Unions

Behind The Decline Of The US Left

November 29, 2022 Stansfield Smith, Chicago ALBA Solidarity. Strategize! Labor Movement, The Left, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The left has not become marginalized because of exhaustion or infighting. Its decline was caused by the US government’s more than century long police state operations, purging the left from its historic home in the working class movement, so that it now has only tenuous connection with the organized working class. The national security state – the actual US government – has constantly worked to neutralize anti-imperialist and class conscious working class voices, and instead promoted a “compatible left” in their long-term strategy to divide and control the left. The working class, particularly the sector in industrial production, had significance for the left not because workers are progressive in their thinking, but because they possess the power no other social forces have: they can vanquish the rule of capital by halting production, shutting off the capitalists’ ability to generate surplus value, life blood of their system.

Peet’s Coffee Workers Launch First Union Campaign

November 28, 2022 Jordan Zakarin, More Perfect Union. Resist! Labor Movement, Peet's Coffee, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

California - Add Peet’s Coffee to the list of unionizing coffeehouse chains. Workers at two Davis locations of the popular California-based cafe chain will submit signed union cards to the NLRB on Monday. The public submission will mark the culmination of five months of quiet work by organizers for Workers United, the SEIU offshoot that has provided the muscle and infrastructure for Starbucks Workers United. Leaders at the two Peet’s stores say that they have near-unanimous buy-in from their co-workers, who have grown tired of the low pay and high-stress demands placed on them by the company. “I really love what I do, and I really believe in the Peet’s values, but every year it gets harder to do this job, it gets busier and busier and everything gets more and more expensive,” Alyx Land, an organizer at the North Davis location, tells More Perfect Union.

Southern Service Workers Launch A New Union

November 23, 2022 Stephanie Luce, Labor Notes. Organize! Labor Movement, South Carolina, The South, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Columbia, South Carolina - Hundreds of service workers from across the South gathered in Columbia, South Carolina, November 17-19 to launch the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), taking their fight to a new level. The new organization grows out of the Raise Up, the Southern branch of the Fight for $15 and a Union, a movement backed by Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In addition to fast food, members work in hotels, gas stations, retail, home care, sit-down restaurants, and more. Some of these workers have been organizing their industries for a decade with Raise Up—fighting for higher wages and better working conditions. Others have only recently joined the effort—including many who felt that the pandemic exposed how essential their work was, and how little corporations and politicians valued them.

Railway Strike Looms As Majority Rejects Tentative Agreement

November 22, 2022 Frank N. Wilner, Railway Age. Resist! Railroads, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The four unions that have now rejected the tentative agreement are the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (representing 19% of unionized workforce in negotiations), Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (6%), International Association of Boilermakers and Blacksmiths (1%) and SMART-TD, excluding yardmasters, (30%). The eight unions that voted to ratify the tentative agreement (and the percentage of the total their members represent) are the American Train Dispatchers Association (1%), BLET (20%), Brotherhood Railway Carmen (7%), International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (5%), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (5%), Mechanical Division of SMART (1%), National Conference of Firemen and Oilers (2%), and the Transportation Communications Union (3%).

Strike Wave Rocks Britain, As Unions Confront The Cost-of-Living Crisis

November 19, 2022 Marcus Barnett, Labor Notes. Resist! Britain, Labor Movement, Protests, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In Britain today, anyone asking a worker about the direction the country is headed will be unlikely to receive a printable answer. Stumbling from crisis to crisis, the country is on its third prime minister of the year. Energy bills have skyrocketed by 96 percent since last winter, and rent has shot up by as much as 20 percent, while inflation—which currently stands at 12.3 percent—has been predicted to rise as high as 18 percent by the first few months of 2023. This is happening in a country which was the first in Western Europe to register 200,000 deaths from the coronavirus and has already been subject to brutal austerity measures that have wrecked the social fabric. An analysis by the Trades Unions Congress (TUC, the British equivalent of the AFL-CIO) released earlier this year found that British workers earned £60 ($70) less per month in real wages in 2021 than at the start of the financial crisis in 2008—the longest wage slump since the Napoleonic Era.

Starbucks Workers’ First National Strike

November 19, 2022 Meggie Gates, In These Times. Resist! Labor Movement, Protests, Starbucks, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

On Thursday morning, thousands of Starbucks workers across the country rose at the crack of dawn — some braving bitter cold — to set up picket lines outside their stores. Over 100 Starbucks locations participated in what workers were calling the “Red Cup Rebellion” — a nationwide walkout planned by Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), the union that represents nearly 7,000 Starbucks workers across the United States. Workers who spoke to In These Times said they hoped the day of action would finally convince Starbucks to negotiate in good faith instead of doubling down on retaliation, intimidation and union busting. The strike was strategically timed. Starbucks’ annual Red Cup Day is a late fall tradition where customers can get certain beverages in reusable, limited-edition holiday cups.

‘No Contract, No Matisse’: Philadelphia Museum Of Art Workers Win Contract

November 18, 2022 Liam Kelly, Labor Notes. Resist! Museums, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - After a 19-day strike, members of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) union voted overwhelmingly in October to approve their first contract. Daily pickets had cut into the museum’s attendance and impacted preparation for an anticipated exhibit on the works of French painter Henri Matisse. After two years of stalled negotiations, the 180 workers of AFSCME Local 397 forced the museum’s hand and attracted public support that placed the museum’s well-crafted reputation at risk. The agreement includes a 14 percent raise over three years, an extra $500 for every five years of employment, a larger employer contribution to health care coverage, and, for the first time, four weeks of paid parental leave.

