Labor Unions

Virginia Target Workers Seek To Unionize

May 19, 2022 Michael Sainato, The Guardian. Organize! Labor Unions, Target, Virginia, Worker Rights

Workers at a Target store in Christiansburg, Virginia, have filed for a union election and, if successful, the store would be the first belonging to the retail chain to unionize. Target has long opposed unionization, with anti-union videos to discourage workers from unionizing. Earlier this year, Target training documents for managers to prevent unionization within stores were leaked. Target has already reportedly pushed back on the union organizing effort in Virginia, trying to use union dues as a tactic to deter workers. But workers are seeking to capitalize on a surging energy in the US labor movement after recent union victories at dozens of Starbucks stores and the first Amazon warehouse in the US.

Revolutionary Grounds

May 13, 2022 Jana Silverman, Forge Organizing. Organize! Labor Unions, Starbucks, Student Activism, Worker Rights and Jobs

On February 23, the DSA International Committee, Starbucks Workers United, and the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee hosted Revolutionary Grounds to hear insights from Starbucks workers organizing from Buffalo, New York, to Valparaíso, Chile. Jana Silverman, a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Center for Global Workers Rights, talked with Andrés Giordano, incoming leftist Chilean congressman and a founding leader of Sindicato Starbucks Chile; Jaz Brisack, member of the Elmwood Starbucks Bargaining Committee; RJ Red, member of the Genesee St. Starbucks Bargaining Committee; and Joe Carolan, an organizer in New Zealand. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Workers Are Tired Of Being Exploited And They’re Fighting Back

May 2, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Labor Unions, Media, News Guild, Worker Rights

This past weekend, workers around the world celebrated May Day, also called Labor Day and International Workers Day. May Day marks the accomplishments and contributions of workers and reminds them of their rights. Clearing the FOG spoke with Stephanie Basile and Brittany Carloni of News Guild, part of the Communications Workers of America, about the many victories they have had in organizing media outlets over the past five years. They use a model that can be replicated everywhere of training member organizers and connecting them with other shops across the country to build a powerful labor movement that is democratic. Stephanie and Brittany talk about this moment and why workers are fighting back.

May Day: Worker’s Struggle Celebration Is Well-Deserved

April 30, 2022 People's Dispatch. Resist! Labor Unions, May Day, Socialism, Worker Rights

Working people across the globe are gearing up celebrate International Worker’s Day this May 1. Workers have been participating in monumental struggles since the previous year’s May Day, making this year’s celebration well-deserved. Peoples Dispatch looks back on some of the most important labor struggles of this past year: In Colombia, the National Strike Committee (CNP), which brought together diverse groups of social movements, organizations and trade unions, presented ten bills in Congress, which included measures to alleviate the worsening socio-economic conditions, protection and security for social leaders, actions against gender-based violence and violence against LGBTQ+ people, financial support to the agricultural sector, and strengthening of education and healthcare.

Fired Starbucks Workers Bring Their Fight Directly To The CEO

April 30, 2022 James Dennis Hoff, Left Voice. Resist! Labor Unions, NLRB, Starbucks, Worker Rights

Sanchez and McGlawn are two of the seven workers, known as the “Memphis Seven,” who were fired by Starbucks in February, just weeks after they announced their plans to form a union there. In a blatantly illegal move, the company terminated the workers (about a third of the entire staff) for supposedly violating company policy after they met with reporters in the store to talk about unionization efforts. But almost all of the workers who were fired were involved in organizing for the union, and it is clear that the terminations were a direct act of retaliation designed to crush these workers’ efforts to form a union and put an end to the unionization wave spreading throughout the company. The National Labor Relations Board has called the firings illegal, and has already filed complaints against the company.

