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Hospital Workers Fired After Protesting Short Staffing Sue

January 20, 2024 Mark Kreidler, Scheer Post. , , ,
Scott Byington got fired a few days before Christmas, but that’s not the half of it. Prior to being terminated over the phone, Byington, a registered nurse at St. Francis Medical Center just south of Los Angeles in Lynwood, had persevered through more than three years of wage freezes and drastic staff cuts imposed by his new employer. St. Francis has said Byington was among a group of workers who violated company policy when they hand-delivered a protest letter to the Ontario headquarters of the hospital’s owner, Prime Healthcare. In an interview with Capital & Main, Byington laughed while describing the number of ways in which the company’s claim can be disproved.

At MLK Conference, Unionists Strategize On Organizing The South

January 18, 2024 Mark Gruenberg, Portside. , , ,
Unionists at the AFL-CIO’s annual Martin Luther King conference, held January 12-14 in Montgomery, Ala., tackled what one panelist called a decades-long problem for the labor movement: Organizing the South. And that means both for more union victories, and members, and politically, too. The conference, in a birthplace of the modern civil rights movement, preceded the first actual voting of the 2024 presidential campaign: The January 15 Iowa Republican caucuses, pitted former GOP Oval Office occupant Donald Trump—a self-professed authoritarian who’d rip up the U.S. Constitution—against the rest of the field.

Journalists Rebel Over Gaza Coverage In Australia

January 17, 2024 Mick Hall, Consortium News. , , , , ,
A rash of Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) staff departures and the suppression of journalists critical of their organisations’ reporting on Gaza has been called a betrayal of the role of journalism in democracy. Former Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) presenter Mary Kostakidis says the state-funded broadcaster and other news groups in Australia have refused to hold power to account by challenging official narratives by Israel and Western states supporting its attack on Gaza since Oct. 7. Instead, the professional integrity of news staff battling to tell the truth is being challenged by their employers.

Workers At Jollibee Are Taking On A Multinational Fast-Food Giant

January 15, 2024 Trevor Clarke , Jacobin. , , , ,
In a certain corner of New Jersey, the “hot labor summer” that recently swept the country began early. In January 2023, minimum-wage workers at a Jersey City location of Jollibee, the beloved Philippines-based fast-food chain, circulated a petition for better working conditions and higher pay. Their demands included a three-dollar wage increase over the state minimum (then $14.13 an hour), double-time pay on holidays, and other basic improvements. Within a few weeks, over 90 percent of their coworkers had signed the petition. The store’s management caught on quickly; petitioners say they think it was tracking their activities online.

Argentine Courts Grant Union’s Request To Suspend Milei’s Reform

January 8, 2024 Brasil De Fato, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
The Argentine judiciary has granted a request from the National Confederation of Labor (CGT), the country’s main trade union center, and suspended the effects of the labor reform provided for in the “decree” launched by the government of ultra-right Javier Milei last December. The court decision published on January 3 is a precautionary one, i.e. it suspends the measure. The decision was taken by the National Chamber of Labor Appeals, the first instance in the Argentine judiciary for appeals on labor issues. The court argued that there was no proven need or urgency to make the decision without consulting the Argentine Congress, which is responsible for legislation.

Direct Elections For Labor Leaders Make For More Militant Unions

January 6, 2024 Chris Bohner, Labor Notes. , , ,
The labor movement is rightfully celebrating recent contract victories by the United Auto Workers, Teamsters, SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America, which together cover nearly 650,000 workers. An essential thread uniting the campaigns is that the top union officers were all directly elected by the members, a basic democratic right denied to many union members in the United States. As other unions seek to learn lessons from these historic contract fights, a key takeaway is that a vibrant democratic process—“one member, one vote”—is crucial to a revitalized labor movement.

Labor For A Permanent Ceasefire Now!

January 5, 2024 Virginia Rodino and Kathy Black, Coalition of Labor Union Women. , , , , ,
The Coalition of Labor Union Women president Elise Bryant and Executive Director Virginia Rodino recently spoke at a press conference for a Permanent Ceasefire.  President Bryant told the crowd in front of the White House, "When armed conflict erupts, it is women and girls who pay the highest price. "We in CLUW and the entire labor movement are relieved to see Israeli civilian hostages and Palestinian political prisoners returning home to their families. We are fighting for a world in which all families can be together. The only way to actually achieve that—to stop this violence—is through a permanent ceasefire now.

