Workers Rights and Jobs

Teamsters Union Defies “No” Vote, Declares UPS Contract Ratified

October 8, 2018 Will Morrow, Wsws.org Resist! Class Struggle, Revisionism, Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

On Friday, UPS workers voted to reject a sellout contract backed by the Teamsters union and UPS management. The union, however, has announced that it considers the contract ratified and will seek to impose it in the face of mass opposition. The ballot results were released last night, with 50,248 workers (54.7 percent) voting against and 42,356 (45.74 percent) in favor. Workers at the subsidiary UPS Freight voted by 62 percent against a separate contract. Both votes follow the “no” vote by 1,300 UPS airline mechanics in Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday, meaning all three of the Teamsters’ contracts have been defeated. The Teamsters is citing an anti-democratic clause in its constitution that provides it with virtually unchallengeable authority against the workers.

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.

Strength In Numbers: Workers Banded Together To Sue A Local Trucking Company For Wage Theft

September 24, 2018 By Wilson Criscione, Inlander.com Resist! Lawsuit, Supreme Court, Wage Theft, Workers Rights and Jobs

In order to get to the warehouse in Spokane Valley on time, she'd wake up around 5 or 6 am in her home in Kellogg, Idaho, where she lived with her mom and brother. She'd work all day, barely stopping to eat. Sometimes, she'd stay until 11 at night, knowing that she'd have to drive back in the morning, or that she'd get a call at 2 am from a driver who needed a problem solved. She says she easily worked 90 to 120 hours per week. Yet she was only paid for 40 hours a week, at $11 an hour. Other drivers for Diamond Freight, based in Yakima, had similar complaints. They were paid a flat rate of $110 per day, yet they were required to work more than 40 hours per week with no overtime pay, as mandated by state and federal law. "They were like, we're not paying you anything over 40 hours. Nobody's worth it," Thomas says. "But the job has to get done."

Nicola Sturgeon Tells Amazon To Ditch Slave Wages Or Lose Millions In Handouts Freeze

September 22, 2018 By John Ferguson, Dailyrecord.co.uk Create! Amazon, Exploitation, New Economy, Slave labor, Workers Rights and Jobs

The First Minister has lost patience with the web giants after their failure to bring in fair working standards and pay staff the Living Wage. Nicola Sturgeon has pulled the plug on multi-million pound grants for Amazon until they pay Scottish workers the Living Wage. The Sunday Mail can reveal the First Minister has introduced new criteria for state handouts that will exclude low-wage employers. She appears to have lost patience with Amazon – owned by the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos – after he consistently refused to pay workers the £8.75 an hour rate recommended by the Living Wage Foundation to guarantee basic living standards for staff. Scottish Government ministers have met with senior managers on a number of occasions, but failed to convince them to adopt the standard at plants in Dunfermline, Fife, and Gourock, Inverclyde.

Chicago Hotel Workers Strike Over Healthcare

September 21, 2018 Bryce Covert, Truthout.org Resist! Class Struggle, Health Care, Labor, Service Industry, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

Tina Graham has worked for Chicago hotels for 11 years, and in the beginning, she faced a predicament every winter: As the tourism industry’s slow season approached she lost her health insurance, even as she dealt with the wear and tear that such physical work takes on her body. “When you’re working, you’re moving all of your body, your hands, your feet, your legs, your arms, and they get tired,” she told Truthout. “It’s really hard.” Graham has had to have work done on her rotator cuff due to the repetitive nature of her tasks. She takes arthritis pills every morning and wears a medicated patch on her back throughout the day. “You don’t rest from the time you get there to the time you leave,” she said. “You’re on the move, pushing a big cart with your linens on it, chemicals on it, your vacuum on it, going from room to room.”

