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Unions

Railroads Offer Paid Sick Days, Schedule Changes To Retain Employees

February 7, 2023 Thomas Black, Boston Globe. , , ,
When railroad employees get sick, they’re usually faced with a tough choice: use one of their limited personal days, head into work anyway or, if neither of those is an option, risk their job by staying home. That may soon change. Railroads including Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, and CSX are weighing offering paid sick days — or are already doing so — along with schedule changes and other steps to improve employees’ work-life balance. The sweeping efforts, coming alongside a revised union contract that raised pay, aim to improve worker relations in an industry that has struggled to hire and retain employees. ‘’We don’t consider our front-line workers as simply costs to the company’s bottom line,’’ Joe Hinrichs, chief executive of CSX, said via e-mail. ‘’Instead, they are the primary driver of our profitability.’’ Costs will still be a key consideration for the railroads — and their investors.

Largest First-Contract Wins In 25 Years At Two New Mexico Universities

February 4, 2023 Gauge Burnett, United Electrical. , , ,
New Mexico - Following ratification of first contracts by members of UE Local 1466-United Graduate Workers at the University of New Mexico and UE Local 1498-Graduate Workers United at New Mexico State University, thousands of graduate workers in the state are now covered by collective bargaining agreements. Both locals joined UE in historic “card check” drives at the beginning of the pandemic and have overwhelmingly ratified first contracts in mid-December, earning 7.12 percent and 6.8 percent raises, respectively, for their members. Covering more than 2,500 workers, these are the largest first contracts settled by UE in the last 25 years. The union organizing discussed for decades by UNM graduate workers finally took shape in the spring semester of 2020. A group of graduate workers reached out to UE and hit the ground running as the pandemic exacerbated the unfair treatment and poor working conditions that existed at UNM.

Non-Compete Agreement Leaves Workers Homeless And Jobless

February 3, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. , , ,
Kevin Borowske is still mulling it over after being fired last week—and evicted as of February 28. Was he a scientist with the proprietary recipe for a cleaning solution? Was he the holder of a confidential blueprint concealing the secret rooms in the condo? Otherwise, he’s at a loss as to why the property management company FirstService Residential had him sign a non-compete agreement when he was hired as a caretaker—a job that blends janitorial and light housekeeping services—at a high-rise building in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A non-compete agreement bars the worker from taking a similar job with another company for a period of time. You might assume that such agreements would mainly be used to keep workers with proprietary information from being poached by a firm’s competitors. But now all kinds of employers require workers to sign them—so many that the Federal Trade Commission is considering outlawing the practice.

Universities Submit To Neoliberalism And Fascism

February 3, 2023 Anthony Ballas, Truthout. , , , , ,
We are witnessing the rise of a unique brand of U.S. fascism, which has once again reared its ugly head and has made higher education one of its primary targets. This fascist attack on the university is made possible by the longstanding neoliberal withering of its institutions, which now rely mostly on underpaid contingent workers. The disempowerment of university labor runs hand-in-hand with a right-wing ideological front — rooted in rampant anti-intellectualism and rugged individualism — which seeks to control what knowledge universities can produce and teach. In order to counter this attack on higher education, faculty unions must scale up their organizing efforts against neoliberalism and the rising tide of fascism. It is not surprising that former President Donald Trump accused universities of “radical left indoctrination.”

United Kingdom: Half A Million Workers Launch ‘Megastrike’

February 1, 2023 Steve Topple, The Canary. , , ,
Parliament passed the third reading of the Tories’ anti-strike bill on Monday 30 January, meaning that only the House of Lords can stop it now. But workers around the country are unfazed. A “megastrike” of half a million workers will take place on 1 February, which includes the National Education Union (NEU) strike. All the details are below, including an easy way of finding out where your nearest picket or protest is so you can support our trade unions. As LabourList reported, MPs passed the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill by 315 votes to 246, with no amendments – meaning the bill got through in its original form. As the Canary previously reported, the bill: will force trade unions in certain industries to make sure some people work during strikes – defeating the object of industrial action entirely… The law will force unions to give in to what the government and/or employers say minimum service levels should be – depending on the sector. Business secretary Grant Shapps will be deciding what a minimum service level looks like for emergency and transport services.

