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Unions

Chile On Strike: Worker Anger Spills Over

April 12, 2024 Ursula Fuentes Rivera, Morning Star. , , ,
The diagnosis that emerged at the congress of the CUT, held in January, is that in Chile there is a political alliance between a right wing and a business sector that does not allow the reforms that Chile needs to move forward and a government that, in the face of this blackmail, gives in, because it has been, in political terms, far more centrist or even right wing than anybody expected. During our congress, we elaborated a strategy designed to break this political stalemate and the “national active strike” today is part of this mould-breaking in which the CUT has an important role to play. We have reached an agreement on this course of action with most unions and made public our “social manifesto” of 11 demands that are behind the strike.

Mercedes Tries To Punch Down Alabama Union Momentum

April 12, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
Workers at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama were forced to attend 20-minute anti-union meetings with the company’s top management today. Recordings obtained by Labor Notes show top management dangled carrots and put on a contrite-boss act, promising to do better. Workers filed with the National Labor Relations Board on April 5 for the first-ever election to unionize the 5,200 people who work at the plant. Mercedes claims to be neutral in the election, but it’s also listed as a supporter of the Business Council of Alabama’s anti-union website, Alabama Strong. The Auto Workers (UAW) has filed multiple unfair labor practice charges accusing the company of retaliating against pro-union workers.

Momentum For Open Bargaining Grows For The Letter Carriers

April 11, 2024 Tyler Vasseur, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
Hit by years of inflation, and inspired by last year’s contract struggles and big wins by Big 3 auto workers and UPS Teamsters, members of the Letter Carriers (NALC) at the U.S. Postal Service are getting organized to fight for open bargaining. So far 23 NALC branches and one NALC state association have passed an open bargaining resolution first put forward by NALC Branch 9 in Minneapolis. In many more branches, members are discussing the resolution and plan to bring it forward in the weeks to come. The resolution calls for NALC leaders to articulate clear demands up front, and to give regular updates about the progress of bargaining.

Can Grocery Workers Take Back Their Union?

April 10, 2024 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. , , , ,
On a gray October evening, half a dozen insurgents huddle around a table in an upscale diner across the street from Sea-Tac airport, considering their battle plans. “I don’t want to get shot in New Jersey or New York, and those guys will fucking murder us,” says the consigliere. “Yeah,” the boss muses. ​“They will hella murder us.” “I’m more afraid of some people who have threatened to shoot us out here than those people out there,” says one of the generals. “The chances of us getting shot,” concludes the ringleader, ​“are fairly high.”/

HAW-UAW Large Unit Votes To Unionize, 93% In Favor

April 9, 2024 Aran Sonnad-Joshi and Sheerea X. Yu , Portside. , , , ,
Non-tenure-track faculty at Harvard voted 1,094-81 to unionize under Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers, the group announced on Friday. Around 40 percent of the 3,100 eligible voters — which includes academic workers from postdocs to lecturers from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Divinity School — showed up to vote at one of three locations at the Harvard Science Center, the Science and Engineering Complex, and Tosteson Medical Education Center at the Longwood campus.

Books Are The Missing Piece Of A Unionized American Culture Industry

April 7, 2024 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. , , ,
One interesting side effect of writing a book about unions (as I recently did) is that it makes you more aware that the book industry is, for the most part, not unionized. On one hand: yeah, just like every other industry! On the other hand, there are some glaring reasons to think that the book business — the whole, sprawling chain, from writing to publishing to selling — is overdue for its own big wave of unionization. Book workers, unite! You have nothing to lose but the branded tote bags they give you instead of raises.

Barnes & Noble Workers Plan Union Drive At Largest Bookstore Chain

April 3, 2024 Michael Sainato, Portside. , , ,
Workers at America’s largest chain of bookstores are gearing up for a nationwide union drive after six Barnes & Noble outlets voted to organize over the past year. “Many more” stores will unionize, according to booksellers demanding better pay and conditions. At locations that already have, employees accuse the chain’s management of dragging their heels during contract negotiations. James Daunt, the CEO, is said to have embarked upon a months-long campaign to dissuade employees from voting in favor. “He would come in and essentially try to talk us out of unionizing,” said Jessica Sepple.

