Worker Rights

International Students In Ontario Are Fighting Wage Theft

July 22, 2022 Caitlyn Clark, Labor Notes. Resist! Canada, Student Activism, Wage Theft, Worker Rights

In Brampton, Ontario, a small team of young organizers has begun taking on the businesses that exploit them, one case at a time. The Naujawan Support Network, a collective of international students and migrant workers from Punjab, India, has won back more than $200,000 Canadian ($154,000 U.S.) in stolen wages in just over a year. “We started a year ago because we observed that there was an increase in suicides among international students,” said Simran Dhunna, one of the founding members of NSN. “Every week we would see GoFundMes raising funds to cover the costs of sending the corpse of a young worker back home. A big reason behind it was the exploitation people faced.” Over 30 percent of international students in Canada come from India, and while enrollment of Indian students in Canada has increased by nearly 200 percent over the last five years, many are struggling.

Trucker Protests Bring Work At Port Of Oakland To A Halt

July 21, 2022 Jonathan Burleigh, In These Times. Resist! Oakland, Port, Trucking, Worker Rights

For the third consecutive day, hundreds of independent truckers protested Wednesday at the Port of Oakland. The truckers' main demand is the repeal of provisions in California State Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), which would eliminate much of the independent trucking industry on the docks. Hundreds of truckers blocked the entrances to the docks with their trucks, bringing operations to a standstill. Similar actions have taken place throughout the state, and are being loosely organized through informal social networks and social media. The protests in Oakland have grown significantly since Monday, when roughly 100 truckers took part. This grew Tuesday to between 900 and 1000, according to FreightWaves. Operations were heavily impacted Wednesday. The action is set to continue through the week, and truckers are also discussing the possibility of a demonstration at the state capital of Sacramento.

How Universities Are Taught To Union-Bust: An Undercover Report

July 18, 2022 Left Voice. Educate! Higher Education, union busting, Unions, Worker Rights

Support for unionization is at an all-time high, with 68% of all Americans and 77% of those ages 18-34 in favor of unions, according to a Gallup poll. While most recent NLRB filings are from Starbucks workers, higher education unions are on the rise as well. Since the NLRB withdrew a proposed rule that would restrict graduate student workers at private universities from unionizing in 2021, there has been an explosion of new activity among that sector, as well as among adjunct faculty. Among undergraduates, the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers won an election earlier this year to expand their bargaining unit to all hourly undergraduate workers on campus. I attended Jackson-Lewis’s webinar designed for university administrators who are worried about unionization on their own campus, to see what they had to say.

Challenging The AFL-CIO’s Labor Imperialism

July 11, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast AFL-CIO, National Endowment for Democracy, NED, Transparency, US Foreign Policy, US Imperialism, Worker Rights

A little known fact, even to those who work there, is that the AFL-CIO organizes in support of US imperialist policies that drive a global race to the bottom in wages and working conditions, negatively impacting US workers too. The AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center is one of the four core components of the National Endowment for Democracy. Clearing the FOG speaks with Kim Scipes, a co-founder of the new Labor Education Project on the AFL-CIO's International Operations (LEPAIO). Scipes describes the long history of labor imperialism and how unions are challenging it. Adrienne Pine provides a brief report on workers protesting the brutal labor practices of the State Department's main contractor, BL Harbert, building the US Embassy in Honduras.

The NLRB Is Underfunded And Understaffed

July 7, 2022 Gay Semel, Labor Notes. Educate! Joe Biden, Labor Movement, NLRB, Worker Rights

The budget for the National Labor Relations Board for fiscal year 2022 was $274 million, which might sound like a lot of money. But it is the same amount as the Board’s budget for Trump-era fiscal years 2021 and 2020, and that is a problem. In fact, the NLRB has not had an increase in funding since 2014, the year that the Republicans took control of Congress during the Obama administration and reignited their decades-old campaign to deep-six workers’ rights to unionize. No increase “means a cut to the agency’s funds, due to inflation and other factors,” explains Burt Pearlstone, president of the NLRBU, the union representing workers at the agency.

Yellowstone Tour Guides Are Building Momentum For Change

July 7, 2022 Mike Elk and Rachel Phua, Capital and Main. Organize! Labor Unions, National Parks, Worker Rights, Yellowstone

Recently, former President Obama launched a Netflix series celebrating national parks and their breathtaking views. One of the parks he zoomed in on was the 2.2 million acre Yellowstone National Park, describing it as a park that is “fundamental to our national identity.” But underneath the beauty of Yellowstone lies an ugly history of union-busting and intimidation by government contractors of National Park Service workers, the ones who labor to keep the park beautiful — a legacy that Obama failed to curb as president and one that Joe Biden has yet to address as the current occupant of the White House.

Women Are Taking Over The US Labor Movement

July 6, 2022 Chabeli Carrazana, In These Times. Organize! Labor Movement, Women, Worker Rights

As she considered striking at the grocery store where she had worked for a decade, the dozens of moments that had pushed Ashley Manning to that point flooded back. She vividly recalled the indignities she endured throughout the pandemic, starting with child care. When schools shut down, no one could watch her 12-year-old daughter. She wouldn’t allow her elderly grandmother, Ruby, to do it, fearing she would get sick. And her store, a Ralphs in San Pedro, California, where she is the manager of the floral department, refused to work with her schedule, she said.

