Unions

‘You Are Not A Loan!’ Introducing The Nation’s First Debtors’ Union

July 23, 2024 Hannah Appel and Astra Taylor, In These Times. Strategize! Capitalism, Debt, Debtor's Unions, Systemic Racism, Unions

A dozen members of Debt Collective were arrested at a Capitol Hill protest in May demanding that President Joe Biden “fund education, not genocide.” Before they were taken away by police, the protesters unfurled banners reading “You Are Not A Loan” and “$1,700,000,000,000” (the current amount of outstanding student debt). The connection was clear: Biden can and must use his executive powers to cancel all student debt and fund education, not to authorize and fund Israel’s destruction of Palestine. Organizers and activists came from all over the country to Washington, D.C., to tell him so. The “Fund Education, Not Genocide” action in May was just a sliver of what we’re about — and what we’re capable of.

After Two Weeks On Strike, Minneapolis Park Workers Stand Strong

July 21, 2024 Fight Back! News. Resist! LIUNA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Minneapolis, MN – On July 4, round 100 members of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 363 walked off their jobs and began what was intended to be a limited-duration strike set to end on Wednesday, July 10. Right from the start the attitude was one of feisty resolve from these workers. This is the first time in the Minneapolis Park Board’s 141 year history that the workers went on strike, and the strike was authorized by a 94% majority. During the first weeklong strike, they held planned pickets and actions all around Minneapolis, primarily at the parks. They also saw many solidarity actions popping off that week in support of the striking workers.

‘People’s Cooling Army’ Is Giving Tenants Free Air Conditioners

July 18, 2024 'Lucas Frisancho, Next City. Create! Air Conditioning, Chicago, Heat, Housing, Tenant Union, Unions

Perhaps the most basic demand of a tenant is that the living space they pay for is, in fact, livable. Yet as extreme heat becomes the norm, organizers claim that for many low-income Chicago renters, this basic condition is not being met. An initiative called the People’s Cooling Army, launched by the All-Chicago Tenant Alliance, aims to provide and install free repaired air conditioning units for low-income tenants in Chicago’s Humboldt Park, Garfield Park and Hermosa. “Tenants across the city have been left to bake in hot apartments,” organizers announced at a July 8 press conference. “Tenants across the city have been asked to live in apartments where they could not sleep, where they were always covered in sweat, where their children were unsafe.”

Will Immigrant Workers In Britain Win Europe’s First Amazon Union?

July 16, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Organize! Amazon, England, Europe, Unions, United Kingdom (UK), Worker Rights and Jobs

Workers at fulfillment center BHX4 in Coventry, central England, cast votes July 8-13 for the GMB union to negotiate over pay, hours, and working conditions with the Amazon bosses. The results are expected July 17. The watershed vote comes after a long, bruising battle; Amazon tried U.S.-style stalling and union-busting tactics. Meanwhile the workers have taken 37 days of strike action in two years. They’ve grown their union to 1,400 members, established a stewards network, and built multiethnic solidarity. In the U.K., workers can become dues-paying members before union recognition is attained.

Making Our Communities What They Need To Be

July 15, 2024 Steve Early, Resilience. Organize! Communities, Democracy, Infrastructure, Unions, Vermont, Water

The symbols of public-sector infrastructure are often associated with urban areas: major highways and subway systems, for instance; bridges and tunnels; large ports and airports; billions of gallons of fresh water to deliver and hundreds of tons of solid waste to cart away every day. Yet public works departments are no less important in rural areas, where municipal employees and their families, whether members of the National Education Association, the Firefighters union, or the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers (AFSCME), are dependent on the same community services they provide. In Middlebury, Vermont, the largest town in rural Addison County, 46-year-old Jeremy Rathbun is one of those public servants.

New York Amazon Workers Demand Paid Juneteenth Holiday

July 12, 2024 Kenneth Guy and Dylan Maraj, Labor Notes. Resist! Amazon, Juneteenth, Unions, Worker Rights

Six hundred of our Amazon co-workers at five warehouses around New York signed a petition demanding starting wages of $25 an hour, time-and-a-half pay for Prime Day (July 16-17), seasonal workers converted to permanent status within 30 days of employment, and Juneteenth as a paid holiday. The June 19 holiday celebrates the end of slavery in the U.S. and became a federal holiday in 2021—the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was recognized in 1983. We organized petitions across five warehouses: sort center LDJ5 on Staten Island, where packages are routed to local facilities; the massive fulfillment centers JFK8 on Staten Island and SWF1 in the Hudson Valley, where customer orders are packed; and delivery stations DBK4 and DNJ3 in Queens and the Bronx, where packages are put into delivery vehicles and dispatched to mailboxes or doorsteps.

Grocery Workers File Union Democracy Lawsuit

July 11, 2024 Lisa Xu, Labor Notes. Resist! Grocery Workers, Legal System, UFCW, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Members seeking to transform the United Food and Commercial Workers have added a new weapon to their arsenal: legal action. Grocery workers Kyong Barry (Local 3000 in Washington) and Iris Scott (Local 1459 in Massachusetts) sued the UFCW April 19 over the undemocratic representation of members at the UFCW Convention, which takes place every five years. There are several charges, but the crux of the lawsuit is that delegates are apportioned across locals in such a way as to deny members equal voice. A favorable ruling would enable reformers in other unions to sue on the same basis. The UFCW is the fifth-largest union in the U.S. after the NEA, SEIU, AFSCME, and the Teamsters.

