Worker Rights and Jobs

October 1: Nationwide Rallies To Save The Postal Service

September 18, 2024 Miriam Brockman, Labor Notes. Resist! Postal Service, Unions, USPS, Worker Rights and Jobs

The Postal Workers (APWU) will hold a national day of action on October 1, with rallies all across the country for better staffing and better service, a better contract that ends the two-tier wage system, and the right to speak to the board that governs the postal service. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s plan to “modernize” the Postal Service consists of condensing it. In the name of saving money, he is pushing to consolidate mail processing plants into fewer, bigger, more automated ones—which means cutting hundreds of jobs each time and slowing down the mail, especially for rural customers. The state of Wyoming will have no mail plants left at all, so if you mail a letter across town in Cheyenne, it will have to travel all the way to Denver and back.

Low-Wage Corporations Fleece Their Workers To Massively Inflate CEO Pay

September 18, 2024 Sarah Anderson, In These Times. Educate! CEO Pay, Class Struggle, Finance and the Economy, Wages, Worker Rights and Jobs

Most people believe in fair pay for honest work. So why aren’t low-wage workers better paid? After 30 years of research, I can tell you that it’s not because employers don’t have the cash — it’s because profitable corporations spend that money on their stock prices and CEOs instead. Lowe’s, for example, spent $43 billion buying back its own stock over the past five years. With that sum, the chain could have given each of its 285,000 employees a $30,000 bonus every year. Instead, half of Lowe’s workers make less than $33,000. Meanwhile, CEO Marvin Ellison raked in $18 million in 2023. The company also plowed nearly five times as much cash into buybacks as it invested in long-term capital expenditures like store improvements and technology upgrades over the past five years.

States Are Pushing Back With Anti-Labor Laws As Union Popularity Grows

September 17, 2024 Casey Quinlan, Portside. Educate! Anti-worker laws, Right wing politics, State Legislatures, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Growing union organizing across the country has triggered an anti-labor legislative response in some states, but cities and counties are increasingly pushing back, a new report found. The report, released this month by the New York University Wagner Labor Initiative and Local Progress Impact Lab, a group for local elected officials focused on economic and racial justice issues, cites examples of localities all over the U.S. using commissions to document working conditions, creating roles for protecting workers in the heat and educating workers on their labor rights. In the face of increased worker organizing and Americans’ higher approval of labor unions in the past few year (hitting levels not seen since the 1960s), many states have introduced bills aimed at stopping payroll deduction for union dues and punishing employers that voluntarily recognize a union through the card check process.

Rail Crew, Environmental Justice Organizations Win Clean Air Rule

September 17, 2024 UE Union. Organize! Air, Environment, Green Jobs, Railroads, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Rail crew drivers from UE Local 1077 joined environmental justice organizations in persuading the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) board to pass a life-saving regulation for rail yards in the Inland Empire, Los Angeles County, and Orange County. In response to overwhelming public support, including a letter signed by the UE local and its allies, the rule passed unanimously at the board’s meeting in August. Rule 2306 will limit toxic emissions from the 25 rail yards in operation and any new rail yards built in the region. According to SCAQMD, “The rule is expected to reduce Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) emissions associated with freight rail yards by about 10.5 tons per day between 2027 to 2050.”

New York Amazon Delivery Drivers Join The Teamsters In Surge Of Momentum

September 17, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Resist! Amazon, New York (NY), Teamsters, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Hundreds of Amazon drivers at a delivery station in Queens, New York, marched on their bosses today to announce they are joining the Teamsters. They are demanding the logistics giant recognize their union and negotiate a contract. “To march today and walk in there with everyone behind us, all of us standing together as a union, it was so amazing,” said Latrice Shadae Johnson, who earns $20 an hour delivering packages for Amazon, where she has worked as a driver since last November. What about Amazon’s managers? “They weren’t expecting it at all,” she said. “So when we walked in, they ran scared into a little hole, like a little corner that they could go around and they couldn’t be seen in. But we ran into the hole too!

Dallas Black Dancers Fight For Their Union

September 16, 2024 Rosemary Curts, Labor Notes. Resist! Dallas, Performing Arts, Texas, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Leave it to performing arts unions to make a picket line that grabs attention. The rally outside Dallas Black Dance Theatre included a drummer, line dancing, and spontaneous performances from the unionized dancers. The August 17 picket drew 200 people supporting the entire 10-member primary dance company, who were fired less than three months after they voted to unionize under the American Guild of Musical Artists. Hours before the dancers’ termination, DBDT called auditions for August 17 for scab dancers. Immediately, AGMA issued a “do not work” order for the auditions, something that is reserved for the most egregious cases.

Boar’s Head Plant Shuts Down

September 15, 2024 Edward Carver, Portside. Educate! Boar's Head, Food Industry, health, Unions, Virginia, Worker Rights and Jobs

About 500 workers lost their current jobs when Boar's Head on Friday announced the closure of the Virginia meatpacking plant behind a deadly listeria outbreak. A chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, which represents the workers, said in a statement that the closure was "especially unfortunate" given that the workforce was not to blame for the outbreak, which killed at least nine people nationwide. The UFCW announced that it had reached a deal with the company to allow the workers to transfer to another Boar's Head facility or receive a severance package "above and beyond" what's required by law. "Thankfully these workers have a union they can count on to always have their backs," the union statement said.