Santiago Declaration Envisions End Of Neoliberalism Death Spiral

February 1, 2023 Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams. , , ,
An international coalition made up of more than 200 trade unions and progressive advocacy groups on Thursday published the Santiago Declaration, a manifesto for "a complete overhaul of our global economic system." The undeniably anti-neoliberal document proclaiming that "our future is public" is the product of a meeting held in Chile—the "laboratory of neoliberalism" where Milton Friedman and his University of Chicago acolytes' upwardly redistributive economic model was first imposed at gunpoint by Gen. Augusto Pinochet's military junta. From November 29 to December 2, more than 1,000 organizers from over 100 countries gathered in Santiago and virtually to germinate a left-wing movement against "the dominant paradigm of growth, privatization, and commodification." "We are at a critical juncture," the manifesto begins.

How Corporate America Is Hitting Back Against Unions

February 1, 2023 Michael Sainato, The Guardian. , ,
Workers at a Trader Joe’s store in Louisville, Kentucky, are now pushing to become the third store at the trendy US supermarket chain to unionize since 2022. Connor Hovey, a worker and organizer at the Louisville store, said unionizing efforts began as other high-profile union organizing efforts such as at Louisville’s Heine Brothers, a local coffee shop chain, were taking off. Like those workers, the Trader Joe’s organizers sought to address issues stemming from inadequate corporate policies and safety precautions, and how workers have been treated during the Covid-19 pandemic. But during the organizing drive Hovey claimed opposition from Trader Joe’s management has been intense, resulting in workers filing several unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Union From The Start (You Don’t Have To Wait)

January 31, 2023 Colette Perold and Eric Dirnbach, Labor Notes. , ,
Win a union election, and it’s a long road to a signed contract. Lose a union election, and workers may think the fight is over. But win, lose, or not even close to an election, workers at all kinds of workplaces can fight for their unions and win demands here and now. It's a strategy called “pre-majority” unionism, and the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is here to help navigate it. Where an election or contract victory doesn’t seem possible for years to come, workers are often ignored by existing unions that don’t have the resources to support them. But their continued organizing is key, we believe, to helping the labor movement grow. While they may not be able to win official recognition or a contract right away, these workers can still build shop floor unions and fight for and win improvements.

Temple’s Undergrads Are Taking On The University Bosses

January 31, 2023 Jason Koslowski, Left Voice. , , , , ,
Coast to coast, the biggest labor struggles happening today are happening at universities. We’ve seen it with grad workers at the University of California and adjuncts at The New School in New York. That movement has spread to Temple University in Philadelphia, too, where I teach. Just a few weeks ago, graduate workers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. But it’s not just grad workers who are organizing. Last semester, Temple undergrads formed the Temple University Undergraduate Workers Organizing Committee, or TUUWOC. And TUUWOC is moving aggressively to unionize the thousands of undergrad workers. Temple relies on about 4,100 undergrad workers. They do the kinds of mostly menial tasks that keep the university running from the honors center and student center to the IT offices, residence halls, and beyond.

Why Louisville Trader Joe’s Employees Voted To Unionize

January 31, 2023 Ana Rocio Alvarez Brinez, Portside. , , , , , ,
Louisville, Kentucky - Employees at the only Trader Joe's store in Louisville voted in favor of organizing Thursday evening, becoming the third location of the national grocery chain to form a union. The store's workers will now be a part of the Trader Joe's United, the guild for employees across the country. The employees who voted in favor of unionizing won their vote 48-36, a release said, after taking action to do so in September. "We are so excited to be the first Trader Joe’s location affiliated with Trader Joe’s United in the south. It’s a game changing decision that will contribute massively to the modern labor movement," Connor Hovey, an employee of the store and union organizer, told The Courier Journal. A request for comment sent to Trader Joe's corporate Thursday night was not immediately returned.

