The Weekly Download

“Pushed by angry members, unions representing actors, autoworkers and UPS employees are becoming increasingly assertive under new leadership.”

“The clock is ticking toward September 14 at midnight, when the Auto Workers’ contracts with the Big 3 automakers expire. The new leaders of the UAW have come out swinging, and in quickly growing numbers, members are stepping up to prepare for a strike. The agreements cover close to 150,000 workers at Ford, General Motors (GM), and Stellantis…Instead of the UAW’s past tradition of targeting just one auto company in bargaining, then basing contracts for the others off that model, Fain warned all three companies to consider themselves targets, keeping them guessing about which one may ultimately be struck—or whether union members might walk out at all three.”

“It’s been nearly two years since Starbucks Workers United went public with its union drive at the global coffee mega-chain. Since then, the campaign has seen some astounding breakthroughs…At the same time, the campaign has run into challenges that may not disappear anytime soon…In recent months, the union has initiated new actions to maintain momentum, including Pride strikes, a bus tour, walkouts and ‘sip-in’ protests, as well as finding creative ways to publicize its bargaining demands. The union also kicked off a national campaign to recruit and mobilize labor allies and customers, inaugurated by a day of action on August 7 that saw more than 1,000 supporters across the United States participate, according to the union.”

“As contract bargaining heats up across the state, the chairs of California’s statehouse committees on labor and public employment have called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to bargain fairly with the largest public employee union in state government. Assembly Labor and Employment Committee Chair Ash Kalra, along with the chairs of the Assembly and Senate committees on public employment and retirement, wrote to Newsom urging his administration to reach a contract agreement with SEIU Local 1000 this week.” 

“Southwest Airlines Co (LUV.N) said on Tuesday it had reached a tentative agreement with the union that represents about 17,120 transport workers who handle ramp, operations, provisioning and cargo. The workers will now earn $36.72 per hour, higher than the hourly wages at United Airlines Holdings (UAL.O) and Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N), based on the tentative agreement uploaded on Transport Workers Union Local 555's website.”

“After more than a year of negotiations, leaders of Metro Transit’s main employee union, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 788, and agency management have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract.”

“The UPS-Teamsters contract — which some 340,000 workers are voting on this month — is the beachhead for what labor groups see is a bigger war: organizing Amazon and growing union ranks after years of decline. The five-year deal for drivers, package handlers and others at Sandy Springs-based UPS is not only the largest private collective bargaining agreement in the U.S. It’s one that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters hopes will show Amazon hourly workers the union’s worth and build the case more collective bargaining can reverse rising income inequality.”

“On Wednesday, August 9, nearly 5,000 fellows at the National Institutes of Health were informed that the agency has accepted their petition to hold an election to affiliate with the United Auto Workers (UAW)... The NIH and UAW will now work toward setting a date with the FLRA for the Iinstitutes’ fellows to vote on whether to unionize. If successful, this would be the largest federal union drive in 12 years. It also marks the UAW’s first foray into the sector.”

“After successfully forming a union with United Steelworkers, workers at the Blue Bird electric school bus manufacturing plant in Georgia have moved one step closer to securing a safer and fairer workplace while building the clean energy future.”

“It is said that history is written by the winners. But when it comes to big wins by organized labor, the corporate news media, itself fighting unionization at all costs, tends to ignore unions even when they are shaping history. Missing from much of the coverage about Ohio voters’ rejection of the Republican legislature’s attempt to raise the threshold for voter approval needed to amend the state constitution from a simple majority to 60 percent — was the central role organized labor played in mobilizing and helping to defeat the scheme.” 

“Doctors at private hospitals are turning to unions to address the loss of autonomy and deterioration of working conditions that they believe are the result of increasing health-care mergers and acquisitions in the wake of post-pandemic economic strains on the industry. Hundreds of physicians at the Allina Health System in Minnesota petitioned to unionize last week in what the union says is the largest group of organized doctors in the country. The new campaign marks another step for organized labor with the nation’s doctors, and unions predict a bigger push could be on the horizon.”

“Doctors at one of Minnesota’s major health care providers have filed to unionize, a move that could create the largest group of private-sector clinicians in the entire country. Doctors Council SEIU Local 10MD, which would represent doctors in Allina Health’s system, formally filed an election petition with the National Labor Relations Board on Thursday. That means members will still have to actually hold an election to determine whether or not to unionize.”

“After an multi-year effort to unionize while facing sustained university opposition, Northeastern graduate student workers received authorization from the National Labor Relations Board July 14 to hold a vote in September deciding whether a union should represent graduate workers in bargaining talks with the university. In a consequential victory for the Graduate Students of Northeastern University, or GENU-UAW, the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, has allowed workers to hold a vote determining whether they want to be collectively represented by the United Automobile Workers union, the union announced on Twitter in July.” 

“The singers of the Philadelphia Orchestra have unionized. After members of the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir signed union authorization cards indicating their desire for the American Guild of Musical Artists to bargain on their behalf, a ‘card check’ on Thursday determined that a majority answered in the affirmative, and now the singers will be represented by the union. The union organizing effort — the latest show of labor muscle at area cultural institutions in the last few years — took about 20 months, organizers said.”

“In May 2022, an employee at a Target store in Christiansburg, Virginia, leaked audio from a meeting that store employees were forced to attend. Workers had been trying to organize a union at the store since 2019. In the recorded meeting, which was mandatory, the store managers assembled to tell the staff that they didn’t have to support the union. One manager claimed that joining a union could end up costing everyone $500 a month.”

