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Worker Rights and Jobs

Autoworkers Face Massive Assault On Their Livelihoods

November 6, 2024 Martha Grevatt, Workers World. , , , ,
The U.S. economy only added 12,000 jobs in the month of October, a big drop from the 200,000 average monthly job gains previously in 2024 and just one-tenth of the predicted 120,000 added jobs for September. But whether October’s overall figures are a trend or a blip, workers in the auto industry are facing a massive crisis of job insecurity. Stellantis, formed by the 2021 merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and France’s PSA Peugeot, has put thousands of workers on indefinite or permanent layoff around the Midwest. Metro Detroit is particularly hard hit.

Striking Hotel Workers Fight BlackRock

November 3, 2024 Will Hodgkinson, Workers World. , , , , , ,
Boston, Massachusetts - For almost two months, UNITE HERE! Local 26 hotel workers have been striking to demand the living wages and expanded benefits that management has denied them for years. The strike wave began on Sept. l when over 1,000 Boston and Greenwich, Connecticut, hotel workers walked off the job. Rolling strikes in nine other cities — including Baltimore, Honolulu and San Francisco — have followed. UNITE HERE! demands include: increased wages to offset rampant inflation, fair staffing schedules and an end to the staffing cuts made during the first wave of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Over 5,000 hotel workers have gone on strike across the U.S since September.

Consolidation Threatens To Rip ‘Service’ Out Of Postal Service

October 31, 2024 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. , , ,
Workers are battling an overhaul of the U.S. Postal Service that would cost thousands of jobs and slow the mail for half the country. In the name of efficiency, a letter mailed within Cheyenne, Wyoming, would travel to Denver and back. And if you miss a package, your local post office would no longer have it. It might be 45 minutes away. In March, Buffalo became the first place to fend off the closure of its mail processing plant, in a team effort by Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 3 and Postal Workers (APWU) Local 374. The unions turned out 300 people to picket in front of the plant, and 700 to pack a public hearing, said Branch 3 President David Grosskopf. They deluged USPS with feedback in its online survey.

Clark Atlanta University Launches New Black Southern Labor Institute

October 31, 2024 Mirtha Donastorg, Portside. , , ,
Clark Atlanta University has launched a new institute focused on labor issues and training a new generation of leaders to help Black Southern organizing and collective bargaining efforts. Jobs With Justice, a nonprofit network of labor unions, community groups and activists, is partnering with Clark Atlanta on the new Institute for the Advancement of Black Strategists, which was announced in late September. Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice, said policies against organized labor disproportionately impact Black workers because more than half of Black Americans live in the South.

Portland Grocery Workers Strike Together

October 30, 2024 Paul Kirk-Davidoff, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
Over Labor Day weekend, 5,500 grocery workers in Portland, Oregon, went on strike across 38 stores—and two unions. A thousand workers at 10 New Seasons Markets, members of an independent union seeking a first contract, struck for one day on September 1, in their first union-wide strike. And 4,500 members of Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555 walked out of 28 Fred Meyer supermarket-department stores August 28 on a seven-day strike. This month they reached and ratified a tentative agreement. Though the two unions did not coordinate their strike plans—both chose Labor Day because it’s a big grocery shopping weekend—workers at New Seasons donated leftover food from their one-day strike to Fred Meyer picket lines

Waffle House Workers, At The Front Lines Of Disasters, Demand More

October 30, 2024 Kim Kelly, In These Times. , , , , ,
Disaster preparedness is as much a part of the Waffle House brand as its all-day breakfast offerings. The 24-hour diner chain — home of a utilitarian menu of generously smothered, covered, scattered and peppered hash browns, among other quick-serve favorites — is omnipresent throughout the Midwest and Southeast. Its iconic butter-yellow letters have welcomed many a weary traveler since its founding in 1955, and its reputation for reliability is far more than a marketing tactic. In 2011, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator Craig Fugate created the ​“Waffle House Index” — a metric for measuring the severity of an oncoming storm.

University Medical Center Nurses Hold A One-Day Strike For Decent Contract

October 28, 2024 Fight Back! News. , , , , ,
New Orleans, LA – On October 25, nurses at University Medical Center gathered on the corner of Canal and Galvez Streets for a one-day strike to demand safe staffing ratios, workplace safety protections, higher pay and improved benefits. The strike began at 7 a.m. on Friday, when nurses joined the picket line outside the hospital. They were joined by dozens of community members, chanting loudly and proudly as they marched. Chants included “What do we want? A contract! When do we want it? Now!” Some signs read “If nurses are outside, there’s something wrong inside.” The crowd was filled with energy, with music blasting and people dancing together.