A 32-Hour Workweek Is Ours For The Taking

April 3, 2024 Sarah Jaffe, In These Times. , , , ,
The United Auto Workers won many of their demands in their groundbreaking, six-week strike in 2023, but one of them — despite not making it into their new contracts with the Big Three automakers — has the potential to radically shift organized labor’s priorities and unify an often fractious movement in ways not seen in decades. The demand is for a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay. From the beginning of the strike, the audacious proposal captured public attention beyond the usual labor watchers because it upends decades-old expectations of what unions should want, signaling the working class has priorities beyond simply holding onto jobs.

Potential Rail Strike Would Cause Historic Disruption Of Supply Chains

April 2, 2024 Davis Legree, iPolitics. , , , , ,
Workers at Canada’s two largest rail companies are preparing for a strike vote that could have severe ramifications for commercial and passenger transportation across the country. Combined, Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC, formerly CP Rail) own and operate over 75 per cent of the country’s rail network, though those tracks could soon go quiet as ongoing negotiations with the rail workers union have thus far been fruitless. Separate collective bargaining agreements between each respective company and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) union expired at the end of 2023.

The UAW’s 2028 National Strike Should Center Medicare For All

April 1, 2024 Jonathan Michels and Will Cox, Jacobin. , , , , , ,
The United Auto Workers (UAW) are laying the groundwork for workers across multiple sectors to join them in a general strike on International Workers Day, May 1, 2028. UAW president Shawn Fain’s call to utilize labor power — four hundred thousand working members and six hundred thousand retirees make up the UAW alone — for the “good of the entire working class” is a major departure from business-as-usual unionism and represents a potential game changer for social movements to secure public goods, including Medicare for All, that extend beyond the shop floor.

UPS To Close 200 Hubs, Cut Teamster Jobs

April 1, 2024 Bill Aiman, Fight Back News!. , , , , ,
Atlanta, GA – United Parcel Service (UPS) announced on March 26 that the company plans to close up to 200 UPS hubs and automate sorting at the remaining hubs within the next five years. The plan is part of a broader initiative by UPS called “Network of the Future” which looks to automate union jobs with a goal of saving the company $3 billion in labor costs by 2028. UPS made $6.7 billion in profit last year and UPS CEO Carol Tomé took home $23.4 million in total compensation. The plan was announced at the UPS investor and analyst conference held at Worldport in Louisville, Kentucky.

What Dollar General Doesn’t Want You To Know

April 1, 2024 Susan Holmberg and Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance. , , ,
Dollar General is stealing from its customers. It’s a major scam that’s siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from the poorest people in America. In a new More Perfect Union video, ILSR Co-Director Stacy Mitchell explains how the chain’s business models rips people off. “I’ve begun to really see Dollar General as a criminal organization,” Stacy warns.

Rail Workers Push For One Member, One Vote

March 30, 2024 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. , , ,
Railroad track workers have launched a campaign to get their union officers elected by the members, rather than by convention delegates. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes is one of the largest of the 13 rail unions, with 31,000 members. The campaign is being organized by the group BMWED Rank and File United, with the backing of the longtime reform caucus Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). “We don’t think a handful of delegates can fully express how the membership is feeling—which is why we vote on contracts!” said Deven Mantz, a 13-year BMWED member at BNSF railroad.

Pittsburgh IBEW Local Rallies To Side Of Striking Newspaper Workers

March 29, 2024 Janelle Hartman, Pittsburgh Union Progress. , , ,
Until he attended his first labor council meeting in February, Pittsburgh Local 29 lineman Jordan Layhew didn’t know about the long strike against his city’s newspaper or how badly its workers were hurting. Shaken to hear a veteran Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter’s grim update on their shrinking strike fund, Layhew sprang into action. “They have been through so much,” Layhew said of the NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America members who walked out in October 2022 over health care, wages and audacious attacks on their contract. “I really felt for them.”

Feds Recently Hit Maersk In Baltimore Disaster For Silencing Whistleblowers

March 28, 2024 David Sirota, The Lever. , , , , , ,
The company that chartered the cargo ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was recently sanctioned by regulators for blocking its employees from directly reporting safety concerns to the U.S. Coast Guard — in violation of a seaman whistleblower protection law, according to regulatory filings reviewed by The Lever. Eight months before a Maersk Line Limited-chartered cargo ship crashed into the Baltimore bridge, likely killing six people and injuring others, the Labor Department sanctioned the shipping conglomerate for retaliating against an employee who reported unsafe working conditions aboard a Maersk-operated boat.
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