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Unions

‘We’re Calling Bullsh*t’: Why Museum Workers Keep Unionizing

April 13, 2023 Mindy Isser, In These Times. , , ,
In late March, workers at Philadelphia’s Please Touch Museum (PTM), one of the top ten ranked children’s museums in the country, voted to join the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees District Council 47 (AFSCME DC 47) Local 397. The landslide win (85% of workers voted to unionize) follows other recent union victories in Philadelphia— including at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA)— as well as at other museums and cultural institutions around the country. The win at the PTM marked the third museum union victory for AFSCME in the month of March.

Union Hotel Workers In NYC Suburbs Score Biggest Pay Raise In 100 Years

April 12, 2023 Kate King, Portside. , , , , ,
A New York hotel union has reached a deal with hotel owners and operators that will boost the wages of hospitality workers by $7.50 an hour, the largest increase in the union’s 100-year history. The agreement covers 7,000 members of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council who work at 87 suburban hotels spanning from Princeton, N.J., to New York’s Albany region and Long Island. The five-year pact has already been ratified by the employers and is expected to be ratified by workers this month, according to union President Rich Maroko. The new contract doesn’t include New York City hotels, where union members are also represented by the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council and where wages are still at a premium compared with the suburbs.

The UC Strike Showed There’s Power In A Union

April 12, 2023 Hazel Katz, The Real News Network. , , ,
On Dec. 23, 2022, members of the Academic Student Employees (UAW 2865) and Student Researchers United, both organized under the United Auto Workers, voted 11,386 to 7,097 (ASE) and 10,057 to 4,640 (SRU) to ratify tentative agreements reached with the University of California. The ratification vote ended the largest higher education academic worker strike in US history, where 48,000 workers walked off the job for six weeks. I work within the Academic Student Employee (ASE) unit, instructing twice weekly sections of 30 undergraduates each. My teaching assistant contract is 20 hours of paid work per week, but as a graduate student I do many more hours of weekly unpaid research work that benefits the university.

Food Service Workers At The World Bank Announce Picket Line

April 12, 2023 Allyssa Pollard, Unite Here! , , , , ,
Washington, DC – UNITE HERE Local 23 on Thursday released the results of a survey of 76% of the Compass workers who staff food service at the World Bank that detail ways workers struggle to afford necessities like food and housing. Workers are in negotiations for new union contracts that keep up with the cost of living and additionally announced a picket line action on the Compass-operated cafeteria at the World Bank on Wednesday, April 12. UNITE HERE is in negotiations with Compass Group for workers in cafeterias at several high-profile DC locations in addition to the World Bank, including the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Institute of Health, Freddie Mac, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, American University, Catholic University of America, and George Washington University, among others.

New York Pre-K Workers Fight For Their Jobs, In Spite Of Their Union

April 11, 2023 Noelle Mapes, Labor Notes. , , ,
New York City, New York - Just days before school started last fall, 400 early childhood education workers in New York City were told they were being “excessed,” leaving their students in limbo. The workers sprang into action, and in January they won a short-term reinstatement. But they’re still fighting for long-term job stability as the administration of Mayor Eric Adams slowly dismantles his predecessor Bill De Blasio’s signature program, universal pre-kindergarten. And not only are they fighting the city—they’ve also had to fight their union, the United Federation of Teachers. With 180,000 members, the UFT is the largest teachers union in the country and a powerful force in city politics.

Rutgers Faculty Declares Strike In Historic Showdown

April 10, 2023 Tina Kelley, NJ.com. , , ,
Leaders of three Rutgers University faculty unions declared a strike Sunday, saying negotiations have stalled over new contracts for the 9,000 Rutgers University professors, part-time lecturers and graduate student workers they represent at the state’s largest university. The strike is one of the largest faculty walkouts in U.S. higher education history and is expected to disrupt classes for more than 67,000 students on Rutgers’ New Brunswick-Piscataway, Newark and Camden campuses. “Our boards voted unanimously that we will be going on strike tomorrow,” Rutgers AAUP-AFT President Rebecca Givan told her members in an 8:30 p.m. online meeting attended by thousands of professors and other faculty members.

‘Strike Force’: Building The UPS Contract Campaign

April 8, 2023 Justin Alo, Labor Notes. , , , ,
At Duke’s Hawaiian Coffee Shop and Deli in San Marcos, California, Friday mornings are abuzz with organizing talk—building unity among fellow Teamsters ahead of a potential strike at UPS. We began meeting in February, just a few of us. Soon enough, word spread about what we called “Unity Breakfast,” and the coffee shop filled up. At the first meeting, my co-worker Tim Peppers defined the main purpose: to educate members about the contract campaign and potential strike. We talked about how we are part of a movement much bigger than our own building, and why it’s important to build unity across our differences in seniority and classification.

