The Weekly Download

“If you have a steady job in the United States, there’s a good chance you are bound by an employment contract that sets the terms of your work, including hours, salary and benefits. But the contract’s reach may not be limited to that job. It may also contain language that puts restrictions on your life even after you leave that job. These are noncompete clauses, the focus of the Opinion video above. They typically prevent an employee from working for a competitor for a certain period after leaving the company.”

“U.S. workers are not happy with their bosses — they filed 16% more complaints about unfair labor practices in the first half of the current fiscal year, according to the National Labor Relations Board. The rise coincides with a nationwide increase in union organizing. Employees can file charges against their employer for a lot of reasons, including ‘threats, interrogation, discharges, harassment,’ said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of Labor Education Research and a senior lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She said that these charges often happen when workers try to unionize and employers try to stop them.”

“About 40 immigrant indigenous workers at the non-union, Brooklyn-based demolition company Best Super Cleaning, have begun their monthly picket lines outside the company’s worksites again, this time demanding an end to the retaliation and intimidation from their employer.”

"The United States labour movement faces a potentially transformative moment, as workers have won breakthrough union organizing victories at various high-profile, private-sector employers. While winning an election is essential to establishing collective bargaining, unions then need to secure a first contract with employers to make tangible improvements in working conditions.”

“Several workers also have alleged that Chipotle stores in New York City—reminiscent of Starbucks—have violated their federally protected right to organize by firing them for voicing complaints about working conditions and pushing to form a union. Brenda Garcia, a Chipotle worker in Flushing, was fired soon after the New York Times quoted her complaining about Chipotle's scheduling practices. Chipotle reinstated her after protests and negative news coverage and after Local 32BJ filed an NLRB charge accusing the company of firing her for union activity.”

“Watch Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in a conversation with Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, William Spriggs, AFL-CIO’s chief economist, and Aaron Sojourner, senior researcher at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment research, as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for March 2023. This conversation was aired live on the Power At Work Blog on April 7 at 8:45 AM ET, just 15 minutes after the release of the report.”

“Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in a conversation with Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, William Spriggs, AFL-CIO’s chief economist, and Aaron Sojourner, senior researcher at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment research, as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for March 2023. This conversation was aired live on the Power At Work Blog on April 7 at 8:45 AM ET, just 15 minutes after the release of the report.”

"The latest inflation and real earnings data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics contains some good news for workers.  Real average hourly earnings --- essentially, workers' hourly pay reduced by the amount of inflation, on average --- increased for the first time in 2023 and for the third time in the last six months. More simply, workers' pay increased faster than consumer prices in March 2023."

“At Duke’s Hawaiian Coffee Shop and Deli in San Marcos, California, Friday mornings are abuzz with organizing talk—building unity among fellow Teamsters ahead of a potential strike at UPS. We began meeting in February, just a few of us. Soon enough, word spread about what we called “Unity Breakfast,” and the coffee shop filled up. At the first meeting, my co-worker Tim Peppers defined the main purpose: to educate members about the contract campaign and potential strike. We talked about how we are part of a movement much bigger than our own building, and why it’s important to build unity across our differences in seniority and classification.”

“The unions representing Rutgers University’s 9,000 academic workers — nearly its entire teaching force — went on strike starting Monday morning. It’s the first faculty strike in the school’s 257-year history.”

“Many of the 140-plus workers preparing and serving meals for the World Bank, a D.C.-based international institution whose mission includes fighting poverty, struggle to afford rent or food, according to their union, UNITE HERE Local 23.”

“Most readers know that the Graduate Employees’ Organization, the union representing Graduate Student Instructors at the University of Michigan, is on strike. The University moved a state court for an injunction to end the strike and order GSIs back to work. The hearing on that motion is set for April 10. An injunction to force people back to work is properly understood as an extraordinary remedy, effectively banned at the federal level and disfavored at the state level.”

• “Negotiations for a new WGA contract have made “a little bit of progress” on feature films, but otherwise the two sides remain “far away” from a deal.”

“Philadelphia’s building trades unions have tens of thousands of members, who have historically been overwhelmingly white and male. But labor leaders in the region are making efforts to increase the number of young women and people of color entering the trades, where they can pursue careers with ample opportunity and a tangible path toward middle-class income without a four-year degree and the debt that entails.”

