Worker Rights and Jobs

Teamsters Launch Largest Strike Against Amazon In American History

December 19, 2024 Daniel Moskowitz, International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Resist! Amazon, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The Teamsters launched the largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history beginning at 6 a.m. EST on Thursday, December 19. The nationwide action follows Amazon’s repeated refusal to follow the law and bargain with the thousands of Amazon workers who organized with the Teamsters. “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien. “These greedy executives had every chance to show decency and respect for the people who make their obscene profits possible."

Denver Flight Attendants Rally For Higher Pay

December 19, 2024 Fight Back! News. Resist! Airlines, airplanes, Colorado, Denver, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Denver, Colorado – On December 11, members of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) at Frontier Airlines held a rally outside of the Frontier headquarters in Denver. Flight attendants have been in mediation with the companies that refused to meet members' demands. American and Southwest Airlines flight attendants got their contracts, while Alaskan Airlines attendants voted down their proposed contract. Frontier and United have been in mediation with the AFA for more than six months. There were two chief demands raised at the rally: increased wages, and a shift back to the old business model.

Ten Inequality Victories In 2024

December 19, 2024 Sarah Anderson, Inequality.org. Educate! Albertsons, Amazon, Finance and the Economy, Health Care, Krogers, Labor Movement, Paid Sick Leave, Taxes, Turbotax, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted overwhelmingly in April to join the United Auto Workers, a landmark win for labor organizing in the South. The region has suffered deeply because of its low-road, anti-union economic model. Seven out of ten states with the highest levels of poverty are in the South, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Another UAW election, at a Mercedes-Benz facility in Vance, Alabama, where management was more aggressively anti-union, went the other way in May. But the union has vowed to continue organizing in the region.

UFCW Locals Block Kroger-Albertsons Mega-Merger

December 18, 2024 Lisa Xu, Labor Notes. Organize! Albertsons, Grocery Workers, Krogers, Mergers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In a victory for labor—and in particular, for a coalition of United Food and Commercial Workers local unions—judges in Oregon and Washington state have separately ruled against the proposed mega-merger of Kroger and Albertsons, effectively blocking it and leading Albertsons to terminate the merger agreement. On December 10, a federal district court in Oregon upheld a preliminary injunction on the merger requested by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). On the same day, a court in Washington also ruled against the merger in a separate suit brought by the state’s attorney general.

Threat Of Amazon Workers’ Strike Spreads During Peak Holiday Season

December 17, 2024 Michael Sainato, Portside. Resist! Amazon, Atlanta, Chicago, Georgia, Illinois, Jeff Bezos, New York City (NYC), Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

Thousands of workers at Amazon are threatening to strike at the company after giving the company a deadline of 15 December to agree to begin negotiating a first contract with the union representing employees. The strike threats, which started in New York, have now spread to Chicago and Atlanta. They come during Amazon’s peak holiday season and after the company experienced record sales during its 2024 Black Friday and Cyber Monday events. The workers at the company’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island became the first Amazon warehouse in the US to win a union election in March 2022.

Teamsters: Government Should Stay Out Of The Bargaining Process

December 17, 2024 Bill Stephens, Trains. Resist! Canada, Contract Negotiations, Government Intervention, Lockouts, Railroads, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Toronto – Teamsters Canada union leaders are urging federal officials in Ottawa to stay out of the collective bargaining process and back railway workers’ right to strike. “The transportation industry’s most powerful chief executives have developed a way to sidestep union negotiations,” Francois Laporte, national president of Teamsters Canada, and Paul Boucher, president of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, wrote in an op-ed in Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper this week. “Here’s their playbook, as we see it: Make unreasonable demands, accuse unions of being unreasonable for refusing to accept them, instigate job action, lock workers out to disrupt supply chains, and use the resulting outcry to press Ottawa to impose binding arbitration. We believe this to be bad faith bargaining.

Jeff Bezos Thinks He’s Invincible; Amazon Workers Are Striking To Prove Him Wrong

December 17, 2024 Sarah Smith and M. Carlstad, Left Voice. Resist! Amazon, Contract Negotiations, Jeff Bezos, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

As the holiday shopping season ramps up, Amazon workers across the country are escalating their efforts to secure union contracts. The Teamsters Union had given Amazon until December 15 to agree to dates for formal contract negotiations, warning that failure to come to the table would result in labor action, including a potential Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike. Workers, who have been battling Amazon’s aggressive union-busting tactics for years, are showing increased determination for their demands to be met. Warehouse workers and delivery drivers are coming together to demand better pay, safer working conditions, job security, and union recognition.

