>>United Forecasts Q1 Loss
(Chicago, IL) -- United Airlines is forecasting a first-quarter loss after the FAA grounded Boeing 737 Max 9 jets this month. Monday's announcement came after the door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 on January 5th. Both United and Alaska airlines have had to cancel hundreds of flights while the planes undergo a safety inspection.
>>Pilots For Southwest Airlines Approve Contract
(Dallas, TX) -- The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association says pilots for the Dallas-based carrier have overwhelmingly approved a new contract that will result in about a 50-percent pay raise over the next five years. The pilots will get an immediate raise of just over 29-percent, and a four-percent raise in 2025, 2026, and 2027. In 2028, the pilots get a three-and-a-quarter percent raise. The deal includes other benefit improvements like changes to work rules and scheduling, paid maternity and parental leave, and retirement plans. The 12-billion dollar contract was approved with 93-percent of the votes cast by Southwest's 11-thousand pilots. Pay raises for pilots have been commonplace recently. Pilots for Delta, American Airlines and United Airlines have all secured higher-paying contracts in the past year.
>>California State University Faculty Strike Over
(Long Beach, CA) -- California State University's historic faculty strike is over after less than a day. The California Faculty Association and CSU agreed to a tentative deal on Monday night. It includes a retroactive salary increase, added parental leave, and more protections for faculty. Nearly 30-thousand CSU employees went on strike Monday, the first day of the spring semester. They had been planning to strike for five days.
>>Gallup: Ethics Ratings For All Professions Drop
(Washington, DC) -- Ethics ratings for almost all professions are down this year. That's according to a Gallup survey that asked 800 Americans to rate the honesty and ethical standards of those who work in 23 different fields. Labor union leaders were the only profession rated more highly in 2023 than in 2019, by one percentage point up to 25-percent. Nurses had the highest rating overall at 78-percent, but that's down from 85-percent in 2019. Meanwhile, five professions hit record lows since Gallup began tracking the question in 1976 including pharmacists, clergy, journalists, and lastly with ratings below ten percent - senators and members of Congress. Bankers and business executives tied their previous low points, at 19 and 12-percent respectively.
>>Feds Crack Down On Data Brokers Selling Location Information Without Consent
(New York, NY) -- The Federal Trade Commission is banning a company from selling or licensing people's precise geolocation data for the first time ever. The FTC settled with Texas-based data aggregator InMarket Media after they gathered troves of consumer location data from mobile apps without disclosing that it would be used for targeted advertising. The agency alleges the data broker marketed to advertisers looking for certain categories of people, such as "Christian church goers," "parents of preschoolers," and "children who are homeschooled."
>>NYC Invests In Country's Largest Medical Debt Program
(New York, NY) -- New York City is investing in what will be the country's largest medical debt relief program. Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan says New York City will partner with a nonprofit called RIP Medical Debt to invest 18-million-dollars over three years to relieve two billion dollars' worth of unpaid medical bills. The one-time debt relief program will launch sometime this year and aims to wipe out medical debt for roughly half a million underinsured, uninsured, or low-income New Yorkers. Dr. Vasan says he has seen firsthand how medical debt forces patients to make impossible decisions, and no one should have to choose between paying their rent or getting the healthcare they need.
