into a sorority at the Univer- its vote to induct the trans- ror exactly the type of ru-
sity of Wyoming, ruling that gender woman last year, mors used to vilify and de-
he could not override how Johnson ruled Friday. humanize members of the
the private, voluntary orga- With no definition of a wom- LGBTQIA+ community for
nization defined a woman an in sorority bylaws, John- generations. And they are
and order that she not be- son ruled that he could not baseless,” Berkness said in
long. impose the six sisters’ defini- an email.
In the lawsuit, six members tion of a woman in place of The sorority sisters who sued
of the Kappa Kappa Gam- the sorority’s more expan- said Langford’s presence in
ma sorority chapter chal- sive definition provided in their sorority house made
lenged Artemis Langford’s court. them uncomfortable. But
admission by casting doubt “With its inquiry beginning while the lawsuit portrayed
on whether sorority rules al- and ending there, the court Langford as a “sexual
lowed a transgender wom- will not define a ‘woman’ predator,” claims about
an. today,” Johnson wrote. her behavior turned out to
Wyoming U.S. District Court Two people walk on the University of Wyoming campus, June Langford’s attorney, Ra- be a “nothing more than a
Judge Alan Johnson, in his 14, 2016, in Laramie, Wyo. chel Berkness, welcomed drunken rumor,” Berkness
ruling, found that sorority Associated Press the ruling. said.q