The Weekly Download

“While much of the conversation around the work stoppage has focused on the role of A-list actors, another group could play a key role in making or breaking the strike: online influencers. Sony, Hulu, Netflix, Universal, Paramount and Showtime are just some of the production companies who have partnered with creators on the platform.”

“Early last year, the president of a small manufacturing company in Missouri received a cold call from a man who went by the name of Jack Black. Workers at the company, called Motor Appliance Corp., or MAC, had just asked to hold a union election. Jack Black specialized in “union avoidance.” He wanted to offer his services. Jack Black’s firm has brought in millions of dollars over the years by providing employers with ‘persuaders,’ or, to use unions’ less charitable term, ‘union busters’ — consultants who try to convince workers not to organize. Persuader work is big business these days. The number of union elections in the U.S. has surged amid an organizing wave over the last two years. Employers are now paying upwards of $3,000 a day, plus expenses, for each persuader. Amazon alone dished out more than $14 million to consultants last year.”

“60 seconds is the deadline managers give each team racing at a dozen stations: to bolt the frame together, lay electronics, add heating and cooling gear, set cushions, and attach trim…That harsh speedup makes it a small wonder that repetitive motion injuries are piling up for U.S. auto workers, while the Big 3 auto companies—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler)—posted $250 billion in profits in just the last four years.”

“Starbucks (SBUX.O) violated U.S. labor law by firing a Manhattan store supervisor who had organized workers to join a union, a federal labor board judge ruled on Monday. The National Labor Relations Board established ‘striking and strong evidence of animus’ behind Starbucks' termination of Rhythm Heaton as a shift supervisor at its Astor Place store, NLRB Administrative Law Judge Benjamin Green wrote.

“Amazon Teamsters’ picket line is spreading nationwide. Workers across the country are standing up to Amazon after the company fired 84 drivers for unionizing with the Teamsters. Amazon, the nation’s largest single employer, represents the Mount Everest for the modern labor union movement. Smaller unions have worked to organize the mega-monolith, but Amazon’s sheer size has a bigger force eyeing it as well. Enter the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.”

“For a long time, Rachel Smith worried about how she’ll be able to get a job and support herself after she finishes her prison sentence at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. Then in May, she enrolled in a new building trades pre-apprenticeship program at the prison that she says brightened her future. She plans to join Ironworkers Local 29 when she’s released next spring….Smith, 45, was one of the first five women to graduate from Union Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Training (U-PACT) Oregon, a grant-funded program run by Local 29, Bricklayers Local 1, and Cement Masons Local 555 at Oregon’s only women’s prison. U-PACT Oregon’s goal is to provide a path to a stable career with living wages once graduates are released from prison. It’s also a way to draw more women to three unions that have historically low rates of female workers.”

“Yellowstone National Park rangers have voted to unionize, according to unionization drive organizers. The Jackson Hole Daily has confirmed the results with the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which oversees the United States’ labor-management relations. But one of the Yellowstone employees organizing the vote, Mark Wolf, said it passed 66-15. About 350 employees were eligible to vote, organizers said.”

"In this special blogcast, released to honor National Whistleblower Day 2023, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris spoke with Siri Nelson and Stephen Kohn, the executive director, and the founding director of the National Whistleblower Center (NWC), respectively. This blogcast also features Dr. Toni Savage, a former contracting officer with the Army Corps of Engineers in Huntsville, Alabama, and Jane Turner, a former FBI Special Agent."

“Understaffing requires employees to pick up many hours of mandatory overtime, Mr. Kuhne said. The additional income can be welcome, but also makes home life difficult for new recruits, and many quit within a few weeks. So his union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is playing an unusual role — helping their bosses recruit workers. It’s a nationwide quandary. While private-sector employment fully regained its prepandemic level a year ago — and now sits 3 percent above it — state and local governments remain about 1 percent below the 20 million people they had on staff in February 2020. The job-opening rate for public-sector positions is below that of private businesses, but hasn’t come down as much from the highs of 2022.”

“During this summer of heat, smoke, and flash flooding, food delivery workers have been braving the streets to bring New Yorkers our food. Biblical weather isn’t delivery workers’ only challenge, though: their pay in New York City averages around $7 per hour without tips, and there’s a high rate of workplace fatalities, after which survivors generally get little or no help from the apps. It was welcome news, then, that New York City in June set a rule establishing a pay floor for delivery workers of $17.96 per hour, a rate that would land workers around minimum wage, accounting for expenses, unpaid wait time, and other factors…Several corporations, including Uber, DoorDash, and GrubHub, swiftly filed lawsuits to stop the July 12 effective date. These apps, it should be noted, don’t follow workplace laws like every other employer; they treat their workers as independent businesses and not as employees (they’ve been sued for this by the attorneys general of California and Massachusetts). The apps should have counted themselves lucky that they were expected only to pay a better wage.”

“The White House will not intervene in the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild strikes against the large corporate Hollywood studios, or a potential UAW strike against the big three automakers. Presidents in the modern era very rarely intervene in private-sector labor disputes.”

“I appeared on Bloomberg TV on Thursday afternoon, July 20 with Scarlet Fu to talk about the 'summer of strikes,' the rising popularity of unions, and surprisingly poor decision-making and perhaps-unsurprising labor-law-breaking by some brand name corporations.”

“The Teamsters Union and UPS have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract to cover the 340,000 Teamsters who work for the package shipping giant. It was UPS workers’ willingness to strike — not corporate kindness — that earned them a new tentative agreement.”

“From Hollywood to UPS, the U.S. labor movement is uniting to support striking workers and win contract demands across industries.”

