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Worker Rights and Jobs

Struggle To Save Chinatown From Arena Moves To City Council

November 19, 2024 Marta Guttenberg, Workers World. , , , , ,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - A special session of the Philadelphia City Council was held Nov. 12 for council members to question representatives of 76DevCorp about their master plan and Community Benefits Agreement for a $1.5 billion basketball arena called “76 Place” they want to build adjacent to Philadelphia’s historic Chinatown. With Mayor Cherelle Parker being an enthusiastic proponent of the arena plan, it was not surprising that her staff members were on hand to help the owners’ representatives answer questions or that the event was planned without input from communities that will be most impacted.

University Of South Florida Workers Lose Union And Rights

November 18, 2024 Simon Rowe, Fight Back! News. , , , , , ,
Tampa, Florida – On October 2, 355 University of South Florida (USF) employees discovered they would no longer be working for the state of Florida. Instead, beginning on December 1, custodial, groundskeeping and maintenance workers have a choice to work for a private dining and facilities contractor, Compass Group, or else find another job. In 2023, Senate Bill 256 passed in the state of Florida. SB 256 is among the most anti-union labor laws in the country and effectively decertifies any unionized bargaining unit in the public sector that does not meet a bar of at least 60% dues-paying membership.

Farmworkers Are Organizing To Resist Trump’s Attacks On Immigrants

November 18, 2024 Derek Seidman, Truthout. , , , ,
Donald Trump rode to reelection on a campaign packed with racist rhetoric that promised mass deportations of immigrants. So far, Trump has appointed anti-immigrant extremists like Stephen Miller, Thomas Homan and Kristi Noem to top positions in his administration. The new Trump regime threatens millions of immigrant workers in the U.S., including farmworkers, many of whom are undocumented. Beyond mass deportations and workplace raids, there’s the prospect of regulatory rollbacks around heat and pesticide protections and the ramping up of hyper-exploitative guestworker programs like the H2A program.

Letter Carriers Are Organizing Against An Insulting 1.3 Percent Raise

November 16, 2024 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. , , ,
A wave of anger is cresting at post offices across the country. Letter carriers are looking at the big raises that other union members have won—38 percent over four years at Boeing, 62 percent in six years at the East Coast ports, $7.50 in five years at UPS. They’re comparing those gains to the tentative agreement their president handed them in October: 1.3 percent a year for three years. “It doesn’t account for everything we went through with Covid,” said Saqia Talbert, a letter carrier in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “We were massively understaffed, and we were working 70 to 80 hours a week, every week, for two years straight.”

Barnes & Noble Workers Rally; Joined By Other Bookstore Workers

November 16, 2024 RWDSU, Portside. , , , ,
New York, NY – Workers at Barnes & Noble unionized stores in New York City organized with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), rallied with fellow New York City unionized bookstore workers including workers from McNally Jackson represented by RWDSU Local 1102, the Strand in Union Square who are members of UAW 2179, and Barnes & Noble workers from Hadley, Massachusetts, who are members of UFCW 1459, to demand the company reach a contract by the end of 2024. As the holiday shopping season gets underway, workers were joined by unionized bookstore workers to raise industry standards for all.

Implications Of A Second Trump Term For Working Class And Oppressed

November 15, 2024 Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report. , , , , ,
In the immediate aftermath of the media calling the elections in favor of the Trump-Vance ticket, African Americans in various states across the U.S. received text messages ordering them to report to plantations to resume the slave labor which was the bulwark of colonial and antebellum periods of North American history. This particular attempt at intimidation was chosen for obvious reasons. In the U.S., it would take a Civil War between 1861 and 1865 to destroy the structural basis for African enslavement. Later at the conclusion of 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified nearly three years after the Emancipation Proclamation issued by then-President Abraham Lincoln.

Canadian Longshore Workers Forced Into Binding Arbitration

November 13, 2024 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. , , , , , ,
“The government is sending a dangerous message: employers can bypass meaningful negotiations, lock out their workers, and wait for political intervention to secure a more favorable deal,” said the Canadian Labour Congress in a statement on the government’s intervention into the port disputes.

Union-Busting New York City Restaurant Faces Day In Court

November 12, 2024 Noah Kenner, Left Voice. , , , ,
Workers at Lodi, the pricey Italian restaurant in Rockefeller Plaza, are continuing their struggle to gain recognition as part of the Restaurant Workers Union. In fall 2022, workers began organizing, leading to an overwhelming 75 percent of the workers signing union cards. In January 2023, organizers went public with a letter to management stating their demands. Their demands look to improve conditions for all workers at Lodi and safeguard their livelihoods. Workers are demanding wage increases to account for past inflation and cost-of-living-adjustments to protect them in the future.

