Posts tagged agricultural workers
Efforts to unionize agricultural workers in WA face long-standing hurdles
May 9, 2023 // With Ostrom — and, now, Windmill Farms — workers, labor organizers and community members have held rallies outside the mushroom farm and at several locations where the mushrooms are sold. UFW has asked people to look for the mushrooms in their local grocery stores and help track their distribution. “We have also reached out directly to retailers that carry Ostrom products, asking them to also put pressure on Ostrom to recognize the union,” De Loera said in an email in February. “Consumers can help us do this work by helping to identify Ostrom products in their local stores.” Workers from Sunnyside, community members and UFW staff rallied outside an upscale Seattle grocery store in December 2022 to raise awareness among consumers. Students at the University of Washington successfully lobbied that the school stop using mushrooms from Windmill Farms. The students organized into a group called Students for Farmworkers (SFFW) at UW.
The South Has a New Union — and Workers Have Black Women to Thank
January 17, 2023 // Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), a first-of-its-kind cross-sector union offering membership to fast food, retail, warehouse, care, and other service industry workers across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. USSW is a continuance of Raise Up, the very active southern chapter of the Fight for $15 and a Union that formed in 2013 and took root in North Carolina. USSW will function as a part of the Service Employees International Union, a labor union that represents nearly 2 million workers in the U.S. and Canada.
Illinois: Local unions celebrating anticipated passing of Workers’ Rights Amendment
November 10, 2022 // Marilee Smith, with the Illinois Policy Institute, said the amendment could give union leaders too much power. “It could allow government unions to negotiate virtually anything,” Smith said.
Biden backs California farmworkers union bill as pressure on Newsom grows
September 6, 2022 // Biden in his statement did not name Newsom, who vetoed a similar bill last year, but Biden’s support comes as many advocates stage protests and vigils in Sacramento calling on the California Democrat to sign the bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro have both urged Newsom to sign the bill. United Farm Workers president Teresa Romero,
National Right to Work Foundation Legal Brief Counters Farm Union Bosses’ Case Seeking Power to Impose Union, Top Down, via Lawsuits
February 24, 2022 // “Union association must be fully voluntary, not the result of backroom dealing in lawsuits by union officials designed to force a union on workers from the top down.”