Union Organizing Southern Restaurant Workers Holds First Strike

January 31, 2023 Hanna Raskin, The Food Section. , , ,
How many Dollar General workers does it take to whip up a strike at Store #10635 on Broad River Road in Irmo, South Carolina? Two. Two, because Miranda Chavez and TyBrianna Shaw constitute the entirety of the location’s fulltime, non-managerial staff. Two, because when a store is so drastically understaffed that there’s only one worker in the building for an eight-hour shift, she doesn’t get a lunch break. Two, because when a worker is forced to close up alone at 11 p.m., she has to walk by herself to her car in a dark parking lot, where even the Dollar General sign no longer glows. Two, because it doesn’t matter how many people are on the payroll if workers aren’t provided with masks and gloves when unloading boxes dripping with corrosive chemicals. Those were among the complaints lodged against the Tennessee-based chain by Chavez and Shaw, who on January 17 became the first low-wage workers to strike under the auspices of the newly formed Union of Southern Service Workers.

Fighting Anti-Abortion Extremists And The Boss

January 28, 2023 Stephen Franklin, In These Times. , , ,
New York - Sam Heyne, a young, newly hired HR worker, was stunned by the number of workers who were quitting and the frequent accounts she was hearing about toxic behavior from bosses. “It became abundantly clear that there needed to be a culture change, and the only way…was to start a union,” Heyne says. Before long, Heyne was caught up in the long-brewing organizing drive at the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, a prestigious research and advocacy arm for the reproductive rights movement. After months of strategizing, with Heyne working on the group’s internal communications, workers won an overwhelming victory in July 2022, 63-2, to join Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153. The celebration didn’t last long; within two hours, Heyne was fired.

Burgerville Workers’ Lessons For Independent Unions

January 27, 2023 Kevin Van Meter, Labor Notes. , , ,
Self-organizing a union on a shoestring? Winning the supposedly unwinnable? Workers at a local burger chain out of Portland, Oregon, were doing it before it was cool. The Burgerville Workers Union, which went public in 2016 and won its first contract in 2021, has recently been influencing and supporting independent union efforts in the region—and it has a few lessons to offer independent unions around the country. While the union is affiliated with the Portland branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, it operates largely autonomously. “What workers want is to form a union, not necessarily join a union,” asserts founding member Luis Brennan. BVWU’s intensive member-organizer training and member-led organizing, use of direct action inside the shop, and creative community events in the streets have become more common with recent independent union drives—like those at Amazon, Home Depot, Trader Joe’s, Chipotle, and the high-end supermarket chain New Seasons.

Johns Hopkins: Grad Student-Workers Mobilize Ahead Of Union Election

January 26, 2023 Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network. , , ,
Back in October, TRNN spoke to graduate student-workers at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University about the growing grassroots effort to unionize grad students under the banner of Teachers and Researchers United. Since then, the union drive has continued to build momentum: After a supermajority of grad student-workers signed union cards in October and November, an official date for the union election has now been set. Eligible bargaining unit members will cast their votes on whether or not to unionize and affiliate with the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE) on Monday, Jan. 30, and Tuesday, Jan. 31. This election comes amid a wave of labor actions that are spreading throughout the world of higher education in the US, with recent and current strikes taking place at the University of California, The New School in New York, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and with other graduate student-worker unionization efforts happening at Northwestern University in Evanston, Northeastern University in Boston, and beyond.

South Korea: Intelligence Agency Raids Top Union Confederation

January 25, 2023 Kap Seol, Labor Notes. , , ,
South Korea’s intelligence agency raided the offices of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the country’s largest organization of independent unions, and an affiliate on January 18. The high-profile raid, over alleged ties between four former and current union officers and North Korean agents, has raised fears that the conservative government is reverting to dictatorship-era methods of attacking labor by conflating organizing with threats to national security. The moves come at the same time as the conservative government, led by president Yoon Suk-yeol, seeks to lift restrictions on long working hours and reduce pension payouts while increasing worker contributions. Yoon was elected last March on an openly anti-labor platform. During the raid, 30 agents of the National Intelligence Agency (NIS) executed a search warrant on the KCTU’s headquarters in Seoul.
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