Microsoft Fires Employees Over Gaza Vigil; Tech Giants Face Scrutiny

October 27, 2024 Palestine Chronicle. , , , , , , ,
Microsoft recently fired two employees who organized a vigil at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, to remember Palestinians killed amid Israel’s ongoing genocide on Gaza, the Associated Press reported. According to the employees, they were dismissed over the phone late on Thursday, following a lunchtime gathering they had planned on the company campus. AP reported that “both workers were members of a coalition of employees called ‘No Azure for Apartheid’ that has opposed Microsoft’s sale of its cloud-computing technology to the Israeli government.” Tuesday’s event, however, was reportedly similar to other charitable campaigns organized within the company to aid communities in crisis.

Workers In Greece Mobilize Against Austerity

October 27, 2024 Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
Strikes swept through Greece in the week of October 21 as workers protested austerity measures imposed by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government. Workers demanded wage increases, strengthened collective agreements, and the reversal of public service reforms, especially in healthcare and education. Actions across sectors—including in hospitality, metalwork, transport, logistics, and education—built momentum for the November 20 general strike, anticipated to demonstrate the public’s frustration over deteriorating work and living conditions. Throughout the strikes, workers appealed to the community to support them.

Walmart Warehouse Workers Win First Union In Canada

October 26, 2024 Kari Thompson, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Eight hundred workers near Toronto have won the first Walmart warehouse union in Canada or the U.S. “Honestly I was pretty nervous at first because I didn’t want to lose my job,” said 29-year employee Rodolfo Pilozo, a member of “Team Red,” the organizing committee behind the September victory. The Walmart distribution center is in Mississauga, Ontario, an hour from the western New York border. Workers there began organizing last December to join Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union. Forty percent signed union cards over the summer. Pilozo cited low wages and pressure to work dangerously fast as the main concerns that pushed him and his co-workers to organize.

Chicago Teachers Are Fighting For A Historic Contract

October 26, 2024 Kari Lydersen, In These Times. , , , , ,
In 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), along with thousands of supporters, took to the streets in a historic battle with then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel over his corporate education reform and austerity plans for the city’s public school system. That strike helped define the increasingly popular concept of ​“bargaining for the common good,” an approach ​“where unions make demands that would benefit not just members but the larger communities,” as CTU Vice President Jackson Potter explained two years ago on the tenth anniversary of the walk out. Today, the union is in the midst of another struggle over the future of the country’s third-largest public education system.

Fellow Letter Carriers, Stand Together, Vote No On Sellout Contract!

October 25, 2024 Rob Darakjian, Labor Notes. , , , ,
City letter carriers finally got to see the headlines of the tentative agreement Letter Carriers (NALC) President Brian Renfroe has negotiated—after more than 500 days of working without a contract and being kept completely in the dark about the state of bargaining. In that time, a groundswell of enthusiasm and organizing for “Open Bargaining”—the right to be informed about the real state of negotiations—has swept through the union and became the Build a Fighting NALC movement. More than 40 union branches and a few state associations passed resolutions calling for this democratic right.

‘Not Good Enough’: Striking Machinists Reject New Boeing Offer

October 24, 2024 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , ,
After 40 days on strike, 33,000 Machinists rejected an improved contract offer from Boeing by 64 percent on Wednesday. The offer included a 35 percent wage increase over 4 years. Members of Machinists (IAM) District 751 and District W24 build passenger jets and and freighters, including the 737, 767, and 777. Most work at Boeing’s huge factories at Everett and Renton, Washington. “It’s a little bit better, but it still needs to go further,” said Ky Carlson, who was staffing a picket line at Everett on Tuesday, where she would normally be assembling the 777.

Why My Coworkers And I Unionized Our Architecture Firm

October 21, 2024 Je Siqueira, Jacobin. , , , ,
The first attempt to unionize a privately owned architecture firm since the 1970s started at SHoP Architects in New York City, where I was working at the time. This was part of a wave of nontraditional organizing efforts taking place around 2020 that included tech workers at Kickstarter and Google, baristas at various Starbucks locations, writers at Vice, and partners at Apple stores, just to name a few. During the summer of that same year, while most “nonessential workers” were working remotely under stay-at-home orders, some of us hit the streets of cities all over the country to protest police brutality and the assassinations of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Care Crisis In Central And Eastern Europe At Risk Of Deepening Further

October 21, 2024 Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch. , , , , , ,
The care sector in Central and Eastern Europe is facing a serious crisis, with increasing demands on care services but next to no improvement in care workers’ rights, according to a new report by the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU). The report warns that this situation is leading to high stress, burnout, and problems in workforce retention across the region. Although the need for services such as long-term care (LTC) for the elderly, early childhood care, and support for those needing daily assistance continues to grow, a lack of investment in public care services at the national level persists.
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