California is going to need tens of thousands of workers over the next six years as we continue to build the broadband network to bring high-speed internet to underserved areas.

Now, the feds have awarded $5.8 million to the Communications Workers of America to supercharge its workforce training program.

Frank Arce, vice president of Communications Workers of America District 9, which encompasses California, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam, said the union is partnering with the Chabot-Las Positas Community College District in the Bay Area to expand its apprenticeship program.

"We're planning on focusing on underserved communities," Arce explained. "Really making sure it's a locally based workforce, people of color, women, veterans, and young people."

The plan is to open three more paid apprenticeship training programs over the next few years in the Fresno, Chico and Los Angeles areas. The state is set to allocate more than $5 billion to extend high speed internet in rural areas, and the Infrastructure Act will send hundreds of millions in federal funds to bolster the effort.

Arce pointed out the grant also will allow the union to partner with employers to bolster working families.

"It's a great opportunity for people to get some skills and set themselves into a solid middle-class job," Arce asserted. "We're taking advantage of this opportunity that we're building our infrastructure in the country to see if we can get some Californians out to work."

Arce noted in the past, unscrupulous subcontractors working for telecom companies have cut corners and treated workers poorly. But he added the publicly-funded program will raise the standards to require high-quality materials, workmanship and employee benefits.


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The largest nurses strike in U.S. history started yesterday in Minnesota. Those walking the picket lines said they want the public to know it is not just about higher wages, arguing hospital executives are putting profits first.

The three-day walkout includes 15,000 nurses from more than a dozen hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth. Union leaders say while they are seeking higher wages, they stressed structural issues related to staffing make it harder to provide adequate care for patients.

Brittany Livaccari, an emergency room nurse at United Hospital in St. Paul, amplified the argument when speaking to reporters.

"Staffing shortages and crises within the hospital absolutely did not start with this pandemic," Livaccari asserted. "It started with lean management and staffing cuts. The pandemic just shed light on it and made it worse."

She and other union members stressed they want to have more of a say in how hospitals are staffed. The Twin Cities Hospital Group criticized the nurses for choosing to strike before exhausting all negotiating efforts. It added several hospitals have reached tentative agreements on revised workplace safety measures. Contract talks have been dragging on for several months.

Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, chair of the House Health, Finance and Policy Committee, said the entire state needs to know each hospital needs skilled nurses to care for people's families, friends and neighbors. But she feels the message is not getting through to administrators.

"Hospitals without nurses are just buildings," Liebling emphasized. "We all know that."

The Morning Consult firm recently reported 18% of American health care workers have quit their jobs during the pandemic, while another 12% have been laid off.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, contingency plans were put in place to avoid care disruptions during the strike. However, some patients might see scheduling changes for non-urgent care.

Labor and environmental groups are asking for a seat in the "room where it happens" as government trade representatives gather today in Los Angeles to begin negotiations on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

The framework is a massive trade deal between states on the Pacific Rim which would govern an estimated 40% of the global economy and affect people's jobs, wages, digital privacy, climate change and more.

Will Wiltschko, director of the California Trade Justice Coalition, said the public has the right to know what measures are being proposed in the negotiators.

"In past trade negotiations, hundreds of corporate lobbyists have been given access to the negotiators, to draft texts, and the public was completely shut out," Wiltschko pointed out. "That's a system for delivering rigged trade deals that benefit only a few multinational corporations while hurting working people and the planet."

The Trade Justice Coalition is holding a rally today outside the conference in the hope future negotiations will include consumer, labor and environmental advocates.

Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, said in a statement discussions will center on four pillars: "trade; supply chains; clean energy, decarbonization, and infrastructure; and tax and anti-corruption."

Wiltschko called for transparency to moderate the influence of big tech in particular.

"These companies are trying to use trade deals as a backdoor means of blocking regulations on consumer privacy, data security, algorithm discrimination, and gig-economy worker protections," Wiltschko asserted.

The meeting represents the initial rounds of trade negotiations between 13 countries, including the United States, Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, but not China.

A new report on working in Ohio offers a mixed picture of labor in the state.

The annual State of Working Ohio report is out for 2022 and while researchers are highlighting the strong post-pandemic job recovery, workers still face challenges.

The report shows the state has recovered 85% of the jobs lost to COVID-19, which is three times faster than the recovery from the great recession 14 years ago. While this is good news, Michael Shields - a researcher with Policy Matters Ohio and the lead author of the report - offered a word of caution.

"There is a note of caution, that depending on how aggressively they push to reduce inflation, the Federal Reserve really could reverse this job growth," said Shields. "We could even see a recession, but generally we're seeing really good recovery."

Shields said the inflation over the last two years was kicked off by the pandemic, but corporate profits now make up over 50% of cost increases.

Over the last few decades many workers in Ohio have been forced to transition out of jobs in manufacturing and into lower wage sectors. The report indicates the state has lost over 700,000 manufacturing jobs since the 1970s.

Shields pointed to a decline in union representation as a major factor keeping wages flat since the '70s. He said that while there have been productivity gains in the workplace over those same decades, corporations and the wealthy have captured nearly all of the profits from those gains.

The report shows only 13% of Ohioans belong to a union and Shields said productivity gains are not enough.

"Productivity is not enough to ensure that everyone in Ohio is able to prosper," said Shields. "Broadly shared prosperity depends on more than productivity, it also depends on bargaining power. We have to make sure that working people have a voice at the table and are able to bargain for their share of the wealth that they're creating."

The report shows the median union wage is close to $5 per hour more than non-union workers.

Another challenge Ohio workers often face is wage theft, where employers don't pay for all hours worked. The report states that misclassification of workers as contractors is one form of wage theft, but Shields said it goes further.

"Employers steal from some 213,000 Ohioans through minimum wage non-payment alone," said Shields. "Now, minimum wage non-payment is not the only form of wage theft. There are other things like not paying time and a half for overtime. Things like not paying for all hours worked. Sometimes folks will work a short-term job and just never get their last paycheck."

Shields said Ohio does not have the investigative resources to address the scale of the wage theft problem in the state.

This story was produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.