“Apple Store workers from Towson, Maryland, have been meeting with the company at a hotel in downtown Baltimore this week to negotiate what they hope will be a groundbreaking union contract at the tech giant. But after four two-day bargaining sessions since January, those workers say they aren’t convinced Apple ever wants to reach a deal with its first unionized shop in the U.S.”

“The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) joined forces in an effort to assist both workers and employers in newly-organized units build a positive labor-management relationship and successfully reach a first collective bargaining agreement. We talked with Jennifer Abruzzo, General Counsel of the NLRB and Javier Ramirez, Deputy Director of Field Operations at the FMCS, about this initiative.”

“A New York hotel union has reached a deal with hotel owners and operators that will boost the wages of hospitality workers by $7.50 an hour, the largest increase in the union’s 100-year history.”

“According to the new agreement, LAUSD workers will receive a 30% wage increase with retroactive pay when the contract is ratified, a $1,000 bonus for employees who worked during the height of the pandemic, the right to file a grievance for claims of harassment, the expansion of fully paid health care benefits for part-time teacher assistants and after school program workers, and more. The contract will be voted on by the LAUSD School Board during its April 18 meeting.”

"On February 20, Keyes, among other fellow graduate workers at the Twin Cities campus of UMN, announced their union drive in front of the Coffman Memorial Union. The workers were supported by a high-energy crowd of several hundred students, community members, city councilmembers, and labor movement leaders. In one passionate speech, Chiara Amato, a Ph.D. student in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, described graduate workers as the “silent labor that keeps the university running,” as dozens of student workers signed their union cards at a table nearby.”

“Tuesday morning staffers at the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, DC announced their intent to unionize, joining a wave of workers unionizing at other ACLU affiliates in North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, Minnesota and Kansas.”

“Several large US unions saw double-digit growth in 2022 at the same time employers were weathering a tight labor market and a wave of worker dissatisfaction, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of new federal filings from the previous calendar year.”

“Brandon Johnson’s victory in the Chicago mayoral race last week is a major victory for the education justice movement, the 21st-century Black freedom movement, and the left in general. Johnson is a former teacher and Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) leader, a protégé of a legendary union president, the late Karen Lewis...Johnson described his victory as the coming together of the civil rights and labor movements, much as Martin Luther King always envisioned. It is that and more. A new generation of organizers—sexual minorities, abolitionists, undocumented activists, socialists, and environmental justice warriors—are also a critical part of what made Johnson’s bid for mayor a historic success…The financial support of Chicago’s social justice unions—SEIU State and local leadership, and the mighty CTU, led by Stacy Davis Gates—was crucial and foundational.”

“Employees say they began discussing unionization late last year in a group chat, and seek to win improvements in their pay, job security and work hours, which they call erratic and insufficient. To prepare their coworkers for any potential anti-union campaign by the company, they’ve been studying anti-union tactics and literature from other major retailers in recent years.”

“On Saturday, April 1st, Northeastern University’s Huskies Organized With Labor (HOWL) hosted their first labor summit. The event showcased the organizing efforts of several campus employee groups and provided a platform for discussion on the future of labor at the university. The summit was convened against the backdrop of several ongoing labor issues at Northeastern, including graduate workers organizing with the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the potential fragmentation of the university’s workforce as Northeastern expands its global footprint.”

“During this event, worker advocates, forward thinkers, and movement leaders imagined new systems of worker supports, protections, and power for those excluded from existing benefits and social protections, including independent contractors, temp workers, and workers in the arts. Participants expressed support for widespread adoption of guaranteed income and cash transfer programs that would help all people, including independent contractors and other excluded workers who do not have a strong safety net.”

“By the end of my first year, I turned to my fellow union organizers and nervously shared my fears, anxiety, and anger. There were no blank stares or “it will be fine” responses. Instead Zoom chats and screens lit up with heart emojis. Demonstrating solidarity with disabled people should not be exceptional, but the way the world should be is quite different from how the world actually is. I will never forget that moment. It was the moment I knew what authentic solidarity felt like.”