Posts tagged AFL-CIO
SEIU Rejoins AFL-CIO After Splitting Off 20 Years Ago
January 8, 2025 // The reaffiliation means the AFL-CIO can more directly pitch in on SEIU campaigns, including a high-profile one at Starbucks. That effort is led by Workers United, an SEIU affiliate, and has led to more than 500 unionized stores nationwide at the coffee chain, making it one of the most closely watched organizing pushes in decades.
New York’s Fastest-Growing Union Is Management’s Best Friend — and Some Workers Don’t Even Know They’re Members
December 20, 2024 // Though she last worked for Five Borough two months ago, she stopped receiving pay stubs long before that, she said — paperwork that would have had to show deductions, including for union dues. Supervisors ignored her repeated requests for pay records, she said. Through such voluntary recognition deals with management, less than a decade after its founding, HHWA has exploded in size. It currently claims some 43,000 members, up from 14,141 in 2018. An investigation into Home Healthcare Workers of America by THE CITY, based on interviews with past and current members, legal records and other public statements, reveals that this fast-growing union is a tool of company management in the form of a labor organization.
‘We’re making history’: Salt Lake library workers reach key step in effort to unionize
December 18, 2024 // They also noted that they were essentially the last remaining city department not unionized, as most city employees are members of either the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or part of police or firefighter unions. Yet, it took nearly 20 months to reach Monday's vote because of hurdles that union leaders didn't expect when the process started. Brad Asay, vice president of the Utah AFL-CIO, which has helped employees seek unionization, said the effort was complicated because of Salt Lake City's unique structure. The city's library system is independently governed, but its budget is approved by the City Council every year.
International Rescue Committee (IRC) Workers Announce Unionization with OPEIU Local 153
December 17, 2024 // Included in the IRC NY workers key demands are better pay transparency and equity, higher wages, affordable health insurance inclusive of coverage for mental healthcare, just cause protections, safe and confidential spaces for meeting with clients, and a collective voice and input when it comes to organizational decision making.
Op-ed: Biden’s Last Labor Stand: Honoring the First Female Secretary of Labor While Propping Up His Failed One
December 17, 2024 // Biden even attempted to appoint a radical progressive incompetent to the post of United States Secretary of Labor and as much as bragged about this in this speech. What Biden failed to note is that Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su was never confirmed by the Senate, because she is that incompetent. Yet, Su was there anyway, praised and introduced by the first female president of the AFL-CIO, Liz Shuler, who credited Su with turning "the Department of Labor into a true House of Labor." A house of labor that has tacitly excluded and targeted the more than 64 million independent professionals and small businesses; but, apples and oranges.
Today’s hospitality union battle is over wages. The next one might be about tech.
December 5, 2024 // The following year, the Culinary Union added language around technology adoption to its contract. In its contracts negotiated in 2023, the union “protected and expanded” that clause, Bethany Khan, a union spokesperson, told Hotel Dive. For members of the Culinary Union, their technology-related worries go beyond robot replacements — encompassing everything from workflow-optimizing apps to artificial intelligence. And while the union’s contract language offers protections around how technology is used at hotels, it does not prevent companies from deploying new technologies in the first place.
Opinion: An Anti-Worker Warrior at the NLRB
December 2, 2024 // The window for Democratic nominations will close when Republicans run the Senate in January, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer isn’t sparing any time. “Confirming the NLRB nominees is one of our highest priorities,” he said last weekend on X, committing to a vote by the end of the year. The goal is to reconfirm Lauren McFerran, the board’s current chairman and a reliable vote for union coercion.
Oregon’s largest union rejoins labor federation AFL-CIO after two decades
November 29, 2024 // Nationally, SEIU and the Teamsters union split from AFL-CIO in 2005, citing disagreements over how to stem the decline in union membership and the AFL-CIO’s focus on national politics over labor organizing. The Oregon affiliate, SEIU 503, followed its national organization. SEIU members spent the past year, following 2023′s “summer of strikes,” talking about what they wanted out of the labor movement, which has grown and seen workers emboldened by a tight labor market push for higher wages and better benefits. One key theme was that they wanted to be in solidarity with other workers, SEIU 503 Executive Director Melissa Unger said.
Op-Ed: Follow Trump 45 Labor Policy, Not the Teamsters Union
November 21, 2024 // By pushing Rep. Chavez-DeRemer for secretary of labor, O’Brien is essentially asking the winner of the 2024 presidential election to concede to the loser on one of the most important pieces of domestic legislation after the winner has already won in exchange for nothing. Rather than taking labor policy advice from a union boss, President Trump would do much better to follow the example he himself set in his previous term.
After Democrats lost the working class, union leaders say it’s time to ‘reconstruct the Democratic Party’
November 18, 2024 // “We can’t communicate with every nonunion laborer. We can only communicate with a portion of our members,” said Booker, who thinks Democrats could have performed better with a fierier populist message on the economy and a cooler one on cultural issues that make some of his members feel like Democrats are out-of-touch elitists. “A lot of our members own guns. A lot of our members hunt.” Booker said that when he toured job sites this year, he heard about inflation, immigration and the demise of the Keystone Pipeline, which would have created jobs for his members but was killed for environmental concerns — all issues that played to the GOP’s favor.