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Worker Rights and Jobs

Bridging Political Divides Through Solidarity

August 29, 2024 Katy Habr, Labor Notes. , , ,
How should unions engage with members drawn to right-wing, anti-worker politics and candidates? One union trying to tackle this disconnect is the Communications Workers (CWA). Steve Lawton, former president of CWA Local 1102 in New York (now merged with Local 1101), has been heavily involved with political education through his work as a local leader and in the District 1 political department. In this interview he discusses organizing in a union with many Trump-supporting members, how to talk with members about immigration, and strategies for organizing and building solidarity across political divides.

‘Red For Bread’: Starbucks Workers United Demands A First Contract

August 29, 2024 Martha Grevatt, Workers' World. , , ,
Cleveland, Ohio - Workers at hundreds of unionized Starbucks stores took part in the “Red for Bread” campaign from Aug. 23-26. Members of Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) wore red to send a message to the company that they want their first contract — one that includes worker rights, safe working conditions, a $20-an-hour minimum wage, quality health benefits and much more. Numerous solidarity actions took place outside Starbucks stores across the U.S. Since the unionization campaign began in Buffalo, New York, in August 2021, the number of union stores has grown from zero to nearly 500.

Worker Coops Bring Undocumented Workers Into The Labor Movement

August 28, 2024 Tareq Saghie, Labor Notes. , , , ,
How can immigrants without work authorization avoid being hyper-exploited, and instead find work where they have some autonomy and collective power to raise standards? A movement that has been incubating in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, might offer some answers. Sunset Park boasts one of the highest concentrations of worker cooperatives in the United States. This business model, brought to the neighborhood by the Center for Family Life, guarantees all members standard and legal wages, a voice in their company’s governance, and control over their schedules. Since members are business owners, not employees, they also do not need work authorization.

Workers, Unchecked: The Case For Card Check This Labor Day

August 27, 2024 Hayley Brown and Sylvia Allegretto, Center for Economic and Policy Research. , , , ,
The process of union certification is a critical area of labor rights, acting as a precursor to collective bargaining. One method, card check, simplifies this process by allowing workers to express their desire for union representation through majority sign-up. Because it reduces opportunities for employer interference and expedites union certification, card check has come under significant fire from those who oppose unions. Card check is a quick and efficient way for workers to indicate whether they want to be represented by a union. Workers who desire a union simply sign authorization cards indicating their support.

A Landmark Federal Ruling Against Union-Busting Has Boosted Organizing

August 27, 2024 Gabriel Thompson, Scheer Post. , , ,
Five years ago, after a majority of workers at Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas signed cards to join the Culinary Workers Union, supervisors marched them into a series of mandatory meetings. The company promised employees free health care and new retirement benefits if they voted down the union, and vowed to drag out negotiations if the union won.

Work To Rule And Open Bargaining Back Down Kroger Warehouse Bosses

August 27, 2024 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. , , ,
Teamsters in an Indiana grocery warehouse scored big this year with a contract campaign like never before. They organized in five languages and sported a multilingual union button. They opened up bargaining sessions for any member to come observe—on the peak day, 150 showed up. They even pulled off a daring work-to-rule action the week before bargaining kicked off, to start from a position of strength. The final night, June 30, negotiations came down to the wire, stretching past the midnight contract expiration deadline. Some members were itching to walk.

Nurses End Seven-Day Strike In Chicago

August 27, 2024 Richard Berg, Fight Back! News. , , , , ,
Chicago, Illinois – Working as a nurse in a large university hospital is a hard job. Large numbers of patients roll through. Vulnerable people look for hope, remedy and help. Despite this persistent pressure, hospital administrators ask for quick patient turnover. Supervisors ask overstressed nurses to do the work of housekeepers, food service, technical staff and others, who are often in short supply. Some doctors are nice, while others boss nurses around. This is the case at the University of Illinois Health (UIH) as well as healthcare facilities across the country. One difference is that the nurses at UIH have a labor union and decided to take a stand.

‘Left Behind’ Contract Workers At Con Ed Demand Family-Sustaining Jobs

August 24, 2024 Barbara Russo-Lennon, AMNY. , , ,
Dozens of contracted cleaners and 32BJ SEIU union members rallied outside Con Edison’s Union Square headquarters on Aug. 14 to demand the company nix ties with Nelson Services Systems, a contractor that workers say pays sub-par wages.  Nelson employs all 55 of the workers who rallied. The employees work at Con Ed offices, customer service centers and substations throughout the city — and they all say Nelson has “failed to improve their pay or benefits.” The workers also said they have been “left behind,” because Nelson’s cleaners at the utility’s power plants scored a victory by joining the utility workers union, UWUA, on Aug. 6.

