Page 6 - aruba-today-20190921

A6 U.S. NEWS
Saturday 21 September 2019
Gulf Coast seafood

biz slammed by

freshwater from floods

By JANET McCONNAUGHEY Commerce Secretary Wil-
Associated Press bur Ross to declare a fisher-
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Fresh ies disaster, a designation
water from Midwestern needed to secure federal
floods has killed oysters grants for those whose live-
along the coasts of three lihoods were affected in
states and cost Mississippi the Gulf region's vital sea-
half of its blue crabs. food industry.
Water that came through Alabama canceled its oys-
a Louisiana spillway killed ter season.
95% of the oysters in Missis- It will be months before all
sippi's share of the Mississip- the figures are in and the
pi Sound and fed toxic al- analysis completed to tell
gae blooms that closed the which Louisiana fisheries
state's beaches, said Joe qualify, said Patrick Banks,
Spraggins, executive di- assistant secretary for fish-
rector of the state Depart- eries in the Louisiana De-
ment of Marine Resources. partment of Wildlife and In this May 20, 2010 file photo, a shrimp boat carrying oil collection booms anchors for the night in
Seafood and tourism busi- Fisheries. Gulf of Mexico off the Mississippi River delta south of Venice, La.
nesses, from bait shops and Floodwaters from the Mid- Associated Press
seafood processors to res- west and rains elsewhere
taurants and hotels, have poured down the Mississip- ish lake that borders New A full 12 months' data is every fishery, every portion
lost $120 million to $150 mil- pi and into the Atchafala- Orleans, because a major needed to compare losses of the state, every species
lion, he said Friday. ya River. They wound up in spillway was opened twice to averages for the previ- ... It's going to take some
The governors of Louisiana, the Gulf of Mexico — both for a total of more than four ous five years, with a 35% time to put all that informa-
Mississippi and Alabama through the rivers and via months to protect New Or- loss qualifying a fishery as tion together," Banks said
asked months ago for U.S. the huge, normally brack- leans' levees. a disaster. "We're analyzing recently.q

Rule would bar grad assistant unionizing at private schools

union leaders vowed to President Donald Trump. gaining under state consti-
challenge the rule and At public universities, unions tutions that cover private
continue organization ef- have represented teach- institutions, Herbert said.
forts. ing and research assistants Universities have generally
"Graduate workers deserve for decades. argued that even though
respect for the work they The first graduate union at graduate teaching as-
do and the right to join a a private school was estab- sistants are paid, treating
union, just like any other lished at NYU, which volun- them like employees would
employee," said Randi We- tarily recognized the union, disrupt the mentoring rela-
ingarten, president of the and since the 2016 ruling, tionship between budding
American Federation of four others have reached scholars and the professors
Teachers. "President Trump contracts with graduate supervising their academic
doesn't agree — and he's student unions: American pursuits and research.
written a new federal rule University, Brandeis Univer- Graduate teaching assis-
to try to stop them in their sity, The New School and tants involved in unioniza-
tracks." Tufts University. There are tion campaigns say collec-
The NLRB's position on also four private universi- tive bargaining is important
whether students at private ties that are engaged in for them to secure better
In this April 25, 2017 file photo, Yale University graduate assis- schools have the right to collective bargaining with wages, benefits and a
tants, belonging to Local 33 Unite Here International Union, and
their supporters march toward Yale President Peter Salovey's unionize has shifted. In 2004, graduate unions for a first voice in decisions made by
House, during a demonstration calling for the university to start during the presidency of contract: Harvard, Colum- university administrators.
negotiating a contract with the union in New Haven, Conn. George W. Bush, a Repub- bia, Brown and George- Rithika Ramamurthy, a
Associated Press lican, the board ruled that town, according to William doctoral candidate in Eng-
graduate student instruc- Herbert, director of the Na- lish at Brown University, said
By MICHAEL MELIA gaining. tors are not employees. The tional Center for the Study she and others will press
Associated Press The proposal would reverse board reversed itself in 2016 of Collective Bargaining in private universities to honor
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — a 2016 ruling by the labor under President Barack Higher Education and the their desire for union recog-
In a blow to a unioniza- board that graduate stu- Obama, a Democrat. Professions at Hunter Col- nition, with or without the
tion movement sweeping dents at private schools "This rulemaking is intended lege. NLRB.
private universities, the are employees — and not to obtain maximum input If the rule change is ad- "Our work is work," Rama-
National Labor Relations merely students. That guid- on this issue from the pub- opted, it would not prevent murthy said. "We stand in
Board on Friday proposed ance opened the door to lic, and then to bring sta- private schools from volun- solidarity with all graduate
a new rule that would strip union elections at more bility to this important area tarily recognizing unions, workers who wish to have
graduate teaching assis- than a dozen schools of federal labor law," said and graduate assistants a collective voice, and we
tants at those schools of around the country. NLRB Chairman John Ring, could also start asserting stand against this proposed
the right to collective bar- Student organizers and who was nominated by their right to collective bar- rule."q