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Worker Rights and Jobs

The Right’s Persecution Of Palestine Supporters Looks Like A New Red Scare

November 28, 2023 Nashwa Bawab, In These Times. , , , , , , , ,
I attended the Janazah and burial of Wadea Al-Fayoume on October 16. In the first weeks of Israel’s assault on Gaza, the six-year old Palestinian American boy, from a suburb of Chicago, was stabbed 26 times by his family’s landlord in a hate crime. The United States is currently awash in rhetoric justifying Muslim and Arab deaths. Joseph Czuba, 71, the landlord charged with killing Wadea and gravely injuring his mother, was on the receiving end of that rhetoric. Czuba was reportedly an avid listener of conservative talk radio. According to Czuba’s wife, he’d grown irate over supposed plans for a ​“national day of jihad,” a mistranslated call for mass protests that was weaponized by rightwing media to cause panic.

Workers Protest And Strike On Global Day Of Action To ‘Make Amazon Pay’

November 26, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , ,
Workers and activists in different parts of the world downed their tools and took to the streets on Friday, November 24, to mark the fourth global day of action to “Make Amazon Pay.” Convened by Progressive International and UNI Global Union, the campaign organized actions across 31 countries to protest the exploitative practices of the tech and commerce giant. The action was held on ‘Black Friday,’ which is considered to be the biggest retail shopping day in the US, with companies announcing major discounts and sales to lure buyers. “Workers know that it doesn’t matter what country you’re in or what your job title is, we are all united in the fight for higher wages, an end to unreasonable quotas, and a voice on the job,” said UNI Global Union’s general secretary Christy Hoffman.

Argentina is Not For Sale: Unions Respond to Privatization

November 25, 2023 Trade Unions for Energy Democracy. , , , , ,
Argentines weary of annual inflation soaring above 140% and a poverty rate that reached 40% have elected right-wing libertarian economist Javier Milei. On Sunday, November 19, 2023, Milei defeated Economy Minister Sergio Massa by a wide margin, 55.7% to 44.3%, winning all but three of the nation’s 24 provinces. He had campaigned on the promise to privatise state-owned enterprises, slash government spending, dollarise the economy, eliminate the Central Bank, and close key ministries, among them health and education. Milei is making the privatisation of the Argentine state-run oil company, YPF, a top priority.  “The first thing to do is to restructure it so that YPF can be “sold in a very favourable way for the Argentinians.”

Wells Fargo Workers At Two Branches Move To Unionize

November 22, 2023 Niket Nishant and Reuters, Portside. , , , , ,
Wells Fargo employees at two of the bank’s branches filed for union elections on Monday, laying the groundwork for potential unionization in an industry that has largely been immune to such labor campaigns. In a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), bankers and tellers at Wells Fargo branches in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Bethel, Alaska declared their intent to join the Communications Workers of America’s Wells Fargo Workers United (WFWU). Labor action in the United States has picked up pace this year, with unions confronting companies across industries like automotive, entertainment and aerospace.

California Faculty Prepare For First Strike In 12 Years

November 22, 2023 Owen Lavine, Labor Notes. , , ,
Faculty at 23 California State University campuses are preparing to strike. They teach nearly half a million students. After 95 percent of voting members authorized a strike on October 30, the 29,000-member California Faculty Association plans to roll out strikes at Cal Poly Pomona December 4, San Francisco State University December 5, Cal State Los Angeles December 6 and Sacramento State University December 7. The CFA reopened four broad sections of their contract in May, demanding a 12 percent salary increase, more manageable workloads, more counselors for students, the right to counsel when approached by campus police, more paid leave, and more lactation rooms and gender neutral bathrooms and changing rooms on campuses.

Ceasefire Now: Workplace Organizing For Palestine

November 18, 2023 Lisa Xu, Labor Notes. , , , ,
On November 15, Labor Notes hosted a Zoom call to hear reports from workers who are organizing to stop an escalating genocide in Palestine. Many are also fighting against the repression of workers who are speaking up for a ceasefire and against Israel’s occupation. We heard speakers from unions in education, health care, construction, and others who have organized their co-workers into action. Registration is open for the Labor Notes conference on April 19-21, 2024, for which we plan to develop programming on the labor movement and Palestine.

How The Railroad Industry Intimidates Employees To Put Speed Before Safety

November 18, 2023 Topher Sanders, Jessica Lussenhop, Dan Schwartz, Danelle Morton and Gabriel Sandoval, Pro Publica. , , ,
Bradley Haynes and his colleagues were the last chance Union Pacific had to stop an unsafe train from leaving one of its railyards. Skilled in spotting hidden dangers, the inspectors in Kansas City, Missouri, wrote up so-called “bad orders” to pull defective cars out of assembled trains and send them for repairs. But on Sept. 18, 2019, the area’s director of maintenance, Andrew Letcher, scolded them for hampering the yard’s ability to move trains on time. “We’re a transportation company, right? We get paid to move freight. We don’t get paid to work on cars,” he said. “The first thing that I’m getting questioned about right now, every day, is why we’re over 200 bad orders."

