Worker Rights and Jobs

Microsoft Fires Employees Over Gaza Vigil; Tech Giants Face Scrutiny

October 27, 2024 Palestine Chronicle. Educate! Gaza, Israel, Microsoft, No Tech for Apartheid, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Retaliation, Worker Rights and Jobs

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. Resist! Austerity, Education, General Strike, Greece, New Democracy, Worker Rights and Jobs

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. Resist! Canada, Unions, Victory, Walmart, Worker Rights and Jobs

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. Strategize! Chicago, Education, Illinois, Teachers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

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. Organize! NALC, Unions, US Postal Service, US Postal Workers, Worker Rights and Jobs

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. Resist! Boeing, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

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. Strategize! Architecture, New York (NY), New York City (NYC), Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

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. Strategize! Europe, European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), European Union (EU), Health Care, Healthcare crisis, Report, Worker Rights and Jobs

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.

SeaTac Hotel Workers With UNITE HERE Local 8 On Strike

October 20, 2024 Clio Jensen, Fight Back! News. Resist! Hotel workers, Seattle, Strikes, Wages, Washington, Worker Rights and Jobs

Seattle, Washington – On October 12, over 400 hotel workers at the Doubletree Seattle Airport and the Seattle Airport Hilton & Conference Center walked out and went on strike, joining hotel workers across the U.S. Workers at the two hotels are fighting for good raises, pension plan improvement, fair staffing and respect in their new contract. The picket began at 5 a.m., when dozens of workers joined the picket line outside both striking hotels. As they marched, they chanted, “What do we want? Contract! When do we want it? Now!” and “If we don’t get it, shut it down!” Workers carried signs that read “Respect our work,” “One job should be enough” and “Make them pay.” Cars and buses passing by honked their horns in support as the picket continued throughout the day.

Boston Rally Demands: Indigenous Peoples Day Now!

October 18, 2024 Will Hodgkinson, Workers World. Resist! Boston, Indigenous Peoples Day, Indigenous Rights, Massachusetts, Worker Rights and Jobs

Boston, Massachusetts - Nearly 200 Indigenous protesters and their allies gathered outside Park Street Station in Boston on Oct. 12 to demand that Massachusetts immediately designate the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day. An Indigenous-led coalition of United American Indians of New England (UAINE), the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB), Cultural Survival, the New Democracy Coalition, Workers World Party-Boston and Italian Americans for Indigenous Peoples Day organized the Oct. 12 action, which bolsters the longstanding effort to demolish the cult glorifying Christopher Columbus, whose lifework was characterized by conquest, slavery and genocide.

The Search For Green Common Ground

October 17, 2024 Emmett Hopkins, In These Times. Organize! Communities, Electric Vehicles, Green Transition, Lithium, Transportation, Worker Rights and Jobs

Last fall, indigenous organizers in northern Chile walked the perimeter of vast salt flats, in a region where multinational mining companies control lithium evaporation ponds and other mineral extraction operations that have been documented to inflict damage against local peoples’ sacred and life-sustaining lands. Five thousand miles to the north, auto workers in Michigan prepared to walk off the job at noon to demand, in addition to decent pay and working conditions, the inclusion of workers at the companies’ expanding electric vehicle (EV) and battery operations.

The Call Is Out For Mass, Simultaneous Strikes In 4 Years

October 16, 2024 Sarah Lazare, Workday Magazine. Organize! General Strike, General Strike 2028, International Workers Day, Labor Movement, Protests, Unions, United Auto Workers (UAW), Worker Rights and Jobs

There is a credible call for a general strike in the United States in four years. The call first came from the United Auto Workers after its fall 2023 stand-up strike, in which the union took on the Big Three carmakers simultaneously in rolling, surprise work stoppages. All three contracts that emerged are slated to expire on the same day: May 1, 2028, International Workers’ Day. This is not the first time UAW has aligned the Big Three contracts, but what the union did next is remarkable. It put out a challenge to the US labor movement: “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,” UAW announced on October 29, 2023.

The UAW Is Bargaining For Better Conditions At Volkswagen

October 15, 2024 Sarah Jaffe, In These Times. Organize! Auto Workers, The South, UAW, Unions, United Auto Workers (UAW), Volkswagen, Worker Rights and Jobs

Turning onto Volkswagen Drive in Chattanooga, the first big shiny building you pass is actually an Amazon fulfillment center. It’s only a little up the road that you come upon the VW campus, the sleek silver buildings rising from the hills and trees, a series of windowless hulks, one of them proudly proclaiming its GoTo ZERO IMPACT FACTORY. As if a factory can have zero impact on the community, on the people who go to work there each day, let alone the environment, the climate. Factories shape towns. They always have. They shape the world. The workers at the VW plant are trying to do some shaping of their own, now that they’ve won their union.

Eponeyous Substructure In Saco (And Worldwide)

October 13, 2024 Bruce K. Gagnon, Organizing Notes. Strategize! Anti-War, Maine, Military bases, Worker Rights and Jobs

The reason I love and believe in standing outside weapons production facilities and military bases is because this is how I changed from a Young Republican to an independent thinker and anti-imperialist peacenik. In 1971 (during the US war on Vietnam) I joined the Air Force and after my training was sent to Travis AFB in California. This was an airlift base for the war. GI's came to Travis and got on planes to fly to Vietnam. When the planes returned they brought the walking wounded and body bags of dead troops. Most weekends there were small protests outside the base main gate.

This Little-Known Program Protects Immigrant Workers From Retaliation

October 13, 2024 Jorge Mújica, Labor Notes. Resist! Deportation, Immigrants, Worker Rights and Jobs, Workplace Safety

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to organizing, for workers everywhere, is fear of retaliation. This is an even greater factor when the workers are undocumented immigrants. Not only do you fear being suspended or fired, but the idea of being deported if the employer calls immigration, and being separated from your family, multiplies the fear. But a federal program that few know about can offer confidence-boosting legal protection. Arise Chicago has been supporting workers to use the program, Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement (DALE). The fear of workplace raids remains widespread—even though the current federal administration has not conducted workplace raids targeting immigrant workers since 2021.

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