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Contract Negotiations

Longshore Deal Secures New Automation Language

The International Longshoremen’s Association has settled its East and Gulf Coast contract shortly before a January 15 strike deadline. The deal locks in a 62 percent wage increase over six years and expands existing automation protections. Workers will also see larger “container royalty” payouts. The agreement will go first to a body of ILA delegates, and then members will vote. The full agreement is not yet public. ILA members won the big wage promise after striking for three days in October, shutting down container shipping on the East and Gulf Coasts in their first coastwide strike since 1977.

Voices From CUNY: Why We’re Voting No On The Proposed Contract

The leadership of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC CUNY) union, which represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York, has once again agreed to a sell-out proposed contract and the membership are none too happy about it. Building a fighting union and winning a good contract begins with rejecting this memorandum of agreement and organizing students, faculty, and staff from the bottom up. Below, we reproduce several statements from members of the PSC CUNY on why they are voting no on this proposed contract.

Marathon Negotiations Bring Key Breakthroughs For VW Workers

Volkswagen workers in Germany secured major breakthroughs in their fight against the company’s planned cost-cutting measures. The agreement, finalized during the week of December 16 after marathon-length negotiations, preserves jobs, protects plant operations, and ensures long-term collective bargaining agreements, representing a significant departure from management’s initial proposals of plant closures, salary cuts, and mass redundancies. “No site will be closed, no one will be made redundant and our in-house collective bargaining agreement will be secured in the long term,” said works council chair Daniela Cavallo in the follow-up to the negotiations.

Teamsters: Government Should Stay Out Of The Bargaining Process

Toronto – Teamsters Canada union leaders are urging federal officials in Ottawa to stay out of the collective bargaining process and back railway workers’ right to strike. “The transportation industry’s most powerful chief executives have developed a way to sidestep union negotiations,” Francois Laporte, national president of Teamsters Canada, and Paul Boucher, president of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, wrote in an op-ed in Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper this week. “Here’s their playbook, as we see it: Make unreasonable demands, accuse unions of being unreasonable for refusing to accept them, instigate job action, lock workers out to disrupt supply chains, and use the resulting outcry to press Ottawa to impose binding arbitration. We believe this to be bad faith bargaining.

Jeff Bezos Thinks He’s Invincible; Amazon Workers Are Striking To Prove Him Wrong

As the holiday shopping season ramps up, Amazon workers across the country are escalating their efforts to secure union contracts. The Teamsters Union had given Amazon until December 15 to agree to dates for formal contract negotiations, warning that failure to come to the table would result in labor action, including a potential Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike. Workers, who have been battling Amazon’s aggressive union-busting tactics for years, are showing increased determination for their demands to be met. Warehouse workers and delivery drivers are coming together to demand better pay, safer working conditions, job security, and union recognition.

Railroads And Unions Divide And Scramble

As the Trump administration prepares to take power, the nation’s freight railroad companies are at the bargaining table with rail craft unions representing 115,000 freight workers who move essential goods across the country. Already the bargaining looks very different from the last round of negotiations, which finished in 2022. For the first time since 1963, multiple railroads have gone rogue, breaking with the employer association in which they typically present a united front. Under the Railway Labor Act, the Trump administration can affect both bargaining and the federal rules under which the railroads operate.

The Big Union Contract Fights Coming In 2025

In some of the most exciting fights of 2024, strikers shut down ports on the East Coast and backed up plane orders on the West. The coming year is full of expiring contracts that could keep the strike wave rolling. The list includes some big contracts lined up so unions can bargain and possibly strike together. California teachers in dozens of districts covering tens of thousands of educators have lined up their contracts to expire in June. These include unions in Los Angeles (35,000), San Diego (7,000), San Francisco (6,500), and Oakland (3,000). On the East Coast, another major contract, for 14,000 Philadelphia teachers, expires August 31.

Letter Carriers Are Organizing Against An Insulting 1.3 Percent Raise

A wave of anger is cresting at post offices across the country. Letter carriers are looking at the big raises that other union members have won—38 percent over four years at Boeing, 62 percent in six years at the East Coast ports, $7.50 in five years at UPS. They’re comparing those gains to the tentative agreement their president handed them in October: 1.3 percent a year for three years. “It doesn’t account for everything we went through with Covid,” said Saqia Talbert, a letter carrier in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “We were massively understaffed, and we were working 70 to 80 hours a week, every week, for two years straight.”

