Workers

Hotel Workers Strike In 10 Cities

November 3, 2018 By Martha Grevatt, Workers.org Resist! Class Struggle, Service Industry, Strikes, Workers

In eight U.S. cities and two in Canada, hotel workers are waging a militant strike against the Marriott hotel chain. Though Marriott is the largest and most profitable hotel chain in the world, its workers have united nationally around the slogan “one job should be enough.” This refers to the fact that many hotel workers must work two or more jobs to make ends meet. Cities affected by the strike are Boston, Detroit, Honolulu, Kauai; Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose in California; and Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. Close to two dozen hotels are feeling the effects of the strike. Striking hotel workers in San Francisco took to the streets Oct. 20 as part of the national strike.

Women Workers Bring Glasgow To A Standstill

November 1, 2018 Conrad Landin, Morningstaronline.co.uk Resist! Scotland, Strikes, Wages, Women, Workers

Strikers march to Glasgow Council's city chambers for a mass rally during a 48 hour strike by 8,000 GMB and Unison members over an equal pay claim. SCOTLAND’S largest city was brought to a standstill today as women workers made history in the largest ever strike over equal pay. Care workers, cleaners and school dinner ladies were among 8,000 women council employees and contractors staging a two-day walkout in Glasgow. They will form picket lines again this morning to demand back payments for being paid less than council workers in male-dominated departments. Thousands of women members of Unison and GMB led a march from Glasgow Green to the City Chambers in George Square, chanting: “What do we want? Equal pay!

Democratic Consulting Firm Teams Up With Hospital Industry To Battle Nurses Union

October 22, 2018 Rachel M. Cohen, Theintercept.com Educate! Electoral Politics, Hospitals, Party Politics, Repression, Unions, Workers

THE HOSPITAL INDUSTRY has partnered with a major Democratic consulting firm in an unusual alliance against Massachusetts’s nurses and the bulk of its progressive infrastructure. At issue is a ballot initiative that aims to improve patient safety by limiting the number of patients that can be assigned to a single nurse. If passed, the initiative, known as Question 1, will make Massachusetts the second state in the country to have nurse staffing limits in place. (The exact nurse-to-patient ratio would vary depending on the hospital department.) But, as Election Day inches closer, the initiative’s supporters and opponents are engaged in a heated battle over the costs of implementing the initiative, and what it would mean for patients.

Unions Can Protect Workers From Deportation. This Coalition Of 3.5 Million Is Showing How.

October 20, 2018 Heather Gis, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Class Struggle, Deportations, Unions, Workers

After more than two decades living, working, and building a family in the United States, Cesar Rodriguez feels his life is in limbo. The driver for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach from El Salvador is one of more than 300,000 immigrants at risk of losing their temporary legal status in the U.S. after the Trump administration scrapped the program for a handful of countries. “I’m a trucker, and I make my living with my license. Without my license, I lose my job,” Rodriguez told In These Times. “If I lose my job, I would lose everything—even my family, because I wouldn’t have a way to support them.” Rodriguez arrived in the United States in 1996.

‘The U.S. Mail Is Not For Sale’: Postal Workers Speak Out

October 20, 2018 Steve Wishnia, Laborpress.org Resist! Class Struggle, Postal Service, Postal Workers, Workers

NEW YORK, N.Y.—Jonathan Smith, head of the New York Metro Area Postal Union, entered the Hunts Point Station post office in the Bronx on the afternoon of Oct. 16, accompanied by a dozen-odd retired postal workers, a 4-year-old girl carrying a “The U.S. Mail Is Not for Sale” sign, and union communications director Chuck Zlatkin, who was carrying a small cardboard box of petitions with more than 5,300 signatures demanding that the U.S. Postal Service begin offering basic banking services. Their aim was to deliver the petitions to Bronx Postmaster Scott Farrar. But Farrar had declined an invitation to come, and after about 10 minutes, the staff on duty refused to accept the box. Smith and Zlatkin instead handed it over to Rep. Jose Serrano (D-Bronx), who said he’d deliver it to Postal Service officials.