Tesla Union Pressure Increases In Sweden As Dockworkers Escalate Strike

November 18, 2023 Marie Mannes, Portside. , , , ,
Dockworkers in Sweden pledged on Friday to refuse to offload Tesla (TSLA.O) cars at any of the country's ports as they expanded their industrial action in sympathy with Tesla workers' demands for collective bargaining agreements. Tesla, co-founded by billionaire Elon Musk, does not manufacture in Sweden, but its electric cars are serviced by more than 120 mechanics affiliated with Swedish union IF Metall, which began a strike on Oct. 27. Dockworkers joined the strike by mechanics on Nov. 7, blocking Sweden's four largest ports to Tesla cars. That was expanded to all ports on Friday at 12 a.m. (1100 GMT)

Building Cleaners Rally For Fair Wages And Life-Saving Benefits

November 17, 2023 Bella DeVaan, Inequality.org. , , ,
Just this year, we’ve seen UPS Teamsters secure a historic $30 billion new contract that abolishes tiers and substantially raises wages. We’ve seen the UAW successfully strike for contracts that boost pay, protect benefits, and crystallize the prospect of a green auto industry. Now, building cleaners across the country are next up to negotiate equitable deals and notch new victories for a labor movement confronting an uncertain future. On the line? Their ability to keep living and working in their home cities with ease and dignity. All told, contracts covering more than 134,000 SEIU cleaners nationwide are up for renegotiation over the next year with different SEIU locals, over half of whom belong to 32BJ SEIU locals on the east coast.

New Law Protects Pregnant And Nursing Workers

November 17, 2023 Kari Thompson, Labor Notes. , , ,
Judy approached Chief Steward Amy over lunch one day with big news: she was three months pregnant! Amy congratulated her. Then Judy said, “Amy, I’m a little worried about telling our boss. My doctor said there’s a new law that gives me permission to carry a water bottle at work and ask for extra bathroom breaks, but I know Bob doesn’t like to give any extra breaks. Do you know anything about this law? Can the union help me?” On the other side of the country, Eliana, a department steward, dropped off a meal for her colleague Tisha, who was at home with her eight-week-old newborn.

Starbucks Workers’ Strike On Red Cup Day

November 15, 2023 Jaya Saxena, Eater. , , , ,
Red Cup Day, the day Starbucks releases its collectible holiday cups, is one of the company’s most profitable. But last year, Starbucks Workers United used the occasion to draw attention to its ongoing fight for unionization. The group’s Red Cup Rebellion involved strikes at over 100 stores and was SBWU’s largest coordinated effort to date. This year, SBWU says it’ll be even bigger. On November 16, according to SBWU, thousands of workers will once again walk out of hundreds of Starbucks locations to protest working conditions, including short-staffing and the frequency of promotional days like Red Cup Day.

Another Win For Union And Worker Center Collaborations

November 15, 2023 Isabela Escalona, The Real News Network. , , , ,
In the late summer of 2021, a group of workers from First Avenue, the iconic Minneapolis music venue, were fed up with low pay, last-minute scheduling, lack of parking, and safety concerns, and wanted to implement some of their own ideas in their workplace. Unsure of how to get it done, the workers decided to first contact  Restaurant Opportunities Center of Minnesota (ROC-MN) to learn more about their workplace rights. Fast forward to November 2: Over 200 bartenders, event staff, and other in-house workers across seven venues affiliated with First Avenue marched on the boss and delivered a petition that included the faces and names of over 70% of staff who want to unionize with UNITE HERE Local 17.

IATSE Members Launch Reform Caucus As Hollywood Strikes Wrap

November 12, 2023 Lisa Xu, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
After supporting screenwriters and actors through a months-long double strike, film and television crew workers are finally stepping into the spotlight themselves. Dissatisfied with their union’s leadership and direction, a group of members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) is launching a reform caucus called CREW, or the Caucus of Rank-and-File Entertainment Workers. Their first public event will be a webinar on November 16 on preparing for the 2024 expiration of the main pattern-setting contracts they work under, the Hollywood Basic Agreement (HBA) and Area Standards Agreement (ASA).

A General Strike In 2028 Is A Uniquely Plausible Dream

November 12, 2023 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. , , , ,
The labor movement is a capricious friend — it hands out heartbreak as much as it hands out joy. But every once in a while, it is able to wave a triumphant flag and give us all a glimmer of what its potential could truly be. The recently concluded UAW strike offered just such a moment. It wasn’t just the contract agreements themselves, which were a material success, but also the union’s public call for movement-wide coordination to build the possibility of mass action around the May 1, 2028 expiration of the next auto contracts. ​“We invite unions around the country to align your contract expirations with our own so that together we can begin to flex our collective muscles,” the UAW declared on October 29.

Why Maximus Workers Are Walking Off The Job

November 12, 2023 Christina Jimenez, Inequality.org. , , , ,
As a federal customer service representative, I help seniors access the healthcare they need through Medicare, often handling hundreds of calls per day to sign people up, answer their questions, help them navigate billing, and more. I am an expert on these programs, but the hard truth is that despite working for the largest federal call center contractor, Maximus, I don’t have access to affordable health coverage for myself and my three children and my pay is so low I’m struggling to stay afloat. This is why I’m going on strike today with hundreds of my co-workers who are experiencing similar struggles.
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