Unions

‘Left Behind’ Contract Workers At Con Ed Demand Family-Sustaining Jobs

August 24, 2024 Barbara Russo-Lennon, AMNY. Resist! New York City (NYC), Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Dozens of contracted cleaners and 32BJ SEIU union members rallied outside Con Edison’s Union Square headquarters on Aug. 14 to demand the company nix ties with Nelson Services Systems, a contractor that workers say pays sub-par wages. Nelson employs all 55 of the workers who rallied. The employees work at Con Ed offices, customer service centers and substations throughout the city — and they all say Nelson has “failed to improve their pay or benefits.” The workers also said they have been “left behind,” because Nelson’s cleaners at the utility’s power plants scored a victory by joining the utility workers union, UWUA, on Aug. 6.

Workplace Safety Is Not A Game

August 24, 2024 United Electrical Workers Education Department, Labor Notes. Strategize! Accountability, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs, Workplace Safety

Employer-sponsored “safety games” or “safety contests” may seem benign on the surface, but there’s a deadly motive. Employers are rediscovering an old scheme to con workers into undermining their own job safety. These games are designed to reward employees for not reporting accidents. In one United Electrical Workers (UE) shop, management (without consulting with the union) announced a new safety game. Each month the names of employees are put into a pool for a $100 prize drawing, but only if their department has not reported any accidents. If your department has reported an accident, you’re not eligible. If more than three accidents are reported in the plant, the drawing is not held.

Canada Ends Lockout Of Rail Workers

August 23, 2024 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. Resist! Canada, Lockout, Railroad Workers, Railroads, Strikes, Unions

Ten thousand Canadian railroad workers were locked out early this morning after two sets of major contracts expired. Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) forced out locomotive engineers, conductors, and yard workers who are organized under the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference. The major issues for the unions are scheduling and rest period protections in the contracts—areas where they say the railroads are demanding concessions. Through contracts and governmental regulations, union members have maintained some level of protection against increasingly demanding schedules. Workers have the right to rest periods between shifts and protections around how many hours they can be forced to work.

Striking Is In The Air At Boeing

August 22, 2024 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. Resist! Boeing, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights

Mondays and Wednesdays are loud at the vast Boeing factory in Everett, Washington. As the Machinists’ contract campaign heats up, the workforce has been serenading management at lunch with air horns, train horns, and vuvuzelas—plus chants of “Out the Door in ’24.” Forty miles south, in Renton, where workers construct the moneymaking 737, second shift workers have used their meal breaks to blast Bluetooth speakers at top volume with ’90s rap, death metal, ’80s pop, and opera—all simultaneously, said Jon Voss, a 13-year mechanic in the wings building. The resulting racket “really drove management and HR nuts.”

DHL Workers Crush Corporate Union-Busting, Win Historic Victory

August 19, 2024 Fight Back! News. Resist! Cincinnati, DHL, Ohio, union busting, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Cincinnati, OH – Workers at DHL’s largest air hub in the United States made history on Monday, August 12. DHL, bowing to months of escalating pressure after a two-year organizing campaign, officially recognized the union formed by over 1300 sort workers at the company’s Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) hub. Now unionized, the sort workers at CVG have joined Teamsters Local 89. James Lamb, a sort worker at CVG and a new member of Local 89, said in a press statement, “DHL has recognized the strength in our unity and the hard work we put in every day. We‘ve fought hard, and we’re proud to be officially recognized as Teamsters.

Teamsters Deliver Strike Notice; Canada Rail Delivers Lockout Notice

August 19, 2024 David Lassen, Trains. Resist! Canada, Railroads, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights

The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference today (Aug. 18) served a 72-hour strike notice to Canadian Pacific Kansas City, saying the union will walk out at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 22, barring a last-minute labor agreement. Canadian National Railway, meanwhile, announced it had delivered a formal 72-hour lockout notice, following up on plans it had announced on Aug. 9 [see “Canadian rail strike could begin …,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 9, 2024]. CPKC had also said it would institute a lockout on Aug. 22. The 72-hour notifications are required under Canadian law. Strike notice at CPKC The TCRC said it was issuing the strike notice after CPKC served notice it would lock out union members and change the terms of the collective agreements.

Nurses Strike At University Of Illinois Health Close To The DNC

August 19, 2024 Kristen Schorsch, WBEZ Chicago. Resist! Chicago, Health Care, Nurses, Strikes, Unions

UI Health nurses allege they’ve been assaulted by patients for years: shoved — one while she was pregnant — and lunged at by a patient’s relative, and otherwise at risk of getting hurt. “One of the reasons we’re striking is the security here is awful,” Emma Stone, a nurse in the intensive care unit at the Near West Side hospital, said Monday in a field with dozens of other unionized nurses, as their colleagues picketed around the hospital across the street. “It’s very scary as a nurse to think like I could get shot or stabbed.” Stone is among more than 1,000 nurses at UI Health who went on strike Monday over safety, staffing and better pay, as the Democratic National Convention kicked off blocks away at the United Center.