AT&T Southeast Strike Nears One Month

September 15, 2024 Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes. Resist! AT&T, California, Nevada, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Seventeen thousand AT&T workers in the Southeast have been on strike since August 16. They may be joined soon by another 8,500 workers at AT&T in California and Nevada. Workers in nine Southeast states walked out on an unfair labor practice strike four weeks ago over accusations the telecom giant has been bargaining in bad faith, including engaging in surface bargaining, not sending representatives with real authority to the table, and reneging on commitments to bargain to lower health care costs. Their contract expired August 3. “They got people at the table who can’t make the decisions—they’re just there,” said Clarence Adams, a wire technician with Communications Workers Local 3611 outside Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Baristas Who Took Over Their Café

September 15, 2024 Osita Nwanevu, In These Times. Create! Baltimore, Cooperatives, New Economy, Worker Rights and Jobs

In July 2023, early morning visitors to Baltimore’s Common Ground coffee shop found a sign taped to the door⁠. With a thank you to the Hampden community that had sustained it for 25 years, owner Michael Krupp announced the shop would be ceasing operations “effective immediately.” Common Ground employees released a statement saying they had only been notified themselves the previous afternoon and, notably, had been a few months into forming a union. According to Common Ground barista Nic Koski, the effort was sparked by “general workplace concerns in terms of people wanting more fair, equitable wages, especially between in front of house and back of house, and better treatment — wanting to look into health care and benefits.”

Trade Unions Find Their Place In Global Peace Efforts At ManiFiesta 2024

September 14, 2024 Ana Vracar, People's Dispatch. Organize! European Central Bank, Global South, Manifiesta 2024, Unions, United Auto Workers (UAW), Worker Rights and Jobs

At ManiFiesta 2024, the trade union square was buzzing with activity for two full days. Belgian labor activists preparing for a demonstration on September 16 to protest job cuts at Audi’s Brussels factory shared the space with union members from across Europe—Dutch, Italian, German, and French activists all exchanging struggles and strategies. Under the tents, the General Federation of Belgian Labour (ABVV-FGTB) and the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (ACV-CSC), alongside the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), discussed campaigns to defend workers’ rights.

How Liberal Elites Fail To Understand Economic Anxiety

September 13, 2024 Taki Manolakos, Portside. Educate! Class Struggle, Debt, Economic insecurity, Finance and the Economy, Liberal class, Worker Rights and Jobs

There is an ideological tendency among some liberal economists today that wants us to believe that Bidenomics has been the best thing since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. A key advocate of this belief is economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. On September 7th, 2023, Krugman published an article titled “I’m OK, But Things Are Terrible” in which he claimed there is a disconnect between actual economic conditions and perceptions about the economy: “[t]he strange thing is that these bad ratings are persisting even as the economy, by any normal measure, has been doing extremely well.” Krugman and others who are fans of Bidenomics find it odd that when workers are asked about “the economy” their views are generally negative.

Can A National Strike Save A Closed Plant?

September 12, 2024 Sarah Lazare, In These Times. Resist! Illinois, Stellantis, Strikes, Unions, United Auto Workers (UAW), Worker Rights and Jobs

Dawn Simms has been out of work for a year and a half. The Stellantis auto plant where she, her father and grandfather worked most of their adult years now sits idle, ringed with tall grass and weeds. Almost all of the members of her union, United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 1268, have been laid off, too, and the effects have rippled through the northern Illinois town of Belvidere, where restaurants have closed and business at others has slowed, as the need at food pantries has increased. It’s a familiar Rust Belt story, with a twist. Sitting in the union hall, a five minute drive from the shuttered plant, Simms does not talk like someone resigned to the loss of her livelihood or her home town’s vibrancy.

The People Versus The Billionaires

September 11, 2024 Betsey Piette, Workers' World. Resist! Chinatown, Class Struggle, Gentrification, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Stadium, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Several thousand people turned out for the Save Chinatown Coalition rally on Sept. 7 to protest the Philadelphia 76ers’ proposal to build a new $1.55 billion arena near Chinatown called “76 Place.” While the National Basketball Association team’s billionaire owners repeatedly say a new arena at 10th and Market streets would provide “economic opportunity for surrounding areas,” community residents, who have been fighting this proposal for over two years, argue that it would be an “existential threat” to this historic Philadelphia neighborhood. The impact studies commissioned by the city, released in late August, support the residents’ arguments.

‘Hard No’: Boeing Workers React To Tentative Agreement

September 11, 2024 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. Resist! Boeing, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

With their contract expiring at midnight on Thursday, the Machinists union at the aircraft giant Boeing announced a tentative contract agreement September 8. It was a shock to many union members. “Insulting,” “Joke of a contract,” and “Hard no” were some of the more polite reactions registered on X in response to the proposal, which would raise wages 25 percent over the four-year life of the deal, but eliminate an annual bonus of 3 to 6 percent of wages. The 32,000 members of Machinists (IAM) District 751 in Washington and District W24 in Gresham, Oregon, will vote in person September 12 on the deal. A walkout requires a majority vote to reject the agreement plus two-thirds support for a strike.

ManiFiesta 2024 Brings New Energy To Activists And Movements

September 9, 2024 Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch. Organize! Belgium, Europe, Israel, Manifiesta, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Solidarity, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Over 15,000 people gathered in Ostend, Belgium, for ManiFiesta 2024, a two-day event of activism and solidarity. Inspired by speeches from global activists and union leaders, attendees left with a renewed drive to pursue mobilizations in different parts of Europe. Speaking at the central event of ManiFiesta, Raoul Hedebouw, president of the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB), set the tone by addressing growing inequalities and attacks on workers’ rights in Belgium, announcing a response from the party. A significant part of the event was also devoted to building solidarity with Palestine, with speakers such as Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) and climate justice activist Anuna De Wever Van Der Heyden emphasizing the importance of international support for Palestinian liberation.

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