Thousands Of Chicago Workers Are Out On The First Citywide Hotel Strike In Over A Century

September 15, 2018 By Jeff Schuhrke, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Chicago, Class Struggle, Service Industry, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

In one of the city’s largest work stoppages in years, thousands of unionized hotel workers across downtown Chicago are on strike to win a new contract. Since Sept. 7, over 6,000 housekeepers, cooks, doormen, bartenders, servers and dishwashers with UNITE HERE Local 1 have been picketing outside 26 hotels, including the Palmer House Hilton, Hyatt Regency and Sheraton Grand. Spirits are high as striking workers and supporters maintain loud and energetic picket lines at all hours of the day. Contracts at 30 downtown hotels—each negotiated separately—expired on August 31. The strike was authorized two weeks earlier by 97 percent of voting union members. In addition to raises, safer workloads, increased sick days and improved job security, workers are fighting to win year-round health insurance.

Thousands Of Rank-And-File US Steel Workers Cast Unanimous Votes To Strike

September 10, 2018 Jessica Goldstein, Wsws.org Resist! Class Struggle, Strikes, Washington, Workers Rights and Jobs

In a display of the growing militancy of the working class in the United States, rank-and-file workers at US Steel plants across the country cast a series of unanimous strike votes this week. The powerful strike votes take place as other workers, including teachers in the state of Washington, engage in a series of walkouts. The United Steelworkers (USW) union conducted the strike authorization votes after announcing last Saturday that it would to extend current labor agreements beyond their expiration dates while continuing contract talks with US Steel and ArcelorMittal. The contracts, which were due to expire September 1, cover 15,000 US Steel workers and 16,000 ArcelorMittal workers at mills and other facilities in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Minnesota and other states.

Another Win For Working People As VA Rescinds Executive Order Implementation

September 7, 2018 Staff, Afge.org Resist! Executive Order, Trump Administration, Workers Rights and Jobs

WASHINGTON – In yet another rebuke of President Trump’s anti-democratic, anti-worker executive orders, last week the Department of Veterans Affairs rescinded the order denying employees their representational rights at work. Previously, the order had severely limited union officials’ access to office space, equipment, and official time to represent workers – but it was struck down on August 24 by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Kentaji Jackson Brown ruled that the Trump administration’s May 25 executive order on official time violated the U.S. Constitution and the separation of powers as established in lawand were invalid. And on Wednesday, August 29, the Office of Personnel Management directing agencies to rescind the provisions of the orders that were enjoined.

Who Wants To Join A Union? A Growing Number Of Americans

September 3, 2018 By Thomas Kochan, The Conversation Create! Labor Movement, Living Wage, Workers Rights and Jobs

Only 10.7 percent of American workers belong to a union today, approximately half as many as in 1983. That’s a level not seen since the 1930s, just before passage of the labor law that was supposed to protect workers’ right to organize. Yet American workers have not given up on unions. When we conducted a nationally representative survey of the workforce with the National Opinion Research Corporation, we found interest in joining unions to be at a four-decade high. The results obtained from nearly 4,000 respondents show that 48 percent – nearly half of the nonunionized workers – would join a union if given the opportunity to do so.

Labor Day Reflection: Time For Americans To Participate In Power

September 2, 2018 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance Strategize! Democracy, Labor Day, Workers Rights and Jobs

The Roman philosopher and statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero said: “Freedom is participation in power.” By that standard Americans are not free. We do not participate in power. We do not even have power over our own economic lives, our elected “representatives” ignore us and listen to the moneyed interests sending the United States in the wrong direction on issue after issue. The American people know better, would govern better and need to participate in power. When you dispassionately review the reality of the U.S. economy, it is a depressing state of affairs that screams out for Americans to get up, stand up and shout: “we can do better than the political and economic elites.”