Kaiser Strikers Say When Therapists Burn Out, Patients Suffer

December 16, 2024 Adriana Webb, Labor Notes. Resist! Health Care, Kaiser Permanente, mental health, Walkouts, Worker Rights and Jobs

I work as a medical social worker in the infectious diseases clinic, working primarily with patients who have been diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. I help my patients navigate Kaiser’s complex health care system, get access to needed resources, and figure out how they can afford a life-sustaining medication that often costs thousands of dollars per month. I see firsthand how Kaiser’s mental health system is failing these patients. It’s nearly impossible for them to get access to timely mental health care, and because Kaiser treats its therapists like assembly-line factory workers, so many therapists get burned out and leave.

Railroads And Unions Divide And Scramble

December 15, 2024 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. Educate! Contract Negotiations, Railroads, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

As the Trump administration prepares to take power, the nation’s freight railroad companies are at the bargaining table with rail craft unions representing 115,000 freight workers who move essential goods across the country. Already the bargaining looks very different from the last round of negotiations, which finished in 2022. For the first time since 1963, multiple railroads have gone rogue, breaking with the employer association in which they typically present a united front. Under the Railway Labor Act, the Trump administration can affect both bargaining and the federal rules under which the railroads operate.

The Big Union Contract Fights Coming In 2025

December 14, 2024 Joe DeManuelle-Hall and Keith Brower Brown, Labor Notes. Resist! Contract Negotiations, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In some of the most exciting fights of 2024, strikers shut down ports on the East Coast and backed up plane orders on the West. The coming year is full of expiring contracts that could keep the strike wave rolling. The list includes some big contracts lined up so unions can bargain and possibly strike together. California teachers in dozens of districts covering tens of thousands of educators have lined up their contracts to expire in June. These include unions in Los Angeles (35,000), San Diego (7,000), San Francisco (6,500), and Oakland (3,000). On the East Coast, another major contract, for 14,000 Philadelphia teachers, expires August 31.

Corporate Fearmongering Over Fast Food Wage Hike Aged Like Cold Fries

December 14, 2024 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Fast Food, Propaganda, Wages, Worker Rights and Jobs

In September 2023, California passed a law requiring fast food restaurants with more than 60 locations nationwide to pay workers a minimum of $20 an hour, affecting more than 700,000 people working in the state’s fast food industry. Readers will be unsurprised to hear that corporate media told us that this would devastate the industry. As Conor Smyth reported for FAIR (1/19/24) before the law went into effect, outlets like USA Today (12/26/23) and CBS (12/27/23) were telling us that, due to efforts to help those darn workers, going to McDonald’s or Chipotle was going to cost you more, and also force joblessness. This past April, Good Morning America (4/29/24) doubled down with a piece about the “stark realities” and “burdens” restaurants would now face due to the law.

Poultry Bosses Benefit From Trump’s Threats

December 12, 2024 Magaly Licolli, Labor Notes. Educate! Donald Trump, Intimidation, Poultry Plant, Worker Rights and Jobs

Even before he takes office, the Trump victory has given more power to poultry corporations. They’re using the political environment to intimidate workers. I’ve been organizing with poultry processing workers in Arkansas for 10 years, and I see a high risk that the (already awful) working conditions will get worse. In some small plants, fewer than half the workers are documented. More than half are hired through a contractor who brings in undocumented people. They don’t get the same benefits, like holidays and overtime pay, and they’re paid less while enduring the same risks.

German VW Workers Strike To Save Their Jobs

December 12, 2024 Martha Grevatt, Workers World. Resist! Auto Workers, Europe, Germany, Strikes, Victory, Volkswagen, Worker Rights and Jobs

Over 100,000 autoworkers struck nine Volkswagen plants in Germany on Dec. 2. The primary issues are VW’s plans to close three German plants and cut workers’ pay. The plant closings would be the first in the company’s 87-year history. VW’s previous contract with IG Metall, the union representing German autoworkers, did not allow plant closures or job cuts, and workers’ wages were higher than most factory workers in Germany. But the contract, which expired in December, prevented workers from striking. The strikes, called by IG Metall, each lasted two hours. About 20,000 workers gathered inside and outside VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, where its largest German plant is also located, on Dec. 5.

India: Farmers Intensify Mobilization Despite Government Crackdown

December 11, 2024 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. Resist! Farmers, India, Mass Action, Narendra Modi, Worker Rights and Jobs

Scores of women held candlelight vigils in support of over a hundred farmer leaders arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police in India on Tuesday, December 10. The protesting women warned authorities against intimidating the families of the farmers and demanded the immediate release of all those detained. The vigils took place in villages near New Delhi, where farmers have been agitating for months. Their demands include proper compensation for land acquired for the development of large townships, the return of 10% of developed lands to those affected, and adequate rehabilitation for families who have lost their only source of income under the Land Acquisition Act of 2013.

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