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Workers Rights and Jobs

Whole Foods Is Quietly Telling Workers Not To Show Black Lives Matter Support

June 30, 2020 By Nicole Karlis, Salon. , , ,
This week, a group of Whole Foods workers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, walked out after being told they couldn’t wear Black Lives Matter masks because they weren’t part of “the company dress code.” Prior to the incident, wearing masks with other symbols or logos, including ones that featured the New England Patriots, were reportedly acceptable. This is according to a report in the Boston Globe, which details how Whole Foods worker Savannah Kinzer and a few of her colleagues wore BLM-themed masks on Wednesday. A manager told them they either had to remove the masks or go home. Seven of them walked out. On Thursday, Kinzer showed up and passed out more masks, but they were met with the same fate. Dozens of workers were sent home again.

Families Of Deceased Workers Sue Tyson Over Outbreak At Meatpacking Plant

June 28, 2020 Ryan J. Foley, AP News. , , ,
The families of three workers who died after contracting the coronavirus in an Iowa meat plant outbreak sued Tyson Foods and its top executives Thursday, saying the company knowingly put employees at risk and lied to keep them on the job. The lawsuit alleges that Tyson officials were aware the virus was spreading at the Waterloo pork processing plant by late March or early April but kept that information from employees and the public. As the outbreak grew, the company failed to implement safety measures, allowed some sick and exposed employees to remain on the production line, and falsely assured workers and the public that the plant was safe, the suit alleges. “Tyson intended by these false representations to deceive workers in the Waterloo facility ... and to induce them to continue working despite the uncontrolled COVID-19 outbreak at the plant and the health risks associated with working,” according to the lawsuit.

Protest At Rutgers Against Austerity Response To Pandemic

June 23, 2020 By Sarah Jaffe, Dissent Magazine. , , ,
Two months into the pandemic-induced crisis at Rutgers University in New Jersey, the unions representing 20,000 of the university’s workers came together and held a car caravan to the university president’s house to protest layoffs. Protest signs reading #WeRNotDisposable and calling on the university to “protect the most vulnerable” decorated car windows; inside the cars, union members and their supporters wore red and their face masks. The coalition of unions includes AAUP-AFT, the Part-Time Lecturer Faculty Chapter of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, AFSCME Local 888, and the Union of Rutgers Administrators-AFT; together, the unions have proposed a work-sharing program where some workers would accept furloughs, allowing them to replace their income with CARES-Act mandated expanded unemployment benefits, in order to prevent layoffs. But so far, the workers say, the university hasn’t listened.

‘Workers First’ Car Caravans Drive Mass Turnouts Nationwide

June 23, 2020 By Mark Gruenberg, People's World. , , ,
From Fairbanks to San Juan and from Bangor to Honolulu, workers nationwide turned out June 17 in car caravans, at press conferences, and in call-ins to lawmakers to demand solons “Put Workers First For Racial And Economic Justice.” Their top demands are additional economic aid during the coronavirus pandemic, for workers, not bosses, and for racial justice and economic justice and to force the federal government to order employers to provide anti-coronavirus protective gear. To make their views heard, at least 1,000 cars, festooned with posters and flags, honked their way to Capitol Hill from two sites in the D.C. suburbs, then descended on the Mall to its west. Their point, and those of hundreds of other caravans in every state, D.C., and Puerto Rico, was to force the GOP-run Senate to approve a $3 trillion coronavirus pandemic economic aid package the Democratic-run House passed late last month.

Corporations Now Love ‘Black Lives’—But What About Their Own Black Workers?

June 16, 2020 Toni Gilpin, Labor Notes. , , ,
Never underestimate US business community's capacity for hypocrisy. That’s one of the lessons to be drawn from the explosive reaction to George Floyd’s murder. As demonstrators began flooding streets, corporate PR departments flew into rapid response mode, issuing a flurry of agonized, apologetic pledges to do more to combat racism and inequality. Such statements may, on a personal level, be sincere: the depth of righteous pain and anger expressed by African Americans has induced widespread soul-searching, even in executive suites. Yet this high-profile hand-wringing is used to uncouple the outpouring of outrage from capitalist practices that are now, and always have been, at the intertwined roots of racial and economic injustice.