Steps To Organizing A Cooperative

July 6, 2022 Margaret Bau, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Democracy, New Economy, Worker Rights

I am with USDA Rural Development, a long time co-op developer, and we have Alex Stone, the Executive Director of CooperationWorks!, and we are pleased that we are able to offer this first in a series. What we're going to present today is just the basics on the steps to forming a cooperative. So I've been a co-op developer, based in my home state of Wisconsin. I've helped organize about 35 different cooperatives in all kinds of different industry sectors. And I'd like to share with you some knowledge that that the field of cooperative development has developed, and some personal lessons I've learned along the way that I'd like to share with you as well.

How Bezos And His Company Wrap Themselves In The Flag

July 2, 2022 Suzanne Gordon, Steve Early and Jasper Craven, Popular Resistance. Educate! Amazon, suicide, Veterans, Worker Rights

Corporate America loves to proclaim its love and support for "our veterans." The persistent problem of veteran suicide has provided big firms with an opportunity to demonstrate their concern about the health and well-being of former military personnel, including those they employ. Unfortunately, at companies like Amazon, this performative patriotism does not involve improving working conditions or changing any management practices that might actually make them better employers, even while they pledge to hire more employees with military backgrounds.

British Rail Workers Lead Fight Against Cost Of Living Crisis

June 26, 2022 People's Dispatch. Resist! Inflation, United Kingdom (UK), Worker Rights, Working Class

As working class sections and low income households in the UK are suffering from the ongoing cost of living crisis, rail workers are organizing a massive mobilization against proposed austerity measures and job cuts. Over 50,000 rail workers of 13 train operating companies and the London Tube began a strike action on Tuesday, June 21, under the leadership of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) demanding higher wages at par with the soaring inflation and protesting against the job cuts that will result from the austerity policies proposed by the authorities. The strike continued on Thursday, June 23, and the workers will again go on strike on Saturday, June 25.

Augusta Chipotle Workers Have Formed A Union

June 23, 2022 Christopher Burns, Bangor Daily News. Organize! Chipotle, Labor Unions, Maine, Worker Rights

The workers at the Augusta Chipotle are forming a union. The workers at the restaurant in the state’s capital filed for recognition as an independent union, Chipotle United, on Wednesday, according to the Maine AFL-CIO. That comes just a week after the Chipotle workers staged a two-day walkout in protest of what they called unsafe working conditions. Chipotle workers told the Kennebec Journal last week that low staffing is a big concern for them. Two workers are often doing the food preparation work of six people, and the restaurant will be staffed with three to four people when at least seven are needed. In a letter to the chain’s national management, they called those demands “unreasonable” and said they jeopardize the safety of customers and themselves.

Lessons From The Starbucks Union In Chile

May 24, 2022 Andrés Giordano, Labor Notes. Organize! Chile, Labor Unions, Starbucks, Worker Rights

The Starbucks union was founded in Chile in 2009, at the same time as big student mobilizations. These mobilizations were part of the seed that made it possible to form a union at Starbucks and in an area like fast food, which is very difficult to organize. The corporate culture of Starbucks is profoundly anti-union. Howard Schultz, who was the CEO of the company [he returned to that role in April —Eds.], is a megalomaniac who cannot bear to see his workers organizing and deciding for themselves what is right. Starbucks is one of the companies in Chile with the most fines for anti-union practices. All of that was conceived in Seattle, not in Chile. It was devised in the headquarters, where they are devising the tough campaign that you are experiencing now.

Southern Workers Gather To Build Workers Assembly Movement

May 21, 2022 Southern Workers Assembly, Workers.org. Organize! Left Politics, Popular Assemblies, South, Worker Rights

Under the slogan “Build the Workers Assembly Movement! Organize the South!” nearly 80 workers from eight Southern states gathered in Durham, North Carolina, for a Southern Workers Assembly Organizing School over the weekend of April 29 to May 1. Workers came to the School from Atlanta; New Orleans; Charleston, South Carolina; Richmond and Tidewater, Virginia; Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Asheville and Eastern North Carolina; northern Kentucky; and elsewhere. Over the last year, the network of areas building Workers Assemblies across the South has grown substantially to include nine different cities, the development of several industry-based councils — including Amazon, health care and education workers — and interest in developing assemblies in additional locations as well.

Workplace Bullying In Higher Education Is Rampant

May 21, 2022 Yiwen Huang, Marco Man-Ho Tang, and Liz Adler, Labor Notes. Resist! Bullying, Higher Education, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

Grabbing her hair, the boss held scissor blades an inch from her face. “If you don’t give me any brilliant ideas I’m going to cut your hair off,” he deadpanned. Was this a sick joke? Was he serious? She was alone in his office with him. She was petrified. You might think this assault happened in some notoriously wretched workplace, the kind of abuse that only occurs in sweatshops halfway across the globe. But you would be wrong. This happened to one of us, Liz Adler. Liz was assaulted and threatened by a scissors-wielding professor five years ago in a prestigious laboratory at the University of California San Diego, one of the top research institutions in the country. (Liz is using a pseudonym as she’s still employed at the university where her assailant is a tenured professor.)

Virginia Target Workers Seek To Unionize

May 19, 2022 Michael Sainato, The Guardian. Organize! Labor Unions, Target, Virginia, Worker Rights

Workers at a Target store in Christiansburg, Virginia, have filed for a union election and, if successful, the store would be the first belonging to the retail chain to unionize. Target has long opposed unionization, with anti-union videos to discourage workers from unionizing. Earlier this year, Target training documents for managers to prevent unionization within stores were leaked. Target has already reportedly pushed back on the union organizing effort in Virginia, trying to use union dues as a tactic to deter workers. But workers are seeking to capitalize on a surging energy in the US labor movement after recent union victories at dozens of Starbucks stores and the first Amazon warehouse in the US.

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