Striking XPO Port Truck Drivers Rally In Los Angeles, San Diego

October 4, 2018 Staff, Teamster.org Resist! Abuse, Los Angeles, San Diego, Workers, Workers Rights and Jobs

(CALIFORNIA) – Port truck drivers for XPO Logistics Inc. who are on strike held rallies in Los Angeles and San Diego and demanded the company end the rampant day-to-day abuse of drivers. The actions come on the heels of a breaking victory as the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement recognized a striking driver as in fact employed by XPO and determined the company owes him $123,074.43 in back pay. Hundreds of port truck drivers from XPO, as well as NFI Industries, walked off the job on Monday. XPO Logistics is a $15 billion company which moves products for Amazon.com Inc., Toyota Motor Corp., Puma and other major brands around the world. The drivers say that they are improperly labeled “independent contractors” since they cannot drive for any other company but XPO.

Worker Co-Ops Catch On In Philadelphia

October 3, 2018 Sandra Larson, Nextcity.org Create! Cooperatives, New Economy, Philadelphia, Workers

Last fall, Colombia native Luis Eduardo Lozano and four other immigrant day laborers, tired of the indignities of scant, irregular hours and wage theft from employers, formalized the PWA Handymen Cooperative in Philadelphia. Now the worker-owned LLC offers residential and commercial interior and exterior renovation services. “To work in a co-op means higher rates and secure work. The contract is secure and fair,” Lozano says, speaking through a Spanish interpreter. “A percentage of the fees will be paid to the co-op, and at the end of the year members will earn extra. We all gain from the success of the co-op.” In West Philadelphia, another new worker co-op launched in June. Formed by artists and social-justice organizers...

Workers At 40 Airports Will Stage Demonstrations In October

October 2, 2018 By Will Lennon, Opensecrets.org Resist! Airport, Class Struggle, Protest Demonstrations, Protests, Workers

On Tuesday, October 2, employee demonstrations organized by the Airport Workers United campaign will take place at over 40 airports in 13 countries. The demonstrations are intended to mobilize wheelchair attendants, baggage handlers and other laborers who perform low-skilled jobs at airports to demand higher pay and better working conditions. Protests will be held in Baltimore, Seattle, Los Angeles, Newark, Boston and airports across Europe. Combined, 36 percent of all air travel passes through the affected airports. The group behind the Airport Workers United campaign is the Service Employees International Union(SEIU). The SEIU has over two million members worldwide and is a heavy-hitter when it comes to funding Democrats, shelling out $1.4 million to congressional candidates in the 2016 election cycle and $780,346 in the 2018 cycle according to data released by the FEC on Sept. 24.

Hilton Workers Approve New Deal As Strike Continues At 11 More Hotels

October 2, 2018 By Rachel Hinton, Chicago.suntimes.com Resist! Class Struggle, Strikes, Workers

Striking union workers reached a deal on Saturday to return to the job at four downtown Hilton hotels, while bargaining talks appear to have hit a wall with some of the remaining 11 hotels where the work stoppage has entered its fourth week. Unite Here Local 1 has now approved contracts with 15 of the 26 hotels that were impacted at the height of the strike, which started Sept. 7 and included up to 6,000 housekeepers, servers, cooks and doormen. “We look forward to welcoming our team members back to work at Palmer House, DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Chicago Magnificent Mile, Hilton Chicago and The Drake,” a Hilton spokeswoman said in an email. The union says the new deal will “ensure that hotel workers will keep their health care if they’re laid off in the wintertime” — a main sticking point in negotiations for the striking workers, who have sought year-round health care.