The Amazon Labor Union Victory – Lessons For All Of Labor

April 19, 2022 Ed Grystar, Popular Resistance. Strategize! Amazon, Grassroots, Labor Unions

In one of the most remarkable labor organizing victories in decades, the Amazon workers in Staten Island voted to unionize with the independent Amazon Labor Union (ALU). This is the first organizing victory for any union at any of Amazon’s 110 warehouses across the USA, the nation’s second largest employer with over a million employees. This was a real bottom-up organizing effort potentially highlighting an effective way forward for the rest of labor – a victory that gives momentum to workers not only in the other Amazon warehouses but in all industries. It demonstrates how and why rank and file workers are the essential elements of not only a successful organizing drive but critical to a revitalized labor movement based on struggle.

Bessemer Alabama Amazon Workers Continue Struggle To Unionize

March 25, 2022 Saladin Muhammad, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Bessemer, Alabama - The second Bessemer Alabama Amazon workers and Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) labor board union vote will be counted starting on March 28th. It comes as a result of the National Labor Relations Board ruling that Amazon’s anti-union actions in the 2021 union campaign, was in violation of laws in the National Labor Relations Act. When looking at the challenges and meaning of the Bessemer Amazon union campaigns, It’s important to have a long view of organizing labor in the South. Transnational corporations like Amazon are attracted to the South, because of the low wages, its anti-union laws and the racist divisions in the working-class.

Women And Labor: Key Struggles In The MENA Region

March 19, 2022 Valentine M. Moghadam, ROAR Magazine. Strategize! Labor Unions, Tunisia, Women's Rights, Worker Rights

How do women and gender equality measures advance in a context of conflict, climate change, high unemployment, low labor force participation, limited democratization and a pandemic? These are challenges facing the Arab region as many citizens, women’s rights organizations, some governments and external partners seek wide-ranging institutional changes and an improved environment for women’s participation and rights. Surveys show public support for some — but not all — proposals for gender equality. Equal inheritance rights for women, for example, remain off the table, even in progressive Tunisia. Family laws that confer most privileges to men and place women under the guardianship of male kin or the spouse are difficult to change.

Minneapolis Teachers And Support Professionals Strike Enters Week Two

March 15, 2022 Fight Back News. Resist! Labor Unions, Minneapolis, Strike, Teachers

Minneapolis MN - Teachers and education support professionals at Minneapolis Public Schools began a strike on March 8, shutting down the Minneapolis school system. Today, March 14, the strike continues as the schools remain closed for a second week. Over the weekend a series of events were held by the striking educators; there we also several actions called by community and labor supporters in the area. On Saturday, March 12, a car caravan called by the Minnesota Immigrants’ Rights Committee (MIRAC) wound its way through Minneapolis streets to end at the Davis Center where the Minneapolis Public Schools office is located. The car caravan began on Lake Street in a predominantly Latino working-class neighborhood of South Minneapolis.

Student-Community-Labor Coalition Grows In New York City

March 13, 2022 G. Dunkel, Workers World. Resist! Education, Labor Unions, New York City (NYC), Worker Rights and Jobs

A growing student-community-labor coalition held a large rally March 6 on demands related to New York City educational institutions. After gathering at Brooklyn Borough Hall, participants marched over the Brooklyn Bridge to Foley Square in Manhattan. Key organizers of the rally and the coalition were the Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York (American Federation of Teachers Local 2334), United University Professions (AFT Local 2190) and CUNY Rising Alliance, a coalition of 30-plus student, worker and community organizations “fighting for free and high-quality CUNY.” About 600 people heard James Davis, president of PSC-CUNY, and Fred Kowal, president of UUP, explain the needs of students and workers they represent at various institutions and how the pending New York state budget should recognize these needs.

