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Unions

Teachers Unions Leverage Contracts To Fight Climate Change

In Illinois, the Chicago Teachers Union won a contract with the city’s schools to add solar panels on some buildings and clean energy career pathways for students, among other actions. In Minnesota, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators demanded that the district create a task force on environmental issues and provide free metro passes for students. And in California, the Los Angeles teachers union’s demands include electrifying the district’s bus fleet and providing electric vehicle charging stations at all schools. 

SUNTRACS Fights Political Persecution In Panama

The National Union of Construction and Related Industry Workers (SUNTRACS), Panama’s largest and most militant trade union, has denounced the right-wing government of José Raúl Mulino for ordering the arrest of several political leaders of its organization and their relatives. The leaders and family members were released on October 29. Following sustained pressure from SUNTRACS and international trade unions, the court determined there was no reason to keep them detained. The union has vowed to continue resisting the Mulino government’s repression. In a public statement, SUNTRACS said: “We denounce before the country that heavily armed and masked national police units … stormed … the homes of several members of our union’s board of directors and family members of some of our comrades.”

SNAP Axe Could Fall On Grocery Shoppers And Workers Alike

Beginning November 1, 42 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known as “food stamps,” are set to go without benefits. Among them are union members in underpaid industries like grocery and retail. SNAP keeps millions of Americans and their families from going hungry. Due to the government shutdown, new SNAP funding has not been allocated by Congress, and existing funding has run out. This would be the first time in the program’s 61-year history that SNAP benefits have not been paid. For years Congress has appropriated a SNAP contingency fund to cover emergencies like a shutdown. UFCW Votes, the United Food and Commercial Workers’ political arm, has launched a petition calling for the release of these funds, something the AFL-CIO and 25 other unions are also calling for.

How To Build A Union Culture That Welcomes Immigrant Members

Here is some basic advice for union officers and activists who are new to working with immigrant members. You probably already know that immigrant workers want pretty much the same things any unionized worker wants. A decent job. A living wage. Respect and trust. Some measure of control over their lives. The other thing you should know is: Don’t presume to know anything. Forget stereotypes. Approach immigrant workers in an open, straightforward manner and see what you can learn. Many immigrants may have as much to teach you about the labor movement as they have to learn. Some may have been involved in labor, political, or even revolutionary movements in their native countries.

Palestine Solidarity In US Labor Will Come From The Rank And File

As Israel’s genocide in Gaza intensified in late 2023, a small number of U.S. labor unions began calling for a ceasefire. Others soon joined in, and many also started calling for a halt of military support to Israel. For many union members, statements didn’t go far enough, so they formed new national networks or pushed their unions to divest from Israel. Some even went on strike. Pro-Palestine organizing within U.S. unions is not new, but the breadth of criticism of Israel’s actions and sympathy with Palestinians coming out of the labor movement may have signaled a shift away from U.S. labor’s historic support for the Zionist movement and the State of Israel

Michigan’s Labor Revival

Michigan now has a more receptive environment for labor organizing and collective bargaining following the repeal of Right to Work laws within the past few years, and previous failures to retain unions in the private sector, according to a new report from Wayne State University’s Labor Workshop. One area of potential labor growth is in the health care sector, with a recent uptick of union organizing petitions. But the report also noted new challenges and political strain are on the horizon, including budget cuts, unfair labor practices and new anti-labor laws considering signals from federal and state leaders.

Indiana Kroger Workers Win Better Contract After Voting ‘No’ Twice

With 8,000 workers, the Indianapolis Kroger contract is the largest in Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 700. After keeping members in the dark about negotiations, our local union leadership dropped a concessionary contract in our laps. Wage increases didn’t keep up with inflation, and there was no contract language to address understaffing. It was obvious this contract was sending us backwards. My co-workers and I were angry, but we weren’t sure what to do. I joined a Zoom meeting hosted through the reform group Essential Workers for Democracy. I was shocked to see how many members felt the same way about our contract and our union.

The Data Brokers Fueling ICE’s Deportation Machine

In the current political climate, the last bulwark against the abusive deployment of corporate-owned generative artificial intelligence might just come from union shareholders. AI tools are constantly evolving, and ​“with no one stepping in to create some guardrails, they will become harder and harder to regulate,” says Emma Pullman, head of shareholder engagement at the British Columbia General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) in Canada. The union, representing more than 95,000 members in the public and private sectors, is a long-term investor in Thomson Reuters and is pressuring the Toronto-based data broker to align its AI products with human rights principles. “As investors, we are thinking about this as a risk to our investments, but also as a social and ethical issue,” Pullman says.

