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Worker Rights and Jobs

President Trump’s First 24 Hours

January 22, 2025 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , ,
On Monday, January 20, as thousands were taking to the streets to protest Donald Trump’s inauguration, Trump himself signed a barrage of executive orders with broad implications. These orders were largely an attempt to reverse many of the moves of the Biden administration, in particular Biden’s most progressive policies on immigration, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and efforts to combat climate change. The US government is the largest employer in the country. Some of Trump’s executive orders followed through on the right-wing promise to attack the federal work force, as mentioned in both the 2024 Republican Party platform, which pledges to “fire corrupt employees” and the infamous Project 2025.

Thousands Of Resident Physicians In Philadelphia Voted To Unionize

January 22, 2025 Aubrey Whelan, Portside. , , , , ,
Eight in 10 doctors-in-training in Philadelphia are now represented by unions, following a wave of labor organizing across major health systems in the region. Doctors at three Philadelphia health systems and Delaware's largest health provider voted to join the Committee of Interns and Residents, a division of the Service Employees International Union. The move follows a national trend of physicians unionizing around the country, as doctors increasingly look for solutions to burnout in a field now dominated by large health system employers.

How Labor Can Fight Against Trump’s Mass Deportation Agenda

January 20, 2025 Natascha Elena Uhlmann and Sarah Lazare, Labor Notes. , , ,
This is a frightening time for immigrant workers. President-elect Donald Trump ran on the slogan “mass deportations now,” and has appointed a team of anti-immigrant hardliners. The leadership of the Democratic Party has lurched to the right on this issue, adopting Trump’s rhetoric about “securing the border,” and embracing core Republican policies. A bill that would target undocumented people for deportations if they are merely accused—not convicted—of nonviolent crimes like shoplifting passed in the House with bipartisan support. It’s moving forward in the Senate where only eight Democrats opposed its advance.

Amid Layoffs, Cargill’s Owners Given $2B In Stock Buybacks/Dividends

January 19, 2025 Brooks Johnson, Portside. , , ,
As Cargill started laying off thousands of employees last month, the company’s owners made $2 billion from stock buybacks and one-time dividends, according to Fitch Ratings. The Minnetonka-based agribusiness announced in December it would lay off 5% of its global workforce, or about 8,000 people, as part of a broader restructuring to counter declining profits. About 475 headquarters jobs were eliminated in Minnesota. At the same time, the private company’s owners — almost entirely members of the billionaire Cargill-MacMillan family — received $500 million from a “special” dividend and a rare $1.5 billion share repurchase completed in December, according to a Fitch Ratings report issued this week.

Essential Health Workers Hold Solidarity Picket On Day 38 Of Strike

January 18, 2025 Fight Back! News. , , , ,
Duluth, MN – At 4 p.m. on a blustery January 15 in Duluth, workers from Essentia Health-Deer River pulled up in a bus in front of the Essentia Health-Duluth hospital and began a solidarity picket in front of the main entrance to the hospital. The Deer River Essentia workers are represented by the Service Employees International Union, Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa (SEIU HCMNIA). January 15 marked their 38th day of an open-ended strike at their hospital and nursing home. The healthcare workers are striking over pay, saying that cost of living has gone up and they need real raises to keep paying the bills.

Swedish Dockworkers Vote To Block Military Shipments For Israel

January 16, 2025 Katy Fox-Hodess and Rafeef Ziadah, Labor Notes. , , , , , , ,
In a resounding display of international solidarity, members of the Swedish Dockworkers Union (SDU) voted by 68 percent in December to block the handling of military shipments to and from Israel. The Swedish government continues to trade arms with Israel. Exports are relatively small, totaling $4.5 million in 2023, but imports are much more significant: the Swedish defence forces have signed contracts to import more than $200 million in arms from Israel, including from two of Israel’s largest arms companies, Elbit and Rafael—both implicated in supplying weaponry used in Gaza.

The ‘Uber Model’ Comes For Nursing

January 15, 2025 Aastha Uprety, Inequality.org. , , ,
The “gig” model of labor popularized by Uber has found a new sector to upend: health care. On-demand nursing companies likeCareRev, Clipboard Health, ShiftKey, and ShiftMed promise understaffed hospitals more control and overworked nurses more flexibility. But this labor model and the companies that push it endanger workers and patients alike. In a recently published brief for the Roosevelt Institute, Groundwork Collaborative Fellow Katie J. Wells and Funda Ustek Spilda, senior lecturer at King’s College London, dig into the harms and pitfalls of what is being called “Uber for nursing.”

