Labor Union

Food Delivery Workers Protest For Better Work Conditions

April 24, 2021 Luke Fortney, New York Eater. Resist! Food Delivery, Labor Union, New York City (NYC), Worker Rights

New York City - Deliveristas Unidos, a growing group of food delivery workers in New York City, is now working with the city’s largest union of service workers, representatives with SEIU Local 32BJ announced at a rally on Wednesday. The City first reported news of the partnership. On Wednesday, a group of more than 2,000 food delivery workers biked from Times Square to Foley Square as part of a protest calling for improved work conditions. Their ongoing list of demands includes higher pay, increased bathroom access, and expansions to protected bike lanes. The workers also seek to be recognized as employees of the apps they work for since food delivery workers are technically classified as independent contractors, making them ineligible to join a traditional union. Local 32BJ is now backing those demands.

A Worldwide Workers’ Revolt Against Amazon Has Begun

April 17, 2021 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. Resist! Amazon, Globalization, Labor Union, Worker Rights

The union drive at Amazon’s 885,000-square-foot warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, failed. But the historic campaign nabbed global headlines and added fuel to ongoing workers’ revolts across the world. Strikes by Amazon workers in Italy, Germany and India are coalescing into an international struggle against the world’s fourth-most valuable company and its grueling working conditions and intensive surveillance. Since the dawn of capitalism, bosses have found innovations to oversee and extract more work from the overstressed bodies of their labor force. But Amazon’s minute surveillance of workers — who, at the Bessemer facility, are mostly Black and women — would make the Stasi blush. At the company’s warehouses, workers use hand-held devices that track their every move and assess their speed and accuracy.

One-Click Shopping Has Brought American Workers To The Brink

March 31, 2021 Andru Okun, In These Times. Educate! Amazon, Book Review, Labor Union, Worker Rights

A historic union drive at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama officially came to a close on Monday. Now comes the tallying of votes. The election represents the first large-scale effort to organize an Amazon warehouse and a landmark moment for the labor movement in the U.S. South. If the majority of votes are in favor of unionization, the roughly 6,000 workers of the facility will be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Predictably, Amazon — the country’s second-largest employer — has made considerable attempts to undercut the campaign, including heavily-funding anti-union propaganda, changing traffic light patterns to deter canvassing and even paying workers to quit.

The Many Burdens Of Women’s Work

March 30, 2021 Chelsea Nash, Rabble.ca. Educate! Book Review, Labor Union, Patriarchy, Women

My younger sister, 18, is in her first year of college studying marine navigation. She sees herself travelling the world one day, the captain of a cruise ship or similarly large vessel. Already, she has faced overt and repeated sexism, from her male peers. Both my sister and her female roommate have found themselves subjected to sexist jokes and unwanted sexual advances from those who do not appear to understand the meaning of the word "no." They have been told by a female teacher that for the two per cent of women in the industry, sexual assault is an inevitability. My mother, an airline captain, has been counselling her on how to make it in an industry where women are not easily accepted. A great deal of her advice hinges on keeping the peace with male colleagues; knowing what to let slide, when to confront colleagues directly about their behaviour, and when to report them.

Amazon Hires Off-Duty Cops To Harass Workers, The Press, And Supporters

March 29, 2021 Madeleine Freeman, Left Voice. Educate! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Union, Police

We came down from New York City to cover the historic struggle of Amazon workers to form a union and to amplify the stories of the nearly 6,000 workers who are putting their livelihoods on the line to fight for their right to collectively organize. If this union vote is successful, it will be the first union of Amazon workers in the United States. There is great potential in this union drive — an effort that is being waged by a primarily Black workforce in a virulently racist and anti-union state against one of the largest companies in the world. We arrived at the Bessemer facility to stand in solidarity with the workers and take footage of the facility. We moved away from the small group of supporters who come out each day with signs encouraging workers to “vote yes!” on the union, just a few steps down Amazon’s long driveway to film a report in front of the entrance sign.

The Amazon Union Vote Is Ending In Bessemer

March 29, 2021 Luis Feliz Leon, The New Republic. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Union, Worker Rights

The Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, is 885,000 square feet of shiny new construction. Signs painted on the windows in bursts of green, red, yellow greet workers at the main entrance with the words: Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History. Under these slogans, the silhouette of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s face adorns yellow placards reading, The Dream Is Alive. Workers on break outside lean their elbows on their knees or pace around the entrance, the sleeves of their pants rolled up to their kneecaps in the hot sun. It is a March day, the usual balmy 74 degrees. People are too tired to talk shit and wait in silence to return to their shifts, staring at shadows on the pavement or eyeing their phone screens. The facility, called BHM1, opened this time last year, just as the pandemic was bearing down on the United States.

Teamsters Spent Seven Years Fighting For Their Pensions

March 16, 2021 Jeff Bollier, Green Bay Gazette. Resist! Labor Union, Retirement, Wisconsin, Worker Rights

Green Bay, WI - For the first time in seven years, thousands of Wisconsin Teamsters don't have to worry about their pensions being cut in half. The American Rescue Plan, which President Joe Biden signed into law on Thursday, included the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021. The act directs the Pension Guaranty Benefit Corp. to allocate billions of dollars to avoid the drastic cuts. The act will shore up the Central States Pension Fund, a multi-employer fund for 1.3 million retired Teamsters, 23,500 of whom live in Wisconsin. About 3,400 members live in the Eighth Congressional District, which includes Green Bay and Appleton. Failure to act would have dealt a huge blow to those retirees who gave up wages to keep their retirement funds, and who have come to depend on payments to survive, said Brad Vaughn, a member of the Wisconsin/Green Bay Committee to Protect Pensions.

