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Labor Unions

Study Of Unionized Newsrooms Finds Gender And Racial Pay Gaps

May 3, 2021 Angela Fu, Poynter. , , ,
The median salaries of women and people of color at 14 unionized Gannett newsrooms was at least $5,000 less than those of their male and white colleagues, a new study by the NewsGuild Gannett caucus found. The median full-time salary for women in fall 2020 was $47,390, while the median for men was $57,235, representing a pay gap of $9,845. Journalists of color earned a median salary of $48,006, or $5,246 lower than the median salary for white journalists, $53,252. A team of six volunteers put together the study, which was released Tuesday and includes data for roughly 450 employees from fall 2020. Newsrooms that participated in the study include The Arizona Republic, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Indianapolis Star.

The Variable Relationships Between Worker Centers And Unions

April 29, 2021 Steven Greenhouse, The American Prospect. , , ,
Like many immigrant workers, Pascual Tapia, a late-night janitor at a Target store in Minneapolis, was a victim of wage theft. He often worked 56 hours a week, but he was hardly ever paid time and a half for overtime. And like many immigrant workers in the Twin Cities, he turned to a highly regarded worker center for help: CTUL, the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (the Center of United Workers in Struggle). Tapia was delighted when CTUL won over $1,000 in back pay for him as part of the more than $1 million in settlements it won from cleaning contractors for Target and other big-box stores. But Tapia, CTUL, and many other Twin Cities janitors agreed that winning back pay wasn’t enough: The janitors wanted to end systemic wage theft, and beyond that, they wanted to somehow become union members.

Staten Island Amazon Workers Begin Union Drive

April 26, 2021 Candice Bernd, Truthout. , , ,
In some ways, Amazon workers’ more than yearlong struggle for adequate COVID-19 protections and against corporate retaliation at the company’s Staten Island facility in New York City helped pave the way for this month’s unionization attempt at the Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse. Now, as the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) seeks a second election through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), filing official objections Friday charging Amazon with engaging in illegal interference to defeat the union, Staten Island “JFK8” warehouse workers with The Congress of Essential Workers (TCOEW) tell Truthout they aren’t deterred by the outcome. Rather, their on-the-ground experiences in Alabama, where the unionization effort gained national attention but ultimately failed...

Why Is The AFL-CIO So Worried About Its Vermont Affiliate?

April 25, 2021 Steve Early, Counterpunch. , , ,
For as long as Richard Trumka has been a national AFL-CIO leader—more than a quarter of a century—his labor federation has been encouraging its local affiliates to revitalize themselves to help reverse union decline. Now nearing retirement as AFL-CIO president, Trumka was part of a “New Voice” slate that challenged old guard officials for control of the organization in 1995, via its first contested election in a century. New Voice candidates promised to work with state and local AFL-CIO councils to make labor’s political action and workplace solidarity more effective. Among the reforms they implemented was hiring more staff to promote picketing and protests by union members under attack by hostile employers.

The Women Of The Warrior Met Strike

April 22, 2021 Madeleine Freeman and Luigi Morris, Left Voice. , , ,
Alabama - Just 40 miles to the west of where Amazon workers at the BHM1 facility in Bessemer, Alabama, were voting on whether to form a union, 1,100 mine workers at Warrior Met Coal in Brookwood began a strike for a fair contract and better working conditions. The strike is now entering its third week, and already the workers have surmounted their first significant obstacle: they voted overwhelmingly to reject a wretched deal presented by the company, one that many workers called “a slap in the face.” The tentative agreement (TA) presented by UMWA union representatives and the company fails to address the workers’ most important concerns: wages, job security, and paid time off. In response, the miners tore up the TA and returned to the picket lines, determined to force the company to offer a better contract.

Worker Centers: Where Causes Cohere, And Forge Power

April 22, 2021 Sarah Jaffe, The American Prospect. , , ,
In October 2020, on what Amazon calls “Prime Day,” Fadumo Mohamed and her co-workers at an Amazon fulfillment center outside Minneapolis stood in the whipping wind alongside a handmade banner that read “Amazon: Hear Our Voice.” As the wind howled, Mohamed, bundled in hijab, a face mask, a long black skirt, and track jacket, approached a microphone and shouted to be heard over the storm, “We are human, we are not robots! We have to speak up! We have a voice! We are risking our health!” In February, Mohamed’s two-and-a-half-year-old son took sick, and she had to take him to the hospital for emergency surgery. She’s a single mother, an immigrant with no family in the area—so caring for her son was all on her.

There Is No Substitute For The Rank And File

April 18, 2021 Tatiana Cozzarelli, Left Voice. , , ,
The Bessemer Amazon unionization effort was full of potential. It held the promise of a union bringing together the Black Lives Matter movement and a struggle for labor rights in order to take on one of the biggest, most odious corporations in the country. Maybe a Southern state would set off a movement again, like West Virginia and Oklahoma kicked off the teachers’ spring.  Alongside Left Voice comrades, I decided to go to Bessemer, Alabama the week before voting ended. As I prepared to go, I had a weird feeling. I kept looking at interviews and I saw just two Amazon workers, over and over and over. They were great spokespeople, no doubt. But where were the other 5,698 workers? 

