Worker Rights

Worker Centers: Where Causes Cohere, And Forge Power

April 22, 2021 Sarah Jaffe, The American Prospect. Organize! Amazon, Labor Unions, Worker Centers, Worker Rights

In October 2020, on what Amazon calls “Prime Day,” Fadumo Mohamed and her co-workers at an Amazon fulfillment center outside Minneapolis stood in the whipping wind alongside a handmade banner that read “Amazon: Hear Our Voice.” As the wind howled, Mohamed, bundled in hijab, a face mask, a long black skirt, and track jacket, approached a microphone and shouted to be heard over the storm, “We are human, we are not robots! We have to speak up! We have a voice! We are risking our health!” In February, Mohamed’s two-and-a-half-year-old son took sick, and she had to take him to the hospital for emergency surgery. She’s a single mother, an immigrant with no family in the area—so caring for her son was all on her.

Building Workplace Power In The Communities

April 21, 2021 Matthew Cunningham-Cook, The American Prospect. Organize! Black Working Class, Worker Centers, Worker Rights

As organized labor grapples with the consequences of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union’s landslide defeat at the Amazon mega-warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, one potential direction for the labor movement lies in the types of power- and base-building activities of Black worker centers. That African American workers need to amass the power to better their conditions is beyond dispute. The American working class is in serious trouble, and Black workers most particularly. The median net wealth of Black families is just $24,100 (lower than any other racial group in America today), while that of white families stands at $188,200. Ongoing institutional and systemic racial discrimination against Black workers persists in housing, health care, education, and employment.

A Worldwide Workers’ Revolt Against Amazon Has Begun

April 17, 2021 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. Resist! Amazon, Globalization, Labor Union, Worker Rights

The union drive at Amazon’s 885,000-square-foot warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, failed. But the historic campaign nabbed global headlines and added fuel to ongoing workers’ revolts across the world. Strikes by Amazon workers in Italy, Germany and India are coalescing into an international struggle against the world’s fourth-most valuable company and its grueling working conditions and intensive surveillance. Since the dawn of capitalism, bosses have found innovations to oversee and extract more work from the overstressed bodies of their labor force. But Amazon’s minute surveillance of workers — who, at the Bessemer facility, are mostly Black and women — would make the Stasi blush. At the company’s warehouses, workers use hand-held devices that track their every move and assess their speed and accuracy.

Organizing In The South

April 15, 2021 Joseph B. Atkins, Portside. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, The South, Worker Rights

Oxford, MI - The woman’s face still haunts me. Lined from many years of work on the farm and then in the cotton mills, she is nameless in my memory, just another “linthead” in the eyes of the mill owners, “white trash” others might say, someone off the cow patch and now in a factory in some Southern backwater working 12-hour days. In her eyes, however, was a spark of something, a flicker of hope, and it came from the union she and countless other cotton mill workers were desperate to join back in the 1930s. “We began to feel we could be a part of a great movement,” she said in filmmakers George Stoney, Judith Helfland, and Susanne Rostock’s landmark 1995 documentary The Uprising of ’34.

Message From The Amazon Union Defeat In Alabama Is Clear

April 15, 2021 Rand Wilson and Peter Olney, In These Times. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

On April 9, the National Labor Relations Board announced the results of a mail ballot certification election that concluded on March 29 for workers at the Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. With 3,215 votes cast, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) was defeated with at least 1,608 votes against the union, enough to crush the drive. The result was not shocking given the millions of dollars that Amazon spent and its power inside the facility to pressure workers to vote against forming a union. No matter how you spin it, the defeat is a significant blow to the multitude of organizing efforts occurring at Amazon. The election showed the clear limitations of pursuing union certification through a broken NLRB election process.

The BAmazon Loss And The Road Ahead

April 14, 2021 Joe DeManuelle-Clark, Labor Notes. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

Hopes were high. The drive had garnered enormous favorable press coverage and even support from the White House. Nevertheless, the loss was no surprise to many in labor. Amazon is one of the world’s most powerful corporations, and organizing is notoriously difficult under U.S. labor law. Some aspects of the campaign gave observers pause, like the shortage of workplace leaders who were willing to speak up publicly. From years of won and lost union drives, there is some accumulated wisdom about what it takes to overcome employer tactics. At the same time, we should be wary of anyone who claims that a win is guaranteed if you just follow all the right steps. This was always going to be a tough fight.

Alabama Miners Reject Tentative Agreement, Continue Strike

April 12, 2021 Madeleine Freeman, Left Voice. Resist! Alabama, Mining, Strike, Worker Rights

Striking mine workers at Warrior Met Coal overwhelmingly voted down the tentative agreement reached earlier this week between UMWA and the company. Workers will continue the strike until the contract addresses the central demands for better wages and conditions that workers have been demanding. The results of the vote were overwhelming. A miner’s facebook group highlights that at one mine, the “no” votes were unanimous. In another, the vote was 256 No to 7 Yes. This is what a landslide looks like. The workers want to continue the strike until they get a better contract. These workers have been on the picket lines for over a week and show no signs of stopping. Their struggle is strong, their conviction is stronger and the strike has the strength to be victorious.

Bessemer – A Big Step Forward

April 10, 2021 Frank Emspak, Portside. Organize! Alabama, Amazon, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

Workers at the Amazon fulfillment center have voted in a National Labor Relations Board election to ascertain if a majority of those voting wish to be represented by a union. Votes are being counted. Should a majority of workers vote for the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Workers, Amazon should agree to recognize the union and bargain with them. I say “should” because Amazon may find ways to challenge the vote, appeal its result or force the union into court to get the law enforced. All people who value worker rights have their hopes on an election win for the union at Amazon. Likewise all those who seek to maintain the current system of employment at will, privileges instead of rights and discrimination in employment are also looking at Bessemer.