Workplace Safety Is Not A Game

August 24, 2024 United Electrical Workers Education Department, Labor Notes. , , ,
Employer-sponsored “safety games” or “safety contests” may seem benign on the surface, but there’s a deadly motive. Employers are rediscovering an old scheme to con workers into undermining their own job safety. These games are designed to reward employees for not reporting accidents. In one United Electrical Workers (UE) shop, management (without consulting with the union) announced a new safety game. Each month the names of employees are put into a pool for a $100 prize drawing, but only if their department has not reported any accidents. If your department has reported an accident, you’re not eligible. If more than three accidents are reported in the plant, the drawing is not held.

Aligning Our National Organizations With Co-Op Principles

August 20, 2024 Rebecca Kemble, Grassroots Economic Organizing. , , ,
In his 2010 Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) article “What should our movement look like in 2040?,” John McNamara, past president of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC, “the Federation”) and current Co-Director of the Northwest Cooperative Development Center, used the metaphor of building a house. He saw the first four years of the USFWC (2004-2008) as the foundation laid by the cooperation and collaboration amongst three democratic regional formations: the Western Worker Cooperative Conference, the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy and the Midwest Worker Cooperative Conference.

Axios Report Reveals Rampant Forced Labor In Grocery Supply Chains

August 19, 2024 Coalition of Immokalee Workers. , , , , ,
A stunning report in Axios paints a damning picture of widespread farm labor abuse in the US agricultural industry outside the protections of the Fair Food Program. Yet while federal prosecutions of forced labor operations grow more common in agriculture, many massive food corporations like the grocery giant Kroger continue to turn a blind eye to the extreme abuses of some of the most vulnerable workers at the bottom of their opaque supply chains, according to a shocking report, months in the making, by Richard Collings of Axios. Meanwhile, according to the report, the lack of adequate resources for state and federal authorities to protect farmworkers is only making matters worse, and is likely allowing even more widespread exploitation of the agricultural workers who put food on our tables to go undetected.

DHL Workers Crush Corporate Union-Busting, Win Historic Victory

August 19, 2024 Fight Back! News. , , , , , ,
Cincinnati, OH – Workers at DHL’s largest air hub in the United States made history on Monday, August 12. DHL, bowing to months of escalating pressure after a two-year organizing campaign, officially recognized the union formed by over 1300 sort workers at the company’s Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) hub. Now unionized, the sort workers at CVG have joined Teamsters Local 89. James Lamb, a sort worker at CVG and a new member of Local 89, said in a press statement, “DHL has recognized the strength in our unity and the hard work we put in every day. We‘ve fought hard, and we’re proud to be officially recognized as Teamsters.

The Win For EV Workers In The South You Didn’t Hear About

August 17, 2024 Ella Fanger, Portside. , , , , ,
Organized labor is in the midst of a fierce campaign to make inroads at auto manufacturers in the South, most recently at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, where on May 17, 56% of workers voted narrowly against joining the United Auto Workers. But a few months before the unsuccessful vote at Mercedes, workers 100 miles away at an EV bus manufacturing plant in Anniston, Alabama, unionized and won a historic contract. In January 2024, the majority of the around 600 workers at a plant run since 2013 by New Flyer, the largest transit bus manufacturer in North America, signed a union card to join the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA).

Meat Packing Factory: “If We Unite As Workers, We Have The Power”

August 16, 2024 Isabela Escalona, Workday Magazine. , , , ,
Dina Velasquez Escalante is a poultry worker in southwest Minnesota. She spends her workdays inspecting the chicken millions of Americans eat every day. She looks for tumors, stray bones and organs, and removes bile. After six years of hard work and cultivating expertise on almost every position on the line, she’s now in the laboratory testing samples of poultry to ensure the highest quality. As a union steward with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) Local 663 at Butterfield Foods in Butterfield, Minnesota, Escalante is also tasked with ensuring her fellow workers receive fair treatment and safety on the line.

The Farmers Who Can’t Afford Farms

August 14, 2024 Joseph Bullington, In These Times. , , , ,
Running a small farm is complicated enough. For Tessa Parks — who raises cattle and hay with her spouse, Wyatt, on the gentle, farmed-over hills outside Northfield, Minn. — the challenges include bottle-feeding calves, braving bad weather to check on the herd at pasture and dealing with customers at the farmers market. Climate change doesn’t make it easier, as it lends intensity to droughts and storms and increases livestock disease risks. But for Parks, a 28-year-old beginning farmer, the complexities don’t end there. Farming, for her, also means juggling relationships with five different landowners the couple rents a patchwork of hayfields and pasture from.
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