Unions

Labor’s Uptick Isn’t Just Hype

May 22, 2023 Eric Blanc, Labor Politics. Organize! Labor Movement, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

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. Strategize! Negotiations, Starbucks, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

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. Resist! Doctors, New York City (NYC), Strike, Unions

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. Organize! California, IWW, Unions, Worker Rights

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.

Battery Jobs Must Be Good-Paying Union Jobs, Says New UAW President

May 19, 2023 Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes. Organize! Auto Workers, Electric Vehicles, Just transition, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Contracts covering 150,000 auto workers at the Big 3 will expire on September 14, and the new leadership of the United Auto Workers is taking a more aggressive stance than in years past. “We’re going to launch our biggest contract campaign ever in our history,” UAW President Shawn Fain told members in a Facebook live video. Fain took office in March after winning the union’s first one member, one vote election. Running on the slogan, “No Corruption, No Concessions, No Tiers,” he and the Members United slate swept all the positions they ran for, giving reformers a majority on the international executive board.

Union Win At Bus Factory Electrifies Georgia

May 18, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Organize! Electric Vehicles, Georgia, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

After a bruising three-year fight, workers at school bus manufacturer Blue Bird in Fort Valley, Georgia, voted May 12 to join United Steelworkers (USW) Local 697. “It’s been a long time since a manufacturing site with 1,400 people has been organized, let alone organized in the South, let alone organized with predominantly African American workers, and let alone in the auto industry,” said Maria Somma, organizing director with the USW. “It’s not a single important win. It’s an example of what’s possible—workers wanting to organize and us being able to take advantage of a time and a policy that allowed them to clear a path to do so.”

Italy: Trade Unions Continue Mobilizations Against Labor Policies

May 16, 2023 People's Dispatch. Resist! Inflation, Italy, Ukraine, Unions, Wars and Militarism

Mainstream trade unions in Italy, including the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL), the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Trade Unions (CISL), and the Italian Labor Union (UIL), organized a major demonstration in Milan on Saturday, May 13. The unions denounced the economic policies of the right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni, including proposed cuts to public services and social welfare programs, along with lack of investment in job creation. Cadres from various political groups including the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) also participated and expressed solidarity with workers.

Police Unions Are Spitting In The Face Of Solidarity

May 12, 2023 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Strategize! Florida, Police, Solidarity, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

This week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into a law a bill aimed at making it much harder for public employee unions to exist and function. Watching a Republican governor with his eye on the White House aim a crude legislative club at public unions is a familiar sight. Rather than dwelling on why DeSantis is an oily bum, let us use this opportunity to discuss another, unseen villain in this sickening process: police unions. The Florida bill — which bans automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks and decertifies unions when their membership drops below 60% of the workforce — is aimed primarily at weakening the state’s teachers union, which represents some of DeSantis’s strongest political opposition.

Hollywood Writers Strike To Save The Industry From Corporate Destruction

May 11, 2023 Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network. Resist! Hollywood, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs, Writers

Hollywood writers represented by the Writers Guild of America, East, and the Writers Guild of America, West, are on strike for the first time since 2007-08. As Alex Press writes in Jacobin, “The WGA (West and East) called the strike just before midnight on May 1, with its leadership unanimously voting for a work stoppage after six weeks of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) over a new three-year contract that covers some 11,500 film and television writers. Announcing its decision, the union said that the bargaining table responses of the AMPTP, which consists of Amazon, Apple, Discovery-Warner, Disney, NBC Universal, Netflix, Paramount, and Sony, had ‘been wholly insufficient given the existential crisis writers are facing.'”

Penn Medicine Doctors In Philadelphia Vote Overwhelmingly To Unionize

May 11, 2023 Committee of Interns and Residents, Portside. Organize! Doctors, Health Care, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - After a months-long organizing campaign, the resident and fellow physicians at the University of Pennsylvania overwhelmingly voted to unionize with the Committee of Interns and Residents. With 88% of participants voting in favor, the frontline Penn Medicine doctors are the first statewide to gain union representation. Working at one of the region’s largest healthcare providers, Penn’s frontline physicians look forward to advocating for the conditions they need to provide top-quality care without compromising their mental, physical, or financial wellbeing. Despite working at one of the wealthiest university systems in the country, residents often struggle to make ends meet.

South Korea: Labor Union Leader Sets Himself Afire

May 9, 2023 Kap Seol, Labor Notes. Resist! Self-immolation, South Korea, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

A South Korean union leader has ended his life, enraged in anger and humiliation as the government attempted to bring racketeering charges against him over union activity. On the morning of May Day, Yang Hoe-dong, a chapter leader of a national construction workers union, set himself on fire at a courthouse where he was summoned to a hearing for the review of an arrest warrant for him. He was pronounced dead at the hospital the following day. The death was in protest of attacks by the government of President Yoon Suk-yeol on the 160,000-strong Korean Construction Workers Union and its rival union since February, when Yoon declared some of the unions’ activity “construction thuggery” and tried to eliminate it.

Kansas Will Regulate Railroad Crew Size

May 9, 2023 Kevin Hardy, The Kansas City Star. Create! Kansas, Railroads, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is proposing a new rule that would require trains traveling through the state have at least two crew members on board. The Democratic governor announced on Thursday that she has directed the Kansas Department of Transportation to propose the rule, which would be implemented following a public comment period of at least 60 days. It would apply to all railroads regardless of size, but includes no enforcement mechanism. “Railroads across the country have faced issues ranging from crew member fatigue to derailments, all of which pose a threat to Kansans’ safety and security,” Kelly said in a statement.

Workers To Starbucks: Time To Negotiate

May 8, 2023 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. Resist! Starbucks, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

At Starbucks regional headquarters in Manhattan on May 1, staff were setting up an office pizza party when they heard a chant coming from the hallway of their fifteenth floor glass-enclosed office. “Who are we? We are partners! Who are we? We are workers!” chanted a dozen Starbucks workers as they filled the reception area, many wearing shirts saying “Partners? Prove It. WE are Starbucks.” Headquarters staff fled into back offices as the café workers traded off reading sections of a written statement with their demands—the chief one being that the company negotiate with the union and stop retaliating against workers for organizing.

A Union Busting Chatbot?

May 6, 2023 Abbie Harper, Labor Notes. Educate! AI Chatbot, Nonprofit, Retaliation, Unions, Worker Rights

Is artificial intelligence a new union-busting tool? For the leadership at the National Eating Disorders Association, it would seem the answer is yes. Two weeks after the Helpline Associates at the NEDA won our vote to unionize and join Communications Workers (CWA) Local 1101, NEDA interim CEO Elizabeth Thompson made a surprise announcement: the Helpline was being eliminated and replaced with a chatbot. Every newly unionized employee would be jobless as of June 1. The National Eating Disorders Association is the largest nonprofit organization dedicated to eating disorders. Its programs and services raise awareness, build communities of support and recovery, fund research, and put essential resources into the hands of those in need.

We Are All Salts

May 5, 2023 Chris Townsend, Labor Notes. Organize! Labor Movement, Unions, Worker Rights

Today’s revival of union “salting” could not be more welcome or more urgently needed. A tactic as old as the labor movement itself, salting describes going to work in an unorganized workplace where there may be a chance to help initiate new union organizing. It’s also a label for taking jobs at already unionized employers, hoping to play a positive role. But here I will deal with the former: taking jobs to help spur new organizing. Whatever amount of salting is underway today—it’s impossible to precisely measure—it cannot come soon enough. The U.S. labor movement is mired in a crisis that threatens its very existence.

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