Skip to content

Unions

Early-Career NIH Researchers Forming Union For First Time

June 5, 2023 Max Kozlov, Portside. , , ,
Bethesda, Maryland - Thousands of early-career researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) have kick-started the process of forming a union. They are calling on the agency — the world’s largest biomedical funder — to raise pay and improve benefits, as well as to bolster its policies and procedures on harassment and excessive workloads. About 150 of these researchers rallied on the NIH’s campus in Bethesda, Maryland, on 1 June to celebrate filing their union petition with the US Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) in nearby Washington DC. The filing kicks off a months-long process that they hope will end in the union being officially recognized by the US government and the NIH.

Unions Can Still Strike; Don’t Let The Supreme Court Tell You Otherwise

June 2, 2023 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. , , ,
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Glacier Northwest v. Teamsters Local 174 is outrageous—valuing property over workers’ rights. But it could have been much worse. Unions still have the right to strike. Employers still can’t generally sue unions in state court for losses caused by strikes. But the decision does open the door to whittling away those rights more in the future. The practical impact of the Court’s decision is that employers will be suing unions more often for alleged property damage caused by strikes—and that therefore unions (and their attorneys) are likely to be more cautious. But the Court did not do what many had feared it would do in this case.

DHL Violates Neutrality, Freight Workers Join Teamsters Anyway

June 1, 2023 Peter Lucas, Labor Notes. , , ,
At the DHL Express superhub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, 1,100 workers who load and unload freight on aircraft voted to join Teamsters Local 100 in April in one of the biggest private-sector union wins this year. Package giant DHL, a competitor of UPS and FedEx, is one of the world’s largest and most profitable logistics companies, and the Cincinnati-area hub is the company’s largest. The tug and ramp workers organized because of low pay, safety concerns, and poor treatment from management. “The company mantra that they sell to customers—‘connecting people, improving lives’—doesn’t exist for their own workers,” said ramp lead Garrett Schwing.

The Young Miners Dying Of ‘An Old Man’s Disease’

May 30, 2023 Kim Kelly, In These Times. , , , , ,
Adaptation is a way of life for John Moore. He’s worked construction, run a wig shop and now promotes concerts. The wig shop idea came to him because his middle daughter was having trouble styling her thick, curly hair. He didn’t know much about wigs, or hair in general, so he learned and started turning a profit soon after the grand opening. That’s the kind of man he is — someone who’s always looking out for the next opportunity, the next chance to make it. When we meet, Moore is wearing a black puffer jacket, a black durag, work boots and a cautious smile. He’s soft-spoken but firm, and he lights up when he talks about his wife and three kids.

Trade Unionists Adopt Emergency Resolution On The Right To Strike

May 27, 2023 Roger McKenzie, Morning Star. , , ,
European trade unionists on Friday slammed government attacks on the right to strike and vowed to set up a “solidarity network” to provide rapid support to unions under attack. The emergency resolution to the European Trade Union Confederation Congress in the German capital, Berlin, moved by the TUC, said: “The right to strike is a democratic right and intrinsic to the right to organise and collectively bargain.” The resolution drew attention to the “draconian legislation” in Britain that would “allow government ministers to force workers to attend work during strike action,” but also pointed out that attacks on the right to strike were not restricted to Britain.

Biden Labor Board Restores Right To Use Heated Language

May 27, 2023 Robert M. Schwartz, Labor Notes. , , ,
In a landmark May Day ruling called Lion Elastomers, the National Labor Relations Board restored the rights of union representatives to use heated language, including occasional profanity, during arguments with management. The Board ordered employer Lion Elastomers to reinstate steward Joseph Colone with full back pay going back to a 2018 discharge. The ruling reversed the Trump era’s infamous General Motors decision, which had upended 70 years of precedent protecting workers’ rights to use strong language when pressing union points during grievance discussions and other meetings.

Left Parties, Unions Oppose Bill To Ban ‘Rioters’ From Protests

May 24, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , ,
A controversial bill proposed by Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne calling to ban ‘rioters’ from participating in protests has drawn widespread criticism. Working class sections and rights groups claim that provisions of the bill can be misused to brand trade unionists and activists as rioters and curtail their freedom to participate in protest and strikes. Earlier this week, due to fierce opposition from legislators of the Workers Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA) in the Justice Committee of the Chamber of the Belgian Parliament, Quickenborne backed down from asking for an immediate vote on the bill.