Lawmakers Are Blocking The Right To Paid Sick Leave

August 25, 2018 By Bryce Covert, Inthesetimes.com Create! Electoral Politics, Legislation, Paid Sick Leave, Workers Rights and Jobs

On August 16, the San Antonio city council voted 9-2 to pass a paid sick leave ordinance that will allow residents to earn an hour of time off for every 30 hours worked up to six days a year at small employers and eight at larger ones. The United States is alone among 22 wealthy countries in having no national guaranteed paid sick-leave policy. As a result, states are left to pass their own laws, and in those like Texas where GOP legislatures stand opposed to paid sick leave, it’s up to the cities. San Antonio became the 33rd city in the country to take such a step, and the second in the South after Austin passed a similar law in February. The San Antonio law is supposed to go into effect in January, and Austin’s was scheduled to go into effect in October. But the fate of both laws is up in the air.

Teamsters Local Meeting Erupts In Anger As Union Official Calls UPS Workers’ Poverty Wages “Subjective”

August 24, 2018 Norisa Diaz, Wsws.org Resist! Class Struggle, Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

Opposition is growing among UPS workers to the contract being pushed by the Teamsters union. A meeting of Teamsters Local 542 in southern California erupted in anger on Sunday, as UPS workers denounced the sellout contract. The proposed agreement creates a new, lower-paid tier of “hybrid” driver and warehouse workers, aimed at cutting labor costs and extending part-time conditions to delivery. It maintains poverty wages for part-time warehouse workers, who make up the majority of the company’s 250,000 workers. Western Region Small Package Division Director Andy Marshall presented the concessions contract to a room of over 100 UPS workers. He speedily read long sections of the contract, insisting that any questions be “relevant” to the section he was reviewing. He repeatedly declared, “This was the best we could get.”

50 Union Workers Arrested After Thousands Of Hardhats To Call On NFL To Ask Miami Dolphins Owner To Step Down From The League’s Social And Racial Justice Committee

August 23, 2018 By Erik McGregor, Erikmcgregorphotography.blogspot.com Resist! Class Struggle, Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

New York, NY - Fifty union workers committing civil disobedience were arrested outside the NFL Headquarters in Manhattan after thousands of unionized construction workers held a rally on August 22, 2018 to call on the NFL to ask Steve Ross, Related Companies Chairman/Founder and owner of the Miami Dolphins, to step down from the NFL’s Social & Racial Justice Committee. The NFL announced the Committee earlier this year as a joint player and ownership commitment focused on social justice and a part of a campaign to highlight work on social and racial equality.

How Missouri Beat “Right to Work”

August 22, 2018 By Nelson Lichtenstein, Dissentmagazine.org Resist! Class Struggle, Labor, Missouri, Workers Rights and Jobs

The most remarkable thing about last week’s rejection by Missouri voters of a right-to-work law enacted by the Republican-run state legislature was its magnitude. Not only did opponents crush the law by a margin of more than two to one, the total vote on the issue—nearly 1.4 million—exceeded by more than a 100,000 the number of statewide ballots cast on behalf of all candidates in both party primaries that same day. Labor won because its leadership reached deep into the rank and file to mobilize an army of activists who first collected more than 300,000 signatures to put a repeal referendum on the ballot and then door-knocked throughout the state on its behalf.

Meet The Militant Taxi Drivers Union That Just Defeated Uber And Lyft

August 20, 2018 Chris Brooks, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Class Struggle, Uber, Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

On August 14, the scrappy but militant 21,000 member union representing taxi and for-hire vehicle drivers in New York City won a landmark legislative victory establishing the country’s first cap on ride-sharing company vehicles and essentially forcing them to pay their drivers a minimum wage. This fight pitted the Taxi Workers Alliance against corporate giants Uber and Lyft, which together employ more lobbyists than Amazon, Walmart and Microsoft combined. Uber alone spent $1 million between January and June of this year trying to put the brakes on the Taxi Workers Alliance’s efforts. There is little wonder why. New York City is Uber’s largest U.S. market and the number of Uber and Lyft vehicles on the streets have exploded in recent years, from 25,000 in 2015 to 80,000 in 2018.

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