Starbucks Resumes Bargaining Amid Fresh Wave Of Unionized Stores

Starbucks has resumed bargaining with union leaders amid a fresh wave of organized stores after the world’s largest coffee chain agreed to open talks over labor agreements. After a long, embittered campaign, the Seattle-based coffee giant jointly announced a new framework with Workers United in February to reach contracts with unionized stores. Bargaining got under way on Wednesday, and is due to continue on Thursday. Since baristas in Buffalo successfully formed the first unionized US Starbucks store in December 2021, an organizing drive by Starbucks Workers United has spread nationwide, to more than 425 Starbucks stores in 43 states, representing over 10,500 workers.

‘Angry, Terrified, And Excited’: Adjunct On New Semester Amid Contract Talks

As a CUNY adjunct starting this semester without a contract, I am filled with anger, terror, and excitement — a mix of reactions I’ll try to explain here. My anger predates our current contract struggle. Having taught at various CUNY campuses over the past six years, I’m furious about adjuncts’ working conditions and the resulting student learning conditions. As underpaid, expendable, and often invisible employees, adjuncts, who teach the majority of classes at the university, often find out our schedules mere days — or even hours — before the semester begins, and we are therefore forced to throw together syllabuses and assignments at the last minute.

The UPS Teamsters Contract Has Been Ratified – What Now?

On Tuesday, August 22, the Teamsters union announced that its members voted to ratify the national UPS contract by 86.3% –  and with record turnout. Workers won significant raises, the abolition of the two-tier driver system, air conditioning in package cars, thousands of new full-time jobs, and more. In our previous episode, we discussed the gains of the tentative agreement and the years of Teamsters organizing it took to make them possible, including the past year’s contract campaign which built a credible strike threat. In this episode, we dug deeper into the various layers of members’ reactions to the contract, as well as what’s required of the membership to enforce it and build on it moving forward.

Fired-Up Auto Workers Are Ready To Battle The Big Three

Warren, Michigan - Sunday afternoon at the Auto Workers (UAW) Region 1 Pavilion in Warren, Michigan, felt a lot like church. Auto workers came together in sweltering heat to rally each other with fiery speeches, cheers, and songs in the first Big 3 contract rally anyone can remember. The contracts with Ford, General Motors (GM), and Stellantis expire September 14. “I’ve been told throughout this thing that we’ve set expectations too high. You’re damn right we have, because our members have high expectations, and record profits deserve record contracts,” said UAW President Shawn Fain at the rally. “As a union, we have to lead the fight for economic justice—not just for ourselves but for the entire working class.”

UAW Members Reject Concessionary Contract Demands

Contract negotiations between the United Auto Workers and Ford, General Motors and Stellantis (which includes Chrysler) began in July. Instead of engaging in the traditional handshake across the table with company executives — a photo op implying the parties were working together to achieve a “competitive agreement” — UAW President Shawn Fain visited auto plants to shake hands with the UAW rank and file. This represented a break with the class-collaborationist former leaders of the union. Both parties have submitted written proposals to the other side. For the first time in decades, the UAW is making bold demands on the companies, including substantial pay increases, elimination of tiers in wages, benefits and pensions, restoration of the cost-of-living allowance (COLA) and, significantly, a 32-hour work week at 40 hours pay.

Auto Workers Have Big Demands For The Big Three

The clock is ticking toward September 14 at midnight, when the Auto Workers’ contracts with the Big 3 automakers expire. The new leaders of the UAW have come out swinging, and in quickly growing numbers, members are stepping up to prepare for a strike. The agreements cover close to 150,000 workers at Ford, General Motors (GM), and Stellantis. In early August President Shawn Fain presented a list of “the Members’ Demands” to the companies, calling them “the most audacious and ambitious list of proposals they’ve seen in decades.” These bargaining goals are aimed at undoing concessions extracted by the companies from previous union administrations since before the Great Recession.

Despite Big Teamster Wins At UPS, Some Expectations Outpace Gains

Some 323,000 U.S. workers have struck so far this year. Another 340,000 were in gear to strike, until their nationwide mobilization forced the company to concede. UPS Teamsters are voting on the deal through August 22. “After 25 years of [former Teamsters President James P.] Hoffa and his givebacks, we came out ahead,” said Eugene Braswell, a delivery driver and Local 804 steward. “This is the first time in all those years that I have a national contract that I can vote yes on.” How are UPSers making sense of their gains at the table? I spoke with two dozen rank and filers. Some were relieved they didn’t have to strike.

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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