The Right Believes It Has Supreme Court Votes To Overturn Labor Law

November 12, 2024 Shaun Richman, In These Times. , , , ,
The foundational 1935 labor law protecting workers is unconstitutional, according to major corporations and right-wing zealots who believe they have enough votes on the Supreme Court to overturn it. In the latest sign that anti-union forces will doggedly press the matter, a federal judge for the Northern District of Texas enjoined the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from processing any allegations of employer violations of workers’ rights. The National Review hailed the decision as ​“A Welcome Blow to the NLRB.” This is after Elon Musk’s SpaceX won a similar injunction against the NLRB before the Western District of Texas in July.

A Review Of Key 2024 Ballot Measures

November 11, 2024 Emma Cohn and Jennifer Sherer, Economic Policy Institute. , , , , , , ,
In this year’s election, voters given the opportunity to weigh in directly on questions of economic justice showed policy preferences far more progressive than those reflected in many national and state election outcomes. Across the country, voters seized opportunities to approve state or local ballot measures increasing the minimum wage, expanding paid leave, strengthening workers’ rights to unionize, preserving public education, and protecting access to abortion. These ballot measure outcomes reflect a clear ongoing trend of strong voter support for policies that prioritize worker, racial, and gender justice—and illustrate how state and local governments can continue to play important roles in enacting such policies.

Labor Movement Must Unite Working Class

November 10, 2024 UE Officers, Portside. , , , ,
For over half of a century, working people in the U.S. have seen stagnating wages, worsening working conditions, the loss of good jobs, and constant increases in the cost of living. This is the result of corporations’ never-ending thirst to squeeze as many profits out of workers as possible. Throughout this time, both major parties have been complicit in this corporate assault. They have maintained their power, and a corrupt two-party system, by dividing the working class along lines of race, gender, and education. Frustration with the Democrats and their unwillingness to confront corporate power or offer real solutions to working people’s economic concerns led many working people to vote for Donald Trump on Tuesday, giving him the margin of victory.

The Cost Of Corporate Profit In US Health Care Reaches $2 Trillion

November 10, 2024 Pete Dolack, ZNetwork. , , , ,
As has long been the case, the U.S. health care system is by far the world’s most expensive while providing the worst results among the world’s advanced capitalist countries. And that expense continues to get larger and more unaffordable. Just how large is the cost of private profit in health care? Almost two trillion dollars! Unbelievable? It certainly seems so. But that is indeed how much more money the people of the United States spent on health care in 2022 than they would otherwise have spent if the U.S. had a single-payer system.

Baltimore Is Setting A National Standard For Diversifying Its Economy

November 8, 2024 Ilana Preuss, Next City. , , , ,
One of the crucial economic lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic is the importance of diversifying local economies, even in America’s largest cities. New York City continues to struggle with an economy too heavily reliant on tourists and commuters; Las Vegas saw its entertainment industry shut down when out-of-state visitors stopped traveling; vacant storefronts are prominently visible in major business districts and on main streets nationwide. Diversifying often implies attracting new industries by luring them from elsewhere – often a zero-sum game, if the industries are simply shifting locations within the United States.

Strikes Shut Down Canada’s Container Ports From East To West Coast

November 6, 2024 Lori Ann LaRocco, CNBC. , , , ,
Key ports on Canada’s West Coast, including its largest container port in Vancouver and the Port of Prince Rupert, were shut down by a labor strike on Monday. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Ship & Dock Foreman Local 514 began striking on Monday morning, stopping containers and cargo immediately. According to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, $800 million in trade flows through West Coast ports every day. Approximately 20% of U.S. trade arrives in the Canadian ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, where strikes broke out after union leadership and industry representatives failed to reach a deal before a cooling-off period expired.

Boeing Machinists End 53-Day Strike With 38 Percent Raise

November 6, 2024 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , ,
Striking Boeing Machinists will start returning to work tomorrow after voting for a new contract with substantial wage increases. The 33,000 Seattle-area Machinists voted 59 percent to accept, just two weeks after two-thirds of them voted to reject a slightly worse contract. Voting was more subdued this time, workers said. “The big difference in this contract is that we're getting a lot of intimidation from our CEO now,” said striker Mylo Lang. He voted no. “We put in a long, hard fight. We achieved a lot,” said Jon Voss, a steward at the Renton factory, where they build the 737. “Boeing does not get to be the bully that they have been for the past 25 years.”
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