When Transit Riders Refuse To Just Sit Back

July 11, 2024 J. Patrick Patterson, In These Times. Strategize! Public transportation, Transit Riders Unions, Transportation, Unions

Public transportation benefits everyone, and many people rely on buses and trains daily to get to work or school. But despite high-quality public transportation being so important for people and the planet, government doesn’t always adequately invest in it. “The analogy with labor unions is interesting because it’s obviously different in the sense that we don’t all work for the same employer, we can’t strike and bargain with our employer for benefits,” Katie Wilson said in 2012, six months after helping form the Seattle Transit Riders Union. “But it’s more of a political thing. This is the new working poor, organizing and trying to win political gains.”

Transit Workers Demand ‘Fix Our Schedules,’ Packing Board Meeting

July 9, 2024 Michael Sebastian and Richard Marcantonio, Labor Notes. Resist! California, Oakland, Transit, Transportation, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

“Fix our schedules.” That’s the demand that filled the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit board room in Oakland, California, beyond capacity on June 5. Bus operators are “not able to have a break,” Transit (ATU) Local 192 President LaTrina Meredith said, opening two hours of public comment. “They’re trying to make a schedule that is unsafe. They won’t drink water because they don’t have time to use the restroom.” Dozens of drivers spoke. For busy bus lines, despite the 15-minute layover on paper, in reality “we get there maybe six or seven minutes after,” said Linda Muhammad, who has 20 years of experience. “And then we have to secure the bus, answer questions, run to the bathroom, come back, load up, and when we load up, we’re usually pulling out late.”

The National Education Association Just Locked Out Its Own Staffers

July 9, 2024 Kim Kelly, Truthout. Educate! Lockout, National Education Association, Strike, Unions, Worker Rights

The largest labor union in the United States is not the Teamsters, the United Auto Workers or the Steelworkers — it’s the National Education Association (NEA), which represents 3 million educators, retired educators and soon-to-be-educators across the country. Led by President Becky Pringle, the union is used to squaring off against powerful school administrators and government officials to defend its members’ interests. However, this past week, the union’s leadership shocked observers across the labor movement by taking drastic action against its own staffers. The conflict between NEA leadership and the National Education Association Staff Organization (NEASO) has been escalating for months.

Union Jobs, At Your Fingertips

July 4, 2024 Stand, Portside. Create! Jobs, Labor Movement, Unions, Worker Rights

Union workers make more than non-union workers, on average by more than 10%. For women, that differences is more than 20%. That’s a crucial pay bump for many working people, not to mention the job security, workplace protections, and earned respect that come with a union contract. These differences can be life changing. Wanting a union job is one thing — but finding a union job is another. Enter the Virtual Union Hiring Hall, a collaborative project between the Presidents’ Organizing Initiative (POI) housed at the Martin Luther King Jr. County Labor Council (MLK Labor) and Partner in Employment (PIE).

Illinois Amazon Drivers Strike, Demand Union Contract

June 28, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Resist! Amazon, Illinois, Labor Movement, Strikes, Unions

Amazon drivers at the DIL7 delivery station in Skokie, Illinois, struck June 26 over the company’s violations of federal labor laws. A hundred drivers have organized with Teamsters Local 705 and are demanding that Amazon recognize and bargain with their union, after presenting cards signed by a majority of the workforce. They’re nominally employed by a contractor, Four Star Express Delivery. But “every Amazon driver knows who our true employer is,” said driver Luke Cianciotto in a union statement. “We wear their uniforms and drive their trucks.” Four Star Express is one of 2,500 “delivery service partners” that carry out package deliveries while Amazon retains full control.

The Biggest Organizing Wave You Never Heard Of

June 24, 2024 Chris Townsend, MLToday. Organize! Education, Labor Movement, Unions, Virginia, Worker Rights and Jobs

Nobody would pick the U.S. state of Virginia to be a trade union organizing hotspot. But that’s what increasingly is happening, despite the fact that many of the unions and certainly the national AFL-CIO are oblivious to it. Richmond the state capital was once the capital of the Confederacy, and Virginia is in many ways the ideological and historical home of U.S. segregationist and anti-union bigotry. Virginia is seeing a significant and remarkable expansion of its small but wily labor movement. In a labor movement urgently in need of new union organizing experimentation it would certainly be of value to consider the situation in Virginia as one guide to expanded organizing work across the South.

Panamanian Workers Are Being Punished For Anti-Mining Protests

June 23, 2024 Pablo Meriguet, People's Dispatch. Resist! Mining, National Union of Workers of Construction and Similar Industries (SUNTRACS), Panama, Retaliation, Saúl Mendez, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Panamanian business groups and large transnational capital are trying to take revenge on the National Union of Workers of Construction and Similar Industries (SUNTRACS), says Saúl Méndez, general secretary of the union. For several months, the state-owned company Caja de Ahorros has frozen 18 bank accounts of the union, one of the largest in the country, which represents more than 25,000 people. According to government sources, the closure of the bank accounts is due to alleged links of SUNTRACS with terrorist activities. However, according to Méndez, the freezing of their accounts is an act of retaliation by national and international economic groups that have economic interests in Panama...

Low Voltage Electricians Live To Strike Another Day

June 22, 2024 Jorge Torres, Labor Notes. Resist! Electrical Workers, Seattle, Strikes, Unions, Washington, Worker Rights and Jobs

Two months into an unprecedented strike, the 1,023 members of the limited energy construction unit of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 46 in Seattle voted overwhelmingly June 11 and again June 15 to stay out. But the union announced June 17 that it had agreed to end the strike. Members would be voting on a third offer that barely differed from the latest rejected one—the raise had increased by 50 cents. In an emotional meeting, members were told the strike was ending regardless, and if they didn’t accept this latest deal, with no leverage they would likely end up with something worse. They voted it up by 85 percent. One big win, though: the union will live to strike another day.

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