What To Expect When You’re Expecting (To Win)

April 6, 2023 Jason Ide, Labor Notes. , , ,
You’ve done it. Your team of rank-and-file members has run for union office and won. In a few short weeks or months you will leave the truck, classroom, or hospital floor behind and join the staff of your local union. You’ve made promises to the members, and you don’t want to let them down. Back in 2009 I was in exactly this situation. I had been a member of Teamsters Local 814, packing art in a warehouse and filling in as shop steward. When incompetent leaders plunged our local into financial insolvency, our slate decided to run for union office. Soon we won our election and I found myself principal officer of our local union.

The Undercover Organizers Behind America’s Union Wins

April 5, 2023 Josh Eidelson, Portside. , , , ,
If you want to unionize a workplace, Will Westlake was saying, get used to unclogging the drains. At a secret off-hours gathering held in Rochester, New York, in March, the 25-year-old former barista told a few dozen labor activists that a great way to build trust with co-workers and bosses is to volunteer for thankless chores. In his case, that meant spending months at a Starbucks outside Buffalo in 2021 getting on his knees and reaching beneath the sinks to yank loose the grimy mix of mocha chips, espresso beans, congealed milk and rotten fruit that regularly stopped things up. “Be the person who’s willing,” Westlake said. “It’s going to make the company less suspicious of you.”

Duke University’s Ploy To Ban Graduate Student Unions

April 3, 2023 Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network. , , , ,
At colleges and universities across the country, a heated battle is playing out right now over workers’ right to organize and have a say over how the institutions they keep afloat with their labor are run. From graduate student-worker unionization efforts and strikes at Temple University, the University of California, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern University, Northeastern University, the University of Chicago, and Indiana University, to faculty strikes (and near-strikes) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, The New School, Howard University, etc., to workers across the higher ed sector striking in the UK, the academic labor movement is one of the most explosive sites of labor struggle right now.

‘He Sold Our Schools Off To The Highest Bidder’

April 2, 2023 David I. Backer, In These Times. , , ,
Shakeda Gaines, former president of the Philadelphia Home and School Council, remembers when Paul Vallas began his term as superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia in 2002. Vallas ​“brought in his corporate vultures and his spreadsheets and tried to sell us a bill of goods,” Gaines says. Vallas, known for his contempt of teachers unions and his ability to capitalize on disasters to upend public school systems, has gone into Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Haiti, Chile, and Bridgeport, Conn., to hawk himself as a pragmatic problem solver, someone who will turn around distressed schools. Despite this brand, instead of fixing disasters, Vallas often has a hand in creating them.

What Unionized Starbucks Workers Think Of Howard Schultz’ Testimony

April 1, 2023 Saurav Sarkar, In These Times. , , , ,
The latest round in the fight between Starbucks and its nascent barista network — Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) — came to a head on Wednesday with the appearance of former CEO and current board member Howard Schultz at the Senate Committee on Housing, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP). “It was honestly hard not to laugh out loud at some of the [bald-faced] lies he told,” said James Greene, a fired Starbucks shift supervisor in the Pittsburgh area. “He denied breaking the law repeatedly as senators were listing off multiple judges’ rulings against [Starbucks],” Greene added.

A Four-Day Workweek Trojan Horse

March 31, 2023 Adam Barrington, Labor Notes. , , ,
It’s never a bad idea to be suspicious of your boss, especially when they act like they’re doing you a favor. For workers at FrontLine Service, a Cleveland non-profit that serves the unsheltered, distrust of our employer is one of the critical sentiments that binds us. FrontLine workers, members of Service Employees Local 1199, provide crucial services to some of the most marginalized and neglected people in Northeast Ohio. Every day, we assist folks struggling with mental health crises, substance abuse, lack of housing, and other hardships. The work is arduous and the pay is low, but we do what we can to serve the communities in which we live and work.

How Rank-And-File Labor Organizers Can Transform Unions

March 30, 2023 Vince Quiles, The Real News Network. , , ,
For the past five years, Tevita Uhatafe of TWU Local 567 has dedicated himself to advancing the labor movement. Known affectionately as “Mic Guy,” Uhatafe has traveled from coast to coast to rally in solidarity with striking workers in multiple states. Uhatafe entered the union movement as an outsider without family connections, but has nevertheless risen as a rank-and-file leader. He is now the Vice President of the Texas AFL-CIO. Vince Quiles, lead organizer of Home Depot Workers United, sits down with Tefita Uhatafe for an organizer-to-organizer conversation on their respective stories, the barriers impeding deeper solidarity in the labor movement, and why unions so desperately need rank-and-file leadership today.

Where The Starbucks Union Stands After Rallies, Proposed Audit

March 27, 2023 Lizz Giordano, Crosscut. , , , ,
Four security guards blocked the entrance to Starbucks headquarters as demonstrators approached Wednesday. Workers peeked out of windows above, watching and filming the crowd. Some ventured out to order lunch from the food trucks in the parking lot and take a closer look. Gwen Williamson, a former shift supervisor for a cafe in Bellingham, addressed the crowd: “We won our election in December and immediately after that, shift supervisor hours were cut, putting our eligibility for Starbucks health education benefits at risk.” Williamson told those who had gathered that she had been unjustly terminated after she led the union charge at her store and called off several shifts at the last minute due to flood damage that left her apartment unlivable.
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