Update From General Strike 2020 – Upcoming Actions

May 30, 2020 General Strike 2020. , , ,
With the unconscionable murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis this past week, we’re reminded of the importance that the fight against racism plays in our struggle. We’ve seen admirable solidarity in those who have taken to the streets to protest police brutality against African Americans in this country. If you’re able, please consider making a donation towards legal aid for those Minnesota protesters working to advance civil rights and police reform: https://www.gofundme.com/f/g2xas-gs2020-legal-aid-for-minnesota-protesters?utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet With the economic turbulence we are all experiencing, we are seeing an exponential growth in working class consciousness throughout the world.

Hundreds Of Maquiladora Workers Dying After Back-To-Work Orders

May 25, 2020 Eric London, WSWS. , , ,
On Saturday, the health secretary of Northern Baja California announced that 432 of the 519 people who have officially died from the virus in the state were maquiladora workers. In Baja cities like Tijuana and Mexicali, as well as other border cities like Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua and Matamoros, Tamaulipas, doctors report that their hospitals are overflowing with sick maquiladora workers, some of whom are dying in their work uniforms. Mexican maquiladora workers make between US$8 to $10 per day. Hospital officials say the government’s official death toll and the total number of positive cases nationwide—5,177 and 49,219 respectively, as of yesterday afternoon—vastly understate the real impact. They claim that hundreds or thousands more maquiladora workers are dying than is officially acknowledged and that the Mexican government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador is obscuring the real toll in an effort to force workers back to work.

Restaurant Workers Mobilize In Right To Work States During COVID-19

May 23, 2020 By Clare Busch, Shadowproof. , , ,
Rather than trying to form a legal union in a right-to-work state, Bo-o stated, “We are a volunteer organization at this point. We are less constrained by the law.” (ShiftChange members also stressed they do not have centralized authority so there is no waiting for approval before taking action.) By keeping the network loose, the group is also nimble. When many workers were still waiting on government assistance, the group engaged in mutual aid and tried to get financial assistance for those in need. McGarry said now that unemployment insurance has started to appear in people’s bank accounts, RVA ShiftChange is distributing money to undocumented workers. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, ShiftChange RVA members used walkouts, social media shaming, and letter-writing to address work conditions at local restaurants.

Violence Escalating At Retail Stores Over Wearing Face Masks

May 23, 2020 By Kate Taylor and Áine Cain, Business Insider. , , ,
Retail workers at chains, including Kroger, Waffle House, and Costco, are increasingly caught in the crossfire when it comes to enforcing store or state policies on personal protective equipment. Some shoppers refuse to wear masks or face coverings for political reasons.  In some cases, confrontations between store workers and customers have resulted in deadly violence. Masks have become increasingly politicized during the coronavirus pandemic.

Gig Workers Collective Organizes Nationwide Strikes

May 23, 2020 By Eliza Levinson, Next City. , , ,
Instacart workers announced a massive strike: the first that gig workers for the San Francisco-based company would undertake during the coronavirus pandemic. The strike, which took place on March 30, had been organized by the Gig Workers Collective, a new nonprofit founded and run by eleven women located across the country. Gig Workers Collective, the offshoot of a Facebook group for disgruntled Instacart shoppers, realized its first formal collective action in November 2019. Between 2016 and 2018, two San Francisco-based activists, Sarah Clarke and Vanessa Bain were among many Instacart shoppers who participated in workers’ rights activism against the San Francisco-based company. The two women, living just a short distance away from each other in the Bay Area, found that they saw eye to eye on many of the same things. Though sympatico, the pair knew that they’d need some extra hands.