Nurses And Doctors Are On Strike At Eight Oregon Hospitals

January 15, 2025 Kari Thompson, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
Declaring that understaffing had them “running on empty,” 5,000 nurses, doctors, midwives, and nurse practitioners walked off the job January 10 in an open-ended strike at Providence Health and Services, the dominant hospital chain in the Pacific Northwest. The strikers work at eight hospitals plus women’s health clinics across Oregon. They’re demanding proper staffing, affordable health insurance, and competitive pay that can attract and retain seasoned workers. “I’ve been with Providence for over 30 years, and I have seen what’s changed,” said medical-surgical nurse Kim Martin at Providence Portland Medical Center.

New York City Doctors Are Ready To Strike

January 14, 2025 Juan Cruz Ferre, Left Voice. , , , ,
Nearly 1000 doctors in NYC Health and Hospitals (H+H) are ready to go on strike. They may work at public (H+H) hospitals, but their employers are corporate health systems, such as Mount Sinai, NYU, and PAGNY. The doctors — who are organized with the Doctors Council, an SEIU affiliate (DC-SEIU) — are denouncing chronic understaffing. They understand this problem to be the result of uncompetitive contracts, both in terms of salary and benefits. Since the announcement on January 2, Mayor Eric Adams interceded to ask for a 60-day “cooling-off” period, trying to avert the work stoppage, and negotiations are still underway.

Atlantic Theater Company Workers Go On Strike

January 13, 2025 Julien Topelberg, Left Voice. , , , , ,
On Sunday, January 12, Atlantic Theater Company (ATC) workers in New York City announced they are going on strike after long and arduous negotiations have not produced a collective bargaining agreement worth signing. This bargaining unit consists of carpenters, electricians, painters, audio and video technicians, hairdressers, makeup artists, wardrobe workers, and others. The show quite literally cannot go on without them. ATC workers voted 129-1 in favor of unionizing with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) in February 2024, becoming the first major off-broadway theater to do so.

Arab Street Corner Bakery Challenges Inequality with Cooperation

January 12, 2025 Mari Nishitani, Grassroots Economic Organizing. , , , , , , ,
Reem’s California is an Arab bakery shop in San Francisco. Proudly embracing the slogan “Arab Street Food made with California Love,” this restaurant serves traditional Arab bread infused with fresh, locally sourced ingredients from California. As soon as you step in, you will be welcomed by a vibrant mural titled “Seeds of Love” which includes a quote by Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan: “If it were in my hands, if I were able to flip this world, if I possessed the ability to fill this world with seeds of love.” This space is filled with the inviting aroma of freshly baked bread, a scent infused with the love, care, and mutual support of Palestinian Americans and local community organizers.

Amazon Extracts Profit From The Suffering Of Its Workers

January 9, 2025 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , ,
The week before Christmas, Amazon workers at facilities across the US, organized by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, took on the world’s most profitable third party logistics corporation by walking off the job by the hundreds. Although this pre-holiday strike represented a minority of the Amazon workforce, it represented the largest strike against Amazon in US history. Amazon’s profits keep breaking records, even within the context of a logistics industry that as a whole is experiencing a difficult freight market due to an oversupply of truck capacity.

Members In Motion Changed The Game In Daimler Contract Campaign

January 9, 2025 Chris Brooks, Jonah Furman, and Mike Morrison, Labor Notes. , , , , , ,
Inspired by the success of the Big 3 strike, United Auto Workers members at Daimler Truck North America ran a very different kind of contract campaign this year than we ever had before. The 7,300 members at DTNA’s four North Carolina plants and parts distribution centers in Atlanta and Memphis were very active, informed, and involved in the bargaining process. This is not how the union had done things in the past. Here’s what we did differently, and some ideas on how to keep members in the loop and in motion for an effective contract campaign.

Why More And More Journalists Are Launching Worker-Owned Outlets

January 9, 2025 Angela Fu, Poynter. , , , , ,
When staff at the Long Beach Post and Long Beach Business Journal decided to unionize in March, they were almost immediately hit with layoffs. The paper’s parent company, a nonprofit called the Long Beach Journalism Initiative, laid off nine of the 14 staff involved with the union drive just four days after their unionization attempt. Undeterred, those nine workers — along with three others who had gone on strike in protest — decided to start their own publication: a worker-owned cooperative called the Long Beach Watchdog. “We wanted to build this as a place that respected workers, respected the labor that they do, and allowed everyone a seat at the table and a voice in how the business is run,” said Dennis Dean

Philadelphia’s Doctors-In-Training Are Unionizing By The Thousands

January 8, 2025 Juan Cruz Ferre and Jason Koslowski, Left Voice. , , , ,
I think pretty universally in medical training, there’s an under-appreciation and under-compensation of medical residents. A lot of it comes down to pay, because that’s so fundamental, but other benefits, like time off and parental leave, are certainly a major concern for people, and moonlighting and overtime and things like that generally are under-compensated as well. At my hospital specifically, there are concerns about access to appropriate equipment and basic medical supplies. So, a lot of this becomes very much like logistical issues.
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