The Movement To End At-Will Employment Is Getting Serious

April 9, 2021 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. Organize! Disposable worker, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

On March 31, a group of worker centers, unions, community groups and policy organizations in Illinois officially formed a new coalition, Stable Jobs Now, that aims to dramatically shift the power balance between workers and bosses by eliminating “at-will” employment — the practice that allows employers to fire their employees on a whim. In most of the rest of the world, workers are protected by the “just cause” principle, which says they can only be terminated for legitimate, documented reasons connected to poor job performance. But in the United States, the at-will doctrine allows bosses to arbitrarily fire employees for any reason or no reason whatsoever, with the burden of proving it was an unlawful dismissal placed on the worker.

The Enormous Impact Of Eroded Collective Bargaining On Wages

April 9, 2021 Lawrence Mishal, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! Collective bargaining, Labor Unions, Wages, Worker Rights

A major factor depressing wage growth for middle earners and driving the growth of wage inequality over the last four decades has been the erosion of collective bargaining.1 Indeed, the only factor more responsible for weak wage growth for the typical worker is the excessive unemployment perpetrated by central bank policymakers’ high interest rate policies and fiscal austerity.2 The share of workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement fell from 27.0% in 1979 to just 11.6% in 2019 (Hirsch and Macpherson 2020). The erosion of collective bargaining has been especially harmful to men’s wages because men were far more likely than women to be unionized in 1979 (when 31.5% of men were covered by collective bargaining versus 18.8% of women).

Grocery Companies Denied Us Hazard Pay—So We Went Over Their Heads

April 6, 2021 Sam Dancy and Chandra Messer, Labor Notes. Resist! COVID-19, Essential workers, Wages, Worker Rights

We’d like to tell you a story of our struggles with Covid and our safety concerns—and how we ended up getting two city councils to enact hazard pay by law. As grocery store workers, we were called heroes early in the pandemic—but over time, we felt less and less valued. Expendable. Yet we are not victims; we rose up to demand better. To paraphrase Fredrick Douglass, we certainly did not get everything we fought for, but we certainly fought for everything we got. The two of us work at different companies—one at a Kroger-owned store in Seattle and the other at a suburban store run by PCC Markets, a small independent grocery chain.

1,100 Mine Workers In Alabama Are Going On Strike

April 2, 2021 Sou Mi, Left Voice. Resist! Alabama, Coal Mining, Strike, Worker Rights

Over 1,100 workers at two Alabama coal mines and related facilities will go on strike starting Thursday, April 1, at 10:30 pm. United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) issued the strike notice against Warrior Met Coal on behalf of the workers in the company’s two coal mines and related facilities after negotiations over the latest contract failed. The last contract was negotiated in 2016, as Warrior Met Coal was bringing the company out of the bankruptcy caused by its erstwhile owner, Walter Energy. As the union’s press release details, it was on the backs of the labor and sacrifice of their workers that the company turned itself around. Since then, the company has raked in millions in profits. Coal mined by Warrior Met is used for steel production in Asia, Europe, and South America.

Citing Unfair Labor Practices, 1,300 Steelworkers Strike In Five States

April 2, 2021 C.M. Lewis, In These Times. Resist! Pennsylvania, Steelworkers, Strike, Worker Rights

Brackenridge, PA - At 7:00 AM on Tuesday, March 30, 1,300 Steelworkers employed by Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (ATI) walked out in protest at facilities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The strike comes just over a year after United Steelworkers began negotiations with ATI. According to a statement released that day, the union is dissatisfied with company demands for “major economic and contract language concessions.” United Steelworkers further claims that ATI has committed unfair labor practices. A charge filed with the National Labor Relations Board on March 9 alleges that the company is refusing to furnish the union with essential bargaining information.

One-Click Shopping Has Brought American Workers To The Brink

March 31, 2021 Andru Okun, In These Times. Educate! Amazon, Book Review, Labor Union, Worker Rights

A historic union drive at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama officially came to a close on Monday. Now comes the tallying of votes. The election represents the first large-scale effort to organize an Amazon warehouse and a landmark moment for the labor movement in the U.S. South. If the majority of votes are in favor of unionization, the roughly 6,000 workers of the facility will be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Predictably, Amazon — the country’s second-largest employer — has made considerable attempts to undercut the campaign, including heavily-funding anti-union propaganda, changing traffic light patterns to deter canvassing and even paying workers to quit.

Virginia Public Sector Workers Organize To Make Their New Bargaining Rights A Reality

March 30, 2021 Joe Demanuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. Organize! Labor Unions, Public Workers, Virginia, Worker Rights

When Virginia changed its law last year to allow local government workers to bargain collectively, it was a leap forward in a time when the trend is generally in the opposite direction. As always, the devil is in the details—and there’s a lot of devilry here. But the change presents a substantial opening for unions. Now teachers, firefighters, and sewer workers are getting organized and pushing local governments to bargain over such issues as pay and staffing. Bargaining is still banned for state employees. But the new law, which takes effect May 1, allows cities, counties, and towns to bargain with their employees, an activity that had been expressly forbidden since a 1977 state Supreme Court ruling, codified by a 1993 law.

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