‘Red Cup Rebellion’: Workers At 100+ Starbucks Locations Strike

November 17, 2022 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Resist! Starbucks, Strikes, union busting, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Thousands of unionized Starbucks workers at more than 100 locations across the United States are walking off the job Thursday to protest the coffee giant's refusal to engage in good-faith negotiations with stores that have voted to organize. Workers United, the union representing thousands of Starbucks employees, dubbed the nationwide day of action the "Red Cup Rebellion," a pro-labor counter to Starbucks' annual "Red Cup Day." As Starbucks gives away free reusable cups to customers to mark the holiday season, striking employees nationwide are handing out Starbucks Workers United-branded cups to build public awareness of the union drive and spotlight the company's aggressive and unlawful efforts to crush it.

New School Staff Strike Shows The Institution Is Not So Progressive

November 16, 2022 Miles Hamberg, The Real News Network. Resist! Education, New York City (NYC), Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The union representing part-time faculty at The New School, a prestigious private university in New York, has been telling its members “You are The New School.” And for good reason—part-time faculty make up a whopping 87% of The New School’s teaching staff. These instructors love to teach, but they say that theirs is an unrequited love, and that their nominally progressive university has left them with no other option but to strike. At midnight on Nov. 13, after a 14-hour bargaining session that ended without closing the gulf between the university administration and the union bargaining committee, the union’s contract expired. In preparation for the possibility that their existing contract would expire before a new agreement was reached, 1,307 of the roughly 1,678 part-time faculty teaching this semester voted to authorize a strike, receiving a swell of support from students, staff, and other faculty members at the university.

US Labor Agency Fights Corporate Spying

November 15, 2022 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. Educate! Surveillance, union busting, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The top lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in the United States has come out strongly against workplace surveillance and management technology that may be used to disrupt union organizing and discourage whistleblower complaints. Jennifer Abruzzo, who is general counsel for the NLRB, wrote a memo in October that was sent to officials at the agency’s regional offices. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which was passed in 1935, protects the “right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”

Bronx Physician Residents Announce Supermajority Of Votes To Unionize

November 13, 2022 Left Voice. Organize! Health Care, New York (NY), Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The Bronx, New York - Montefiore medical residents in the Bronx announced that they reached 70 percent of votes among the 1,200 residents and fellows to unionize with the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR). Montefiore is one of the largest employers in the Bronx and among the 50-largest employers in New York State. Montefiore residents have been organizing a union for the past year, announcing it publicly on November 1. There has been an increase in unionization among thousands of residents, who work as many as 80 hours weekly. Dr. Noa Nessim, a third-year Family Medicine resident and union organizer, denounced healthcare worker shortages in the Bronx and in the nation more broadly.

In Massachusetts, Unions Beat Billionaires To Pass A Tax On The Rich

November 13, 2022 Paul Prescod, Jacobin. Create! Massachusetts, Unions, Wealth Tax, Worker Rights and Jobs

Massachusetts - While the Democrats’ worst fears of a “red wave” did not materialize, the midterms also didn’t feature many clear affirmative wins for the Left. But in Massachusetts, working people scored a major victory with a ballot measure to tax the rich and fund public investment. Supported by a broad labor-community coalition, the passage of the Fair Share Amendment can serve as a model for ballot initiative campaigns nationwide. The Fair Share Amendment will create a 4 percent tax on annual income above $1 million. The funds raised from this measure are mandated to be spent on public education, transportation, and infrastructure repair. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the amendment will generate over $2 billion every year for the state.

The SEIU’s Own Staff Are On Strike

November 12, 2022 Teddy Ostrow, The Real News Network. Resist! SEIU, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Vehicles plowing through picket lines is nothing new for the labor movement, but usually the aggressors are replacement workers (“scabs”) or corporate managers. Rarely is it the case that such vehicular transgressions occur when the union is behind the wheel. Tragically, that’s what happened on Nov. 1, the first day of an open-ended unfair labor practice strike by 130 staff of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2015 in Sacramento and Los Angeles, California. An HR manager of the union’s second-largest local in California, which represents over 400,000 long-term care workers, drove a pickup truck through the union staff’s Los Angeles picket. The manager struck Alex Sanchez, a striker and organizer with the local, who suffered minor injuries.

Labor Unionizing Is Now On Track To Be A Constitutional Right In Illinois

November 12, 2022 Jeff Schuhrke, Portside. Create! Ballot Initiative, Illinois, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Illinois - As companies like Starbucks and Amazon continue their efforts to stop employees from unionizing, voters in Illinois passed a historic measure to safeguard the right to organize in Tuesday’s midterm elections. The Workers’ Rights Amendment (WRA) would enshrine in the Illinois state constitution “the fundamental right [of workers] to organize and to bargain collectively … for the purpose of negotiating wages, hours, and working conditions, and to protect their economic welfare and safety at work.” The amendment also prohibits the state from passing any legislation in the future that interferes with, negates, or diminishes those rights — ensuring Illinois will never enact an anti-union “right-to-work” law like several of its neighboring states have done in recent years, including Wisconsin, Indiana and Kentucky.

Harpercollins Employees Begin Indefinite Strike To Demand Fair Pay

November 12, 2022 Julia Conley, Common Dreams. Resist! New York (NY), Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

New York - Unionized employees at HarperCollins Publishers in New York began a work stoppage Thursday, walking out after seven months of working without a contract and nearly a year of negotiations for fair pay and benefits. Workers from the prestigious publishing company's editorial, publicity, design, legal, and other departments are represented by Local 2110 of the UAW. The strike that began Thursday is set to go on for "as long as it takes" until executives meet the employees' demands, associate editor Stephanie Guerdan told The Guardian on Thursday. "After about a week, the company is really going to feel the loss of all our essential labor," she said. "I've talked to friends who are not in the union, and their assessment of it has been, 'I don't think the company knows what's going to hit them.'"

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