“Trader Joe’s workers and union supporters rallied outside the company’s Boston headquarters Tuesday, accusing the grocery chain of retaliation against the union and demanding the reinstatement of a longtime employee they say was fired illegally.”

“Grindr sent workers its return-to-office plan in an Aug. 3 memo, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times. The company asked them to pledge by next week that they’ll report to their assigned offices and show up two days a week, or leave the company. Anxiety rippled through the staff of roughly 180 people, as some weighed whether to move or lose their jobs. The plan was unveiled two weeks after employees filed a petition to unionize. A complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board the next day by the Communications Workers of America, the union that Grindr employees hope to join, argued that the company’s new office rules were meant to retaliate against workers for their union organizing efforts.”

“It’s been a year since organic convenience and frozen food company Amy’s Kitchen unexpectedly shuttered its factory doors in San Jose, California, leaving more than 300 workers without a job. The decision was a part of a series of retaliatory blows against workers organizing for safer conditions, better pay, and unionization. Workers had been organizing with Unite Here, a union representing about 300,000 workers in Canada and the U.S. Leadership at Amy’s Kitchen had shown a pattern of retaliation, including firing a worker after he spoke to management about his concerns, a lack of bathroom breaks, and penalties for sick days. A year later, laid-off workers are still calling for a boycott of Amy’s Kitchen products, and current workers still say conditions have not improved.”

“US labor board prosecutors plan to formally accuse Wells Fargo & Co. of violating federal labor law at an Oregon call center, unless a settlement is reached that addresses the agency’s concerns. A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board has determined that the company illegally imposed a rule prohibiting employees from distributing pro-union literature unless management first approved it, agency spokesperson Kayla Blado said in an email. The regional official also determined that the company illegally removed pro-union literature from non-work areas on its property. Absent a settlement, he will issue a complaint against the company on behalf of the labor board’s general counsel, Blado said Thursday.”

“Cornell will be terminating its partnership with Starbucks no later than the expiration of its current contract, Student Assembly President Patrick Kuehl ’24 announced in an Aug. 16 email to the student body. The contract is set to expire in June 2025. Cornell is currently a participant in the ‘We Proudly Serve Starbucks’ program, which allows its cafés and dining halls on campus to serve Starbucks products. The decision to end the partnership comes following a National Labor Relations Board ruling that found Starbucks punished pro-unionization Cornell students who were Starbucks employees by denying them leave over Cornell’s academic breaks during the unionization process at Ithaca’s three locations, among other violations.” 

“The last decade of rapid technological innovation, dubbed the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” has dramatically transformed the workplace, creating new job types, integrating new technologies into daily job tasks, increasing the use of online platforms, and more. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated these changes by forcing the adoption of technology on businesses that had been slow to do so previously, as well as vastly increasing the proportion of workers who work at least partly online or from home. These changes are not going to slow down. Rather, as articles about ChatGPT stealing jobs are quick to note, the workplace is only going to be further transformed as my generation — Generation Z — enters the labor market.”

“The Trump administration’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) offered employers significant leeway to fire shop floor organizers accordingly. It overturned longstanding labor doctrine that had viewed workplace civility rules skeptically. On August 2, the Biden administration seemed to take a significant step to revive those protections. In Stericycle, Inc., the Biden NLRB reversed the Trump Board and held that civility rules have a “chilling effect” on workers by scaring them out of attempting to disrupt the workplace through solidarity and union organizing…Unfortunately for workers, the Biden NLRB did not stop there.”

“The Power at Work Blog is delighted to lift up two videos from the 100-day Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike in 2007. We were inspired to share these videos with you by the current WGA strike, which as of today has lasted 106 days. Earlier this year, the WGA released a report that writers have been negatively impacted by the growth of streaming services in the industry.”

“Labor negotiations resumed Tuesday between the striking Writers Guild of America and Hollywood studios, but despite some apparent concessions on both sides, the stalemate appeared to be far from over. Neither side had publicly commented on the status of the talks as of late Tuesday afternoon. Negotiators for the WGA and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers -- which represents the studios -- met Friday for the first time since writers went on strike May 2, and the AMPTP provided the union with some counterproposals to its demands.”

“School bus employees have voted to authorize a strike, which could potentially cause massive disruptions for tens of thousands of New York City public school students and their families at the start of the school year. Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 is negotiating contracts with several private companies contracted with the city public school system to provide school bus service. In June, members overwhelmingly voted to approve a strike against some of the companies, according to a newsletter from the union.”

“Following an 11-day strike that galvanized a Chicago West Side neighborhood, around 200 hospital workers treating uninsured and underinsured patients have won and ratified a new contract they believe will help them better serve the community. Members of SEIU Healthcare, the mostly Black employees include nursing assistants, emergency room technicians, mental health workers and janitorial staff at Loretto Hospital, a 122-bed medical facility in the Austin neighborhood.”

“How are UPSers making sense of their gains at the table? … Some were relieved they didn’t have to strike. Others had been excited for a strike—both to hit back at corporate management and to command respect from the supervisors who dish out daily abuse.”

“As Hawaii officials begin the recovery process in the aftermath of the deadly fires, the IAFF is on the ground delivering disaster relief assistance to the members in Maui. The number of Hawaiian Islands Local 1463 member homes lost to the fires has increased from 14 to 19.”