Support Keeps Building For #BAmazon Union Drive

March 8, 2021 Martha Grevatt, Workers.org. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Union, Worker Rights

Some three dozen organizations loaned their names to a letter urging President Joe Biden to come out on the side of the Amazon workers fighting for a union. Biden had angered unionists and progressives for publicly taking a “neutral” stance on the representation election taking place now through March 29. Signers included UNITE HERE and Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) unions, Maine AFL-CIO, the National Employment Law Project and the Working Families Party. Feeling the pressure, on Feb. 28 Biden came out against Amazon’s union busting, affirming the right of every worker to choose union representation. Solidarity has been growing since the Feb. 20 National Day of Solidarity. Renowned actor and activist Danny Glover stood outside the Bessemer facility Feb. 22, holding a sign that read “Remember Mail Your Yes Ballot.”

February 20: Day Of Action In Solidarity With Alabama Amazon Workers

February 17, 2021 Support Alabama Amazon Workers, Popular Resistance. Resist! Amazon, Labor Union, Solidarity, Worker Rights

From Mississippi to Connecticut, North Carolina to California, workers, labor and community activists have resoundingly responded to the call for a National Day of Solidarity with Alabama Amazon Workers issued by the Southern Workers Assembly. More than 40 actions (and counting!) are now planned to mobilize solidarity with the workers in Bessemer and to tell Amazon: Victory to the workers! Union-busting has got to go! The full list of actions can be found below. Amazon is spending tens of thousands of dollars each day on the most vile union busters around - Morgan Lewis - because they know this historic struggle being waged by the workers in Bessemer is inspiring Amazon and other workers to organize on their jobs, and they know that when workers build power, that means less profit for them.

Florida Teachers Face Setback In Fight For Safe Schools

January 28, 2021 Ari Odzer, NBC Miami. Resist! Florida, Labor Union, School reopening, Teachers

The Broward Teachers Union’s fight to secure work-from-home orders for about 1,100 teachers seems to have ended with an arbitrator’s decision. The BTU filed a lawsuit against Broward County Public Schools, demanding those teachers with health concerns be allowed to keep special accommodations which were granted in October. The district said only the most seriously ill teachers, about 600, would be allowed to teach from home as the rest were needed in the classroom. The arbitrator sided with the district. “This is a win for our students,” said Superintendent Robert Runcie. “We recognize the health concerns of our teachers and will continue to balance their needs with the needs of students who are struggling and must be back in a safe and healthy school for face-to-face learning.”

Game Writers Made History By Going On Strike — And Winning

August 15, 2020 Nicole Carpenter, Polygon. Create! Labor Union, Strike, Tech industry, Worker Rights and Jobs

Twenty-one writers who were contractors that create scripts for the mobile app Lovestruck: Choose Your Romance went on strike on July 15 — a move nearly unheard of in the video game industry. Calling themselves Voltage Organized Workers, the group demanded better pay and workplace transparency, but the company that owns the app, Voltage Entertainment, at first refused to recognize their requests. Working with the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE), an initiative part of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Lovestruck’s writers stayed on strike for 21 days.

Largest Private-Sector Strike Of The Year Is Headed For Union Victory

August 15, 2020 Jeremy Gantz, In These Times. Organize! Labor Union, Maine, Strike, Worker Rights

Bath, Maine - It’s no coincidence that the first strike in 20 years at Bath Iron Works (BIW) began months into the Covid-19 pandemic. While Maine has one of the lowest Covid transmission rates in the country, the spread of the deadly virus helped spark the strike that has largely shut down the shipyard at BIW — one of Maine’s largest employers. In June, when around 4,300 Machinists Local S6 union members at BIW voted overwhelmingly to strike, many had already soured on management over its handling of the pandemic.

Child Care Workers Now Have A Huge New Union

August 1, 2020 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Organize! California, Child Care, Labor Union, Worker Rights

A 17-year organizing campaign in California culminated this week in the successful unionization of 45,000 child care providers—the largest single union election America has seen in years. The campaign is a tangible achievement that brings together union power, political might, and social justice battles for racial and gender equality. Now, the hard part begins. Child Care Providers United (CCPU), the umbrella group now representing workers across the state, is a joint project of several powerful SEIU and AFSCME locals in California.

Maine Shipbuilders Bring The Hammer Down To Reject Concessions

July 27, 2020 Andy O'Brien, Labor Notes. Resist! Labor Union, Maine, Strike, Worker Rights and Jobs

More than 4,300 shipbuilders at the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine, are entering the sixth week of the largest private sector strike in the U.S. this year. It wasn’t assured that the members would vote to strike in such a difficult economic climate. In previous years, BIW management had pressured workers to accept concessionary contracts that froze wages and eroded job quality, ostensibly to stay competitive on bids for lucrative Navy and Coast Guard contracts. Last time around, in 2015, workers voted narrowly to give up scheduled raises in favor of one-time bonuses, in order to help the company win a contract to build patrol boats for the Coast Guard.

Two-Week Strike By Illinois Nurses In Danger

July 19, 2020 By Benjamin Mateus and Jerry White, WSWS. Resist! Health Care, Labor Union, Medicare for all, Nurses, Strike

Joliet, IL - The two-week strike by 720 nurses at the AMITA St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Joliet, Illinois is at a critical juncture. The nurses, who walked out on July 4, are demanding improvements that are necessary for all health care workers, particularly in the midst of the pandemic: safer patient-to-nurse ratios, improved wages and protection against management retaliation. However, the Illinois Nurses Association (INA), the state AFL-CIO and major unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have forced the nurses to fight one of the largest hospital chains in the state alone, even as AMITA brings in out-of-state strikebreakers and threatens striking workers with poverty if they don’t capitulate.

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