US Labor Agency Rejects Starbucks’ Effort To Obtain Records Of Worker Communications With Media

May 23, 2023 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , , ,
A judge for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined it was unlawful for Starbucks to request records of communications between unionized workers and news media organizations. The decision [PDF] reversed a prior ruling from a United States court, which upheld subpoenas issued to 21 workers that were sought by Starbucks to help the corporation defend against allegations that they engaged in unfair labor practices against Starbucks Workers United. Under the National Labor Relations Act, workers are guaranteed a right to form a union. They are also supposed to be protected from interference, restraint, or coercion by an employer that may be intended to prevent them from unionizing.

In 49 States, Your Boss Can Hold You Captive

May 23, 2023 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. , , ,
This week, state legislators in Minnesota passed a package of pro-labor measures that instantly makes the state the envy of workers everywhere. The new laws include paid sick days for everyone, banning noncompete agreements, a crackdown on wage theft, and a wage board to set pay in the nursing home industry. All a big deal. But let’s talk briefly about one in particular: a ban on captive audience meetings. As you know if you have ever hung around union people who are in the process of getting extremely mad, ​“captive audience meetings” are when the boss calls a mandatory meeting for employees, and then proceeds to lie to them about how bad unions are.

Organizing Despite The Churn

May 23, 2023 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , ,
When the Amazon Labor Union first submitted union authorization cards, “we had to withdraw and file again,” recalled organizing committee member Justine Medina, “because Amazon challenged over 1,000 of our signatures saying they no longer worked there.” The sky-high turnover at the 8,000-worker fulfillment center on New York's Staten Island, made collecting cards “a race against Amazon firing everyone,” she said. Amazon has annual turnover of 150 percent. “They design the productivity quota, the rates system, to be a constant speedup situation, and that makes it hard to keep the job,” said Medina, who still works at the warehouse. Several ALU leaders have been fired.

Kshama Sawant Takes Successful Worker-Led Struggle Nationwide

May 22, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
Roughly ten years ago, Kshama Sawant won a seat on the Seattle City Council as an open socialist. Sawant eschewed politics as usual and led by example, taking only the average worker's salary from her paycheck and putting the remainder into worker-led movements. She used her office as a platform for people's struggles and won many victories from a higher minimum wage, to the Amazon tax to housing rights and more. She also survived a recall election. Clearing the FOG speaks with Sawant about her plans to leave city council when her term ends next year, what she has learned as a councilwoman and the new Workers Strike Back campaign being organized by Socialist Alternative and rank-and-file union members.

Labor’s Uptick Isn’t Just Hype

May 22, 2023 Eric Blanc, Labor Politics. , , ,
Is the current labor uptick just more hype than reality? Numerous articles have recently made this case, pointing to the continued decline in union density in 2022. This skepticism also appears to be the prevailing view among most national union leaders. Though rarely stated publicly, labor’s continued routinism suggests that few people up top see our moment as particularly novel or urgent. But contrary to these skeptics, there is compelling data indicating that things really are changing — and, therefore, that unions should immediately make a major turn to new organizing.

Starbucks Union Workers Have A New Strategy To Win A First Contract

May 20, 2023 Saurav Sarkar, In These Times. , , ,
It’s a truism in labor circles that winning a first contract can be even more difficult than winning a union election. The ongoing year-plus battle between Starbucks and its unionizing baristas is proving that adage correct. According to data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), as of May 10, workers had won union elections at 308 Starbucks stores since December 2021 — yet not a single shop has come close to reaching a first contract. (Each Starbucks that has unionized is legally a separate bargaining unit organized into Workers United, an SEIU affiliate.) The barista network Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) has made over a dozen proposals to date that serve as a basis for each store’s bargaining.

Doctors Win Benefits At Two Queens Hospitals After Near Strike

May 20, 2023 Amir Khafagy, Documented NY. , , ,
During the first wave of Covid-19, Queens hospitals were on the frontlines of the pandemic. Although they were celebrated as essential workers, some first-year physician residents were only making between $15 and $17 an hour while they routinely worked 80-hour weeks. Nearly three years later, about 300 resident physicians and fellows at Jamaica and Flushing Hospitals have won a new contract after threatening to walk off the job if their demands for better wages and improved working conditions were not met.

Berkeley Urban Ore Workers Win IWW Union Election

May 19, 2023 Industrial Workers of the World, It's Going Down. , , ,
The Urban Ore workers of Berkeley, California won their union election with a two-thirds majority of workers’ votes on April 7, 2023. The union received confirmation of their certification from the NLRB as a bargaining unit on Thursday, April 20. The campaign went public on February 1. While one of the employers had told local media he objected to some of the ballots, he did not file any objection before the deadline with the regional National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) office. Urban Ore is a 3-acre for-profit salvage operation in Berkeley, California, founded in 1980 with its goal “to end the age of waste.” Workers describe it as an essential part of the Berkeley community.
«12345678910»
assetto corsa mods

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.