Twin Cities Takes To The Streets For International Women’s Day

March 8, 2022 Siobhan Moore , Fight Back News. Resist! Labor Unions, Minneapolis, Women's Day, Women's Rights

Minneapolis, MN - Around 60 people gathered in Mayday Plaza on Sunday, March 6, for an International Women’s Day protest organized by the Twin Cities district of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Demands for reproductive rights and healthcare for all, justice for missing and murdered indigenous women and two-spirit people, an end to gender-based violence, queer and trans liberation, and justice for all stolen lives were raised. The demonstrators also stood in solidarity with Twin Cities educators preparing to strike, signs reading “Victory to the educators!” dotted the crowd gathered in the square, and similar phrases frequented the speeches given. As the demonstration began, chants demanding an end to the oppression of women and attacks on reproductive rights and trans rights echoed around the neighborhood.

We Can’t Just Keep Saying ‘Pass The PRO Act’

February 22, 2022 Jonah Furman, Labor Notes. Organize! Congress, Labor Unions, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In January our movement got its annual punch in the gut from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whose 2021 report shows 241,000 fewer union members than the previous year. Just 1 in 10 workers belongs to a union; in the private sector it’s 1 in 16. In 20 years the country gained 14 million workers—but unions lost 2 million members. Poll after poll shows majority support for unions; “Striketober” gripped headlines for weeks. And yet our numbers keep going down. The law is broken, the employers are aggressively resistant, the members are on defense—all true enough, but none is an answer to the crisis. The bottom line is that our unions either can’t organize, or won’t. The United Auto Workers has lost 275,000 members—40 percent of its membership—since the year 2000.

UPS Teamsters Fight Against Wage Cuts

February 8, 2022 Severin Mortensen, Fight Back News. Resist! Labor Unions, UPS, Wages, Worker Rights and Jobs

Lansing, MI - As UPS moves out from its peak season, the company is ending market rate adjustments (MRAs) and bonus programs designed to attract workers and boost part-time employees’ pay. The negotiated part-time pay rate for workers hired since August 1, 2018 is $15.33 per hour, with a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) included. Teamsters Local 623 reports that UPS paid its members $19 an hour as part of an MRA and the workers are taking a 27% pay cut as the adjustments expire. While higher pay is a good thing, these MRAs and similar weekly attendance bonus programs have had a divisive effect on workers and have pitted new hires and higher seniority workers against each other. The wage scale in the contract represents a minimum amount a worker can be paid.

Rail Unions Are Bargaining Over A Good Job Made Miserable

February 3, 2022 Joe Demanuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. Resist! Labor Unions, Railroads, Transportation, Worker Rights and Jobs

Contract negotiations covering 115,000 rail workers in the U.S. are expected to heat up in 2022. Workers are seething over the impact of extreme cost-cutting measures. Rail unions are escalating through the slow steps of negotiations under the Railway Labor Act—toward a resolution, a strike, or a lockout. Rail remains one of the most heavily unionized industries in the country, and rail workers maintain the arteries of the economic system. In 2018, U.S. railroads moved 1.73 trillion ton-miles of freight, while trucks moved 2.03 trillion. (One ton-mile is one ton of freight moved one mile.) A slim majority of rail freight consists of bulk commodities, ranging from grain to mined ores to automobiles; slightly less is made up of consumer goods.

Union Membership Resumes Its Fall

January 31, 2022 Doug Henwood, LBO-News.com. Educate! Equity, Finance and the Economy, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

Union membership fell by almost 2% in 2021 as employment rose by over 3%. That took union density—the share of the workforce belonging to unions—down from 10.8% in 2020 to 10.3% last year, where it was in 2019. Density rose in 2020 because more nonunion workers lost their jobs in the covid crisis than their unionized counterparts, but 2021’s return to employment undid that. For the private sector, just 6.1% of workers were unionized last year, down from 6.3% in 2020, an all-time low for a series that goes back to 1900. (Official numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics began in 1983; I’ve assembled figures for earlier years from various sources.) Public sector density also fell, from 34.8% to 33.9%, not quite a record low. But the number of government workers organized in unions fell by 2.7%, almost four times as much as private sector members. The full history is graphed below.

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