Message From The Amazon Union Defeat In Alabama Is Clear

April 15, 2021 Rand Wilson and Peter Olney, In These Times. , , ,
On April 9, the National Labor Relations Board announced the results of a mail ballot certification election that concluded on March 29 for workers at the Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. With 3,215 votes cast, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) was defeated with at least 1,608 votes against the union, enough to crush the drive. The result was not shocking given the millions of dollars that Amazon spent and its power inside the facility to pressure workers to vote against forming a union.  No matter how you spin it, the defeat is a significant blow to the multitude of organizing efforts occurring at Amazon. The election showed the clear limitations of pursuing union certification through a broken NLRB election process.

The BAmazon Loss And The Road Ahead

April 14, 2021 Joe DeManuelle-Clark, Labor Notes. , , ,
Hopes were high. The drive had garnered enormous favorable press coverage and even support from the White House. Nevertheless, the loss was no surprise to many in labor. Amazon is one of the world’s most powerful corporations, and organizing is notoriously difficult under U.S. labor law. Some aspects of the campaign gave observers pause, like the shortage of workplace leaders who were willing to speak up publicly. From years of won and lost union drives, there is some accumulated wisdom about what it takes to overcome employer tactics. At the same time, we should be wary of anyone who claims that a win is guaranteed if you just follow all the right steps. This was always going to be a tough fight.

Bessemer – A Big Step Forward

April 10, 2021 Frank Emspak, Portside. , , ,
Workers at the Amazon fulfillment center have voted in a National Labor Relations Board election to ascertain if a majority of those voting wish to be represented by a union. Votes are being counted. Should a majority of workers vote for the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Workers, Amazon should agree to recognize the union and bargain with them. I say “should” because Amazon may find ways to challenge the vote, appeal its result or force the union into court to get the law enforced. All people who value worker rights have their hopes on an election win for the union at Amazon. Likewise all those who seek to maintain the current system of employment at will, privileges instead of rights and discrimination in employment are also looking at Bessemer.

The Movement To End At-Will Employment Is Getting Serious

April 9, 2021 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. , ,
On March 31, a group of worker centers, unions, community groups and policy organizations in Illinois officially formed a new coalition, Stable Jobs Now, that aims to dramatically shift the power balance between workers and bosses by eliminating ​“at-will” employment — the practice that allows employers to fire their employees on a whim. In most of the rest of the world, workers are protected by the ​“just cause” principle, which says they can only be terminated for legitimate, documented reasons connected to poor job performance. But in the United States, the at-will doctrine allows bosses to arbitrarily fire employees for any reason or no reason whatsoever, with the burden of proving it was an unlawful dismissal placed on the worker. 

The Enormous Impact Of Eroded Collective Bargaining On Wages

April 9, 2021 Lawrence Mishal, Economic Policy Institute. , , ,
A major factor depressing wage growth for middle earners and driving the growth of wage inequality over the last four decades has been the erosion of collective bargaining.1 Indeed, the only factor more responsible for weak wage growth for the typical worker is the excessive unemployment perpetrated by central bank policymakers’ high interest rate policies and fiscal austerity.2 The share of workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement fell from 27.0% in 1979 to just 11.6% in 2019 (Hirsch and Macpherson 2020). The erosion of collective bargaining has been especially harmful to men’s wages because men were far more likely than women to be unionized in 1979 (when 31.5% of men were covered by collective bargaining versus 18.8% of women).

Amazon General Strike In Italy

April 2, 2021 Peter Olney, Stansbury Forum. , , ,
It can be said with certainty that the strike was successful, especially among the drivers where participation was around 75%, with peaks of up to 90%. This probably delayed a substantial chunk of deliveries on March 22, but of course it is impossible to know how many customers were unable to receive packages from Amazon. There are around 19,000 Amazon drivers in all of Italy. For the 9000 direct employees in the warehouses (fulfillment centers) and the delivery stations   participation was around 70-75% on average nationally, with peaks in the northern sites, and a little lower in the south of Italy. Among the 9000 temporary agency warehouse workers, participation in the strike was 25-30%, but that level was considered a positive by the trade unions given the total blackmail of these workers...

Virginia Public Sector Workers Organize To Make Their New Bargaining Rights A Reality

March 30, 2021 Joe Demanuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. , , ,
When Virginia changed its law last year to allow local government workers to bargain collectively, it was a leap forward in a time when the trend is generally in the opposite direction. As always, the devil is in the details—and there’s a lot of devilry here. But the change presents a substantial opening for unions. Now teachers, firefighters, and sewer workers are getting organized and pushing local governments to bargain over such issues as pay and staffing. Bargaining is still banned for state employees. But the new law, which takes effect May 1, allows cities, counties, and towns to bargain with their employees, an activity that had been expressly forbidden since a 1977 state Supreme Court ruling, codified by a 1993 law.

Colectivo Could Become The Largest Unionized Coffee Chain

March 25, 2021 Alice Herman, In These Times. , ,
On March 8, Lauretta Archibald marked her three-year anniversary as a baker for Colectivo Coffee Roasters, an upscale Midwestern coffee chain based in Milwaukee and Chicago. In her years at Colectivo, Archibald had been responsible for making artisan bread in bulk, sometimes baking 1,000 loaves a night. It was arduous work, and Archibald says that she did not always have the support — or even materials — that she needed: the bakery was understaffed for stretches of time, there weren’t enough cooling racks and one of the ovens leaked the smell of gas through the kitchen.
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