“Fed-up workers across a sprawling range of industries are aligned like never before over fears of being displaced by artificial intelligence and the belief that corporations left them with a minuscule slice of the profits they made during the Covid-19 pandemic. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Los Angeles, where thousands have taken to the streets in recent weeks, shutting down sectors of the local economy, blowing up supply chains, and thrusting America’s second largest city into the white-hot center of a national strike wave.”

“For a quarter of a century, Andi Brittan has worked steadily as a set decorator on movies and TV shows, but as Hollywood began to slow down this year in anticipation for what has become known as the summer of labor strife, she hasn’t worked a single production job. Mid-City-based Brittan’s most recent big show was Prime Video’s Emmy-nominated ‘Daisy Jones & the Six’ last year. To make ends meet, she has been taking on side gigs, like teaching set decorating to high schoolers. ‘It’s been a huge struggle,’ she said. ‘At this moment, I’m not really making ends meet.’ Despite the personal financial hardship, Brittan, 52, refuses to cross a picket line. ‘I feel like this is a fight worth fighting for,’ Brittan said. ‘It’s not just for the writers, it’s for all of us.’”

“A new law in Texas – a state that’s experiencing one of its hottest summers on record – will soon make it illegal for cities and counties to mandate breaks and other protections for workers, including water breaks for construction workers. The so-called ‘Death Star bill’ is bound to have deadly consequences. This year alone, a U.S. Postal Service employee in Dallas died while on his route in 115-degree heat and a lineman restoring power in Harrison County, Texas, likely died from heat exhaustion, according to a letter from members of Congress to Biden administration officials. That’s why AFSCME Local 1624 members flew from Texas to Washington to join an all-day vigil and thirst strike on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Tuesday. They supported Texas Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), an AFSCME member, as he went without food or water throughout the day and stood outside in the sun to protest the law’s cruelty.”

“John McGillis earned $18 an hour when he started working at Leinenkugel's brewery in 1990, a top wage befitting a company recognized as a community cornerstone since it began brewing for local lumberjacks in 1867. Now more than three decades later, McGillis is earning only $5.50 more - a meager increase that prompted him to put down his tools this month and join 40 colleagues in a picket line outside the brewery's red-brick walls in a push for better pay. They walked off the job just as Leinenkugel's was entering the crucial Oktoberfest brewing season.”

“[Seth Harris] appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box early Tuesday morning, July 25, to discuss the state of the unions during this 'strike summer.' With anchor Becky Quick and the Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome, [Seth] talked about the ongoing negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS and the UAW's talks with the Big Three automakers, as well as the Hollywood strikes and the general state of worker activism in the United States.”

“UPS and the Teamsters reached a tentative deal for a huge new contract for the courier’s employees, and labor experts say it sets the stage for other major victories for workers as more unions head to the negotiating table this year. From pilots at airlines and other shippers to auto workers, the UPS deal signals that the rank and file has momentum behind them for negotiations. The Teamsters also said they have their eyes on Amazon for future organizing. Here’s what the deal could mean for labor in the U.S.”

“The United Auto Workers has begun contract negotiations with General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford. Under new leadership elected on promises of greater transparency and militancy, bargaining is looking very different from years past.”

“AFGE has reached an agreement with the Social Security Administration (SSA), allowing 42,000 SSA employees nationwide represented by AFGE to enjoy new workplace rights and protections. AFGE and SSA agreed on updates to six articles of the contract, originally ratified in 2019, covering such issues as employee training and career development, employee rights, child care and elder care, disciplinary and adverse actions, and employee details to alternative duty stations.”

“1,500 members of UAW Local 833 have ratified a new five-year agreement with the Kohler Company that will increase wages and improve benefits. Local 833 members work in production and skilled trades positions at the company’s Village of Kohler and Town of Mosel manufacturing facilities in Kohler, WI.”

“Operating Engineers Local 399 members at the Phillips 66 Wood River Refinery here are currently working under a temporary extension to their contract… because they overwhelmingly rejected the company’s 'final' contract offer because it did not adequately address the safety concerns, work-life balance issues, reduction of forced overtime, job proficiency improvements and wages.”

 “The fate of the labor movement has broad implications for other movements, including and especially disability justice…Union representation already produces sizable benefits for disabled workers. Though union membership shares are roughly similar for employees with and without disabilities, there is an especially high union wage premium for workers with disabilities compared to other groups.”

“During the pandemic, 28% of Black workers were classified as “essential,” doing the work of caring for others that put them and their families at great risk. In Professor Blair LM Kelley’s new book, Black Folk — The Roots of the Black Working Class, Kelley tells the story of her own working-class ancestors, stretching back into the 19th century, who also did the essential work of our economy.”

“The striking miners were 10,000 strong on the first day of September 1921 as they charged up the slope of Blair Mountain, propelled by a radical faith in the American dream. According to an Associated Press reporter who crouched behind a log and watched through field glasses, each time they pressed forward, a ‘veritable wall’ of machine gun fire drove them back. As the barrage echoed through the hollows, reminding some of the action they had just seen in the forests of France, the advancing miners soon heard a different sound: deeper, earthshaking explosions. From biplanes above, tear gas, explosive powder and metal bolts rained down. ‘My God,’ screamed one miner fighting his way up Crooked Creek Gap. ‘They’re bombing us!’ …The miners were fighting for the right to unionize, and to end the reviled ‘mine guard system,’ a private force of armed guards who brutally enforced the company’s control in the coal fields. Unless the mine guard system was removed, John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America, had warned, ‘the dove of peace’ would ‘never make permanent abode in this stricken territory.’”