The Win For EV Workers In The South You Didn’t Hear About

August 17, 2024 Ella Fanger, Portside. Educate! Alabama, Electric Vehicles, Labor Movement, The South, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Organized labor is in the midst of a fierce campaign to make inroads at auto manufacturers in the South, most recently at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, where on May 17, 56% of workers voted narrowly against joining the United Auto Workers. But a few months before the unsuccessful vote at Mercedes, workers 100 miles away at an EV bus manufacturing plant in Anniston, Alabama, unionized and won a historic contract. In January 2024, the majority of the around 600 workers at a plant run since 2013 by New Flyer, the largest transit bus manufacturer in North America, signed a union card to join the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA).

Meat Packing Factory: “If We Unite As Workers, We Have The Power”

August 16, 2024 Isabela Escalona, Workday Magazine. Organize! Immigrants, Meatpackers, UFCW, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Dina Velasquez Escalante is a poultry worker in southwest Minnesota. She spends her workdays inspecting the chicken millions of Americans eat every day. She looks for tumors, stray bones and organs, and removes bile. After six years of hard work and cultivating expertise on almost every position on the line, she’s now in the laboratory testing samples of poultry to ensure the highest quality. As a union steward with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) Local 663 at Butterfield Foods in Butterfield, Minnesota, Escalante is also tasked with ensuring her fellow workers receive fair treatment and safety on the line.

The Latest From On The Picket Line

August 14, 2024 Marie Kelly, Workers' World. Resist! Gig Economy, Gig Workers, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The ongoing battle about whether gig workers are employees or “independent contractors” is continuing. The latest blow against these precarious workers came from the California Supreme Court on July 25. The court upheld Proposition 22, which gives companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash the means to cheat their employees out of benefits and bargaining rights by classifying them as independent contractors. According to Rideshare Drivers United: “Today, the Supreme Court of California decided that Prop 22 was not in violation of our state constitution, allowing Big Tech to continue exploiting drivers under a law they wrote and paid for, that replaced decades of common sense labor law in exchange for complete disregard of basic standards like hourly minimum wage standards and basic benefits like unemployment, family leave, workplace safety standards and the like.

How San Francisco Longshoremen Made Their Union A Powerhouse

August 13, 2024 Peter Cole, Jacobin. Strategize! California, History, Longshoremen, San Francisco, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Peter Cole is a professor of history at Western Illinois University and the author of Dockworker Power: Race & Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area (University of Illinois Press, 2018). In this interview, Cole and Jacobin’s Benjamin Y. Fong discussed the dedication and success of the longshore workers in the 1930s and ’40s in overcoming racial division on the docks. Clips from this interview are included in Episode 6 of Organize the Unorganized (among others), which also includes archival interviews with the first International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) president, Harry Bridges, and the first black president of ILWU Local 10, Cleophas Williams.

East Coast Longshore Contract Clock Ticks Down

August 13, 2024 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. Strategize! Longshoremen, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Union negotiations covering longshore workers on the East and Gulf Coasts have been stalled since June 10, bringing the union closer to a potential strike at the September 30 contract expiration. Leaders of the International Longshoremen’s Association have called a September 4-5 delegates meeting to discuss demands and strike strategy. Last week the union sent the employer association, known as USMX, a strike notice that federal law requires 60 days before a strike. The contract between the ILA and the USMX is one of the largest expiring this year, and a strike would have massive economic impact—billions of dollars per day.

Trade Unions Can And Must Rebuild Democracy

August 9, 2024 Luc Triangle, Portside. Organize! Democracy, International Solidarity, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

2024 is historic in the story of global democracy. Around four billion people will vote in more than 40 countries. But in what state do we find democracy? The facts speak for themselves – if democracy was a hospital patient, it would need constant care. The global trade union movement, as the world’s largest social movement, needs to stand up For Democracy. Democracy and democratic values are under attack worldwide. Unregulated, neo-liberal globalisation has left billions of people behind and this breeds support for right-wing populists. This has fed a rising tide of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes which neither respect limits on their power nor protect the freedoms and rights of workers, minorities, civil society or trade unions.

13,500 US Hotel Workers Hold Strike Votes Over Pay And Conditions

August 7, 2024 Michael Sainato, Portside. Resist! Hospitality, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

About 13,500 hotel workers across Boston, Honolulu, Providence and San Francisco will vote on whether to strike this week as they push for significant wage increases and protections against job cuts. Employees at leading chains including Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Omni will decide in the coming days whether to approve the walkouts. The hotel industry stands accused of having used the Covid-19 crisis to reduce staffing and increase workloads. Workers were hit on multiple fronts in recent years, as thousands faced layoffs and furloughs during the pandemic, only to return to work with stagnant wages as inflation soared, and higher workloads due to policies such as the elimination of daily room cleanings, causing rooms to be messier and coinciding with staff reductions.

A National Tenants Union Has Arrived

August 7, 2024 Rebecca Burns, In These Times. Organize! Affordable Housing, Housing, Tenant Unions, Unions

Five tenants unions from around the country convened Tuesday to announce the launch of a new national organization to take on the power of multistate real-estate capital. The Tenant Union Federation marks the first major national effort at tenant organizing in 40 years. “Every tenant deserves a union — everyone deserves to move with the kind of power I found here,” said Donna Goldsmith, an organizer with the Louisville Tenants Union (one of the federation’s founding members) to a virtual audience of renters from around the country. Goldsmith moved to a senior-living community in Louisville looking for a fresh start after the murder of her daughter and two grandchildren more than a decade ago.

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