Workers Revolt: Workers Fight For Their Lives

May 23, 2020 By Michelle Chen, In These Times. , , ,
Medina is one of the millions of workers who are stuck with the impossible choice between protecting their health and getting a paycheck. More than 36 million others cannot work at all, laid off from their jobs since mid-March and left wrangling with their local unemployment office. Many are simply excluded from other benefits, all while the country hurtles toward a depression. Workers making poverty wages in precarious jobs were struggling to survive well before the pandemic. Now, besieged by economic devastation and a public health crisis, they are in a fight for their lives. Just as the virus has exposed the vicious inequities ingrained in the country’s economic hierarchy, so is it galvanizing workers to organize for safe workplaces, fair pay, decent medical leave and the right to challenge bosses who put them in harm’s way.

Hundreds Of Apple Workers On Strike In Washington

May 19, 2020 David Bacon, Labornotes. , , ,
Last week the COVID-related strike in Washington state’s Yakima Valley quadrupled in size, as workers walked out at three more apple packinghouses. More than a hundred stopped work on May 7 at Allan Brothers Fruit, a large apple growing, packing and shipping company in Naches, in Central Washington. On May 12 they were joined by 200 more workers, who walked off the job at the Jack Frost Fruit Co. in Yakima, and at the Matson Fruit Co. in Selah. The next day another 100 workers walked out at the Monson Fruit packing shed, also in Selah. At the center of the stoppages are two main demands for those who decide to continue working during the pandemic: safer working conditions and an extra $2 an hour in hazard pay.

Alternatives To Killing People For The Economy

May 18, 2020 Cynthia Kaufman. , , , ,
Rather than sacrificing people for the economy, we need to rethink what we mean by “the economy.” No one needs to be killed for us to have a healthy economy. We live in a world where there is enough of everything we need for us all to live well and to do so within the ecological limits of the planet. And yet, as the Covid-19 crisis has laid bare, the social systems we live in lead to grotesque wealth for some, extreme devastation for many, dangerous underinvestment in the public infrastructure we need to be safe, and political systems controlled by those who profit from the destruction of our environment and shared social fabric. As we work to keep people safe from Covid-19, while protecting their livelihoods, we can shift our economies to build a world where we all have enough. If we keep ourselves focused on tackling our inequality crisis, even as we build toward environmental sustainability, we can develop an economic system that meets our human needs, without anyone needing to die for it.

It’s Bigger Than Scrubs – My Termination From United Hospital ER

May 11, 2020 Cliff Willmeng, RN, Popular Resistance. , , ,
For months, working conditions, patient safety, public health, and the rights of union members have been degraded and placed at risk by Allina hospital administration’s policies, behavior, and egregious lack of preparation for a global pandemic. This is not a matter of opinion or perspective but documented fact, evidenced by hundreds of OSHA complaints, failing infection protocols, communications of frontline healthcare workers, and hospital administration’s ongoing acts of intimidation, harassment, and threats to our professional standing.    Hospital administrators placed profits and executive compensation over protection of employees, year after year. The resulting failure and disorganization have pushed workplace safety, nursing practice, public health, and our rights as workers to a breaking point.

Amazon Labor Activism Goes International

May 10, 2020 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. , , ,
Amazon worker organizing is going international. A new coalition of Amazon employee activists from Spain, France, German, Poland and America has announced itself with a list of demands for improved pay and safety—and they say that this is just the beginning. The new group, called Amazon Workers International (AWI), is a significant new formal attempt to combine the well-established labor activism of Amazon workers in Europe with the grassroots organizing that has targeted Amazon in America in recent months. The group’s letter, sent to CEO Jeff Bezos and Stefano Perego, the VP of Europe Customer Fulfillment, asks the company to lock in temporary gains that workers have made during the pandemic, and for broader improvements in Amazon’s historically poor relationship with its warehouse workers.
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