McDonald’s Workers Strike Over Widespread Sexual Harassment

September 20, 2018 Naomi LaChance, Truthdig.com Resist! Class Struggle, McDonald's, Sexual Harassment, Strikes, Workers

McDonald’s workers in 10 U.S. cities plan to strike Tuesday at lunchtime over sexual harassment and subsequent retaliation at the fast-food company. “Whatever [anti-harassment] policy they have is not effective,” Mary Joyce Carlson, an attorney with Fight for $15, a fair pay organization, told The Associated Press. Carlson has been working with 10 McDonald’s workers who filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about predatory workplace behavior including groping and propositions for sex. “I couldn’t deal with it physically, just going into the workplace,” Tanya Harrel said. Harrel, who claims to have experienced sexual harassment twice from two different coworkers over the course of a month at a New Orleans McDonald’s, filed a complaint with the EEOC backed by the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund.

Vermont’s Striking Nurses Want A Raise For Nonunion Workers Too

August 7, 2018 Jonah Furman, Labornotes.org Organize! Class Struggle, Strikes, Unions, Vermont, Workers

Especially for professional workers, when your main strike issue is pay, attracting public support can be a challenge. Savvy employers paint union members as spoiled. They like to point out that you’re already making more than many of your nonunion neighbors. Yet when 1,800 nurses and technical staff struck for better wages July 12-13 at the state’s second-largest employer, the University of Vermont Medical Center, the people of Burlington came out in force to back them up. “We had policemen and firefighters and UPS drivers pulling over and shaking our hands” on the picket line, said neurology nurse Maggie Belensz. “We had pizza places dropping off dozens of pizzas, giving out free ice cream.” And when a thousand people marched from the hospital through Burlington’s downtown, “we had standing ovations from people eating their dinners,” she said. “It was a moving experience.”

How Tech Workers Are Organizing For Social Change

August 6, 2018 Nithin Coca, Shareable.net Organize! Class Struggle, Technology, Workers

Coworker.org, a nonprofit based in the U.S. that enables workers to start campaigns to change their workplaces, received more inquiries from employees at tech firms about using the platform following the election in 2016, Yana Calou, the group's engagement and training manager said: "They were really concerned about their jobs being used towards things that they were not really comfortable with." Another organization leading this effort in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to several of the world's largest technology companies, is the TechEquity Collaborative, which is taking more of a grassroots approach. "No one was looking at the rank and file tech worker as a constituent group to be organized in a political way," says Catherine Bracy, executive director of the TechEquity Collaborative. "There is a critical mass of tech workers who feel a huge sense of shame and guilt about the role that the industry is playing in creating these inequitable conditions, and want to do something different about it.

A Worker-Owned Future

August 3, 2018 Peter Gowan, Jacobinmag.com Create! Revisionism, Workers

Last year’s British Labour Party manifesto has received substantial attention from those — including myself — who see it as a comprehensive program for rolling back the tide of neoliberalism and revitalizing the labor movement, public services, and industrial strategy. But it also contains the seeds of a deeper critique that — if Labour wins and Jeremy Corbyn’s movement withstands attacks from hostile forces — could lead to a significant expansion of democratic control in work and production. Labour not only promises to bring rail, mail, water, and energy into public ownership but commits itself to putting “democratically owned public services irreversibly in the hands of workers, and those who rely on their work.”

How To Level The Playing Field For Workers — Even With Unions Hurting

July 13, 2018 By Bob Lord, Otherwords.org Create! Class Struggle, New Economy, Unions, Workers

The Supreme Court’s decision in Janus vs. AFSCME dealt organized labor, already on its heels, a crushing blow. Public employees who choose not to join unions now cannot be required to pay so-called “fair share” fees to compensate unions for the cost of representing them in wage and benefit negotiations. With only 6.5 percent of private sector workers unionized, teachers, firefighters, and other public employee unions have been the bulwark of organized labor in recent years. Over a third of government workers are unionized, but that will likely head south in the wake of Janus. Absent a union, an individual employee negotiating against a large employer is powerless. If the employer and worker don’t agree to terms, the employer loses one worker out of many, while the employee’s children go hungry. Guess who wins?

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