Union Democracy Stands Up

January 5, 2024 Barry Eidlin, Dollars & Sense. , , , ,
The First Weekend of November, 2023, Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) held its annual convention at a hotel near O’Hare Airport outside of Chicago. It was the 48th convention since the rank-and-file union reform movement’s founding in 1976. The mood was confident and upbeat, with organizers announcing an attendance of 500 Teamster members from across the country. It was the largest TDU convention since 1997. The Friday dinner banquet speaker was Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien, who took stock of what his administration had accomplished since taking office in March 2022.

2023 Was The Year Of The Strike; What Can We Expect In 2024?

December 31, 2023 Jenny Brown, In These Times. , , ,
Strikes and threats of strikes extracted contracts ranging from good to excellent from employers across the country this year. Half a million U.S. workers walked out — machinists, teachers, baristas, nurses, hotel housekeepers and autoworkers — with much of the motion coming from unions led by reformers. The year started out with a squeaker of an election victory that turned out to be momentous. In late 2022, the Members United slate swept most top offices at the United Auto Workers (UAW) on a platform of ​“No Concessions, No Corruption, No Tiers.” March saw a presidential runoff pitting the old guard incumbent against an obscure Kokomo, Indiana, electrician and union rep named Shawn Fain.

Southern Human Rights Organizing And The Amazon Workers’ Struggle

December 24, 2023 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
Jennifer Bates is an organizer with the BAmazon Union , the effort to organize Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama. BAmazon Union is affiliated with the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union (RWDSU). I spoke to Ms. Bates at the Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference (SHROC) which was recently held in Nashville. SHROC is an opportunity for human rights organizers and defenders to come together to share strategies, learn from each other, and build relationships. It’s a gathering of grassroots organizers and human rights defenders from across the U.S. and Global South.

Amazon Goes Into Union-Busting Overdrive

December 23, 2023 Josh Crowell and Tamara Dowell, Labor Notes. , , ,
Our union campaign at Amazon’s “superhub” air cargo center, KCVG in Northern Kentucky, is taking off. And not surprisingly that’s prompting the company to go into union-busting overdrive. In the last two months of 2023, we’ve organized three marches on the boss—demanding translation rights for workers who are English language learners, and also challenging the company when they gave out “final written warnings” to 11 of us for union tabling activities, even though they were outside of work areas. The video of our first march on the boss got over 5 million views on Tik Tok.

Elon Musk’s Swedish Problem

December 21, 2023 Les Leopold, Portside. , , ,
Unfortunately for Elon Musk, the lord and master of the Tesla electric automobile company, the Swedish peasants have grabbed their pitchforks. One hundred twenty Tesla mechanics in seven service centers are demanding a collective agreement with the company, one that aligns with all other labor-management agreements in this heavily unionized country. Approximately 90% of the Swedish workforce falls under such agreements. Musk isn’t having any of it. How dare a union tell him what he can and cannot do with his workers! For the first time in his life, however, he may be learning a lesson in labor solidarity. The 120 peasant-mechanics are not alone.

Teachers Push For Ceasefire, With Education, Agitation, Resolutions

December 20, 2023 Barbara Madeloni, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
When Becky Pringle, president of the 3-million-member National Education Association (NEA), the largest union in the country, tweeted, “We join our partner organizations along with Jewish and Muslim leaders across the globe in an urgent call for an end to the violence,” it was one more step in the growing movement among union activists demanding a ceasefire in Palestine. Teachers unions including the Chicago Teachers Union, the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Professionals, and the Massachusetts Teachers Association were some of the first unions to sign on to a ceasefire resolution spearheaded by the United Electrical Workers and Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 3000.

Big Contract Battles Ahead For Unions In 2024

December 19, 2023 Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes. , , ,
Major contract fights in 2023 at UPS, the Big 3 automakers, and Hollywood studios set the tone for next year’s contract campaigns. Impressive gains and increased transparency got members of other unions asking, “Why can’t my union be like that?” The bar will be high. Many of the contracts expiring next year date from before the pandemic, and before inflation started taking a bite out of paychecks. Some unions took concessions, like creating lower wage and benefit tiers, that members are ready to fight to undo this time around. Two contracts covering 25,000 AT&T wireline workers expire in 2024.

2023 In Review: Big Strikes, Bigger Gains

December 18, 2023 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , ,
Strikes and threats of strikes extracted contracts ranging from good to excellent from employers across the country this year. Half a million U.S. workers walked out—machinists, teachers, baristas, nurses, hotel housekeepers, and auto workers—with much of the motion coming from unions led by reformers. The year started out with a squeaker of an election victory that turned out to be momentous. In late 2022, the Members United slate swept most top offices at the Auto Workers (UAW) on a platform of “No Concessions, No Corruption, No Tiers.” March saw a presidential runoff pitting the old guard incumbent against an obscure Kokomo, Indiana, electrician and union rep named Shawn Fain.
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