We Can’t Rebuild The Labor Movement Without Taking On Big Targets

Last year, U.S. unions cautiously celebrated a turnaround in their organizing fortunes. National Labor Relations Board election win rates had reached 79 percent, and the number of workers organized for the year approached 100,000, the highest number since 2009. Yet these gains masked a harsher reality for labor, even before the disastrous 2024 elections. For the labor movement to grow, it needs to organize millions of workers each year, not 100,000. Organizing continues to lag in fast-growing, low-density sectors such as personal services, IT, finance, and health care, while union-heavy sectors like government and manufacturing keep shedding jobs.

Starbucks Workers Aim To Bring A Contract Home

Unionized Starbucks workers are electing strike captains and getting customers to pledge they won't cross picket lines. They’re amassing in front of stores with picket signs, borrowing a slogan that UPS Teamsters used during their 2023 contract campaign: “Just Practicing for a Just Contract.” Thirty-eight stores held practice pickets in early October, and starting October 25, 80 more stores plan to hold pickets and sign up customers to a “No Contract, No Coffee” pledge, promising not to patronize any Starbucks in case of a strike. “We're all strike-ready,” said Jhoana Canada, a barista in Nashville.

Artificial Intelligence: Principles To Protect Workers

There is a path where new technology makes work better and safer, with good union jobs that have fair pay and better job quality. In this vision, working people have economic security, knowing that companies and public agencies must follow rules to make sure technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) is used safely, responsibly, and fairly. These rules put people first, and include worker input in the research and development (R&D) process, during development and deployment, and at the collective bargaining table where they negotiate protections with employers. There is accountability with meaningful enforcement so that employers think twice before designing or using AI systems that hurt workers or communities.

Thousands Of Film Workers Pledge To End Complicity With Genocide

In recent months, a wave of artists throughout the entertainment industry has begun speaking out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. On September 8, more than 1,200 film workers — including A-list stars like Olivia Colman, Tilda Swinton, and Riz Ahmed — publicly pledged to refuse any work with Israeli film companies that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.” Since September, thousands more filmworkers have signed onto the pledge, with the number of signatories now exceeding 5,000. “Both the language of this pledge, which echoes the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s emphasis on institutional complicity, and its material commitment to reject offers to work with nearly all Israeli film companies, represent a significant shift for a film world dominated by executives who have either remained silent about or vocally supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza for the past two years.

A Strategy To Stop The Flow Of Our Money To Billionaires

In the United States, we are living through a time of crisis. We’re witnessing a U.S.-backed genocide as Palestinian children are being starved. Our government is disappearing immigrants and U.S. citizens alike because of the color of their skin and their willingness to speak truth to power. Millions lack basic healthcare, companies are kicking families out of their homes and most of us are paid barely enough to survive. We’re living on the edge, terrified and traumatized. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of this unbearable status quo — billionaires, their companies and the government structures they now control — are using our money to fund these injustices while building their fortunes.

Our Siemens Union Drive Lost

Workers at the Siemens Mobility manufacturing plant in Sacramento, where I worked, lost a unionization election in March, 838 to 538. While the result was disappointing, the joint campaign by Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245 and the Boilermakers represents the kind of organizing that the labor movement should double down on to reverse the tide of declining density in the private sector. Since 2019, elections covering units of more than 1,000 workers have accounted for less than 1 percent of those carried out through the National Labor Relations Board, and most of these have been in health care and higher education.

‘Hands Off NYC’ Coalition Forms To Resist Potential Trump Crackdown

Over 100 New York City unions, civil rights groups and community organizations launched a citywide campaign Thursday to “protect and prepare” the city from potential federal or military intervention, calling on New Yorkers to link arms in the years ahead to keep President Donald Trump’s “hands off” the city. The Hands Off NYC campaign — backed by the city’s largest labor unions and civic groups, including 1199SEIU, 32BJ SEIU, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the New York Immigration Coalition — held a rally at City Hall Park alongside elected officials to unveil what organizers described as a coordinated effort to train residents, build neighborhood communication networks and mount a nonviolent defense if President Donald Trump deploys National Guard troops to the city.
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