Posts tagged Amazon Labor Union
Labor’s Militant Minority How a new class of “salts”—radicals who take jobs to help unionization—is boosting the organizing efforts of long-term workers.
June 16, 2022 // On May 1 organizers from the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) joined the New York City Central Labor Council and community organizations to march from Washington Square Park to Foley Park. After a long afternoon of marching and chanting in the sun, about a third of the core organizing committee made their way to a May Day party at the Communist Party headquarters in Chelsea. In the Party’s spacious office, adorned with pictures of William Z. Foster and Lenin, a racially diverse group of twenty-somethings—ALU organizers, members of the Young Communist League (YLC), and fellow travelers—drank Modelos and Bud Lights, ate pizza, and danced to the Backstreet Boys. They were celebrating May Day and the first successful union election at Amazon—the ALU’s April 22 victory at the JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island. Mie Inouye, Boston Review, May Day, Young Communist League, post-Occupy, post-Bernie, Organizing Methods in the Steel Industry, militant minority, Jaz Brisack, New Communist Movement,
AFL-CIO Blocks Debate on Union Democracy Reforms – Amazon Labor Union & Starbucks Workers Excluded from Convention – Shuler Criticizes AFL-CIO Organizing Approach
June 16, 2022 // Debate on Democratizing the AFL-CIO is Blocked Prior to the convention, the Vermont AFL-CIO submitted a motion that would allow for every member of the labor movement to vote on electing the leadership of the national AFL-CIO. Many unions, such as the Teamsters, the UAW, the Steelworkers, and NewsGuild allow their rank-and-file members to vote on leadership. In contrast, the leadership of the AFL-CIO is selected by a body of 500 delegates. David Van Dussen,
Workers at Trader Joe’s, Amazon, and Starbucks Are Unionizing, But Want Their Independence From Organized Labor
June 15, 2022 // “There’s no mandate that the company has to bargain,” she says. “This is where having resources and a legal team that is funded is essential for winning.” Campos-Medina says it’s not hard to envision independent unions partnering with a national union once they get to the collective bargaining stage for resources and assistance. Yosef said that while Trader Joe’s United is independent, members of the labor community in Hadley offered legal advice and administrative support to help guide organizing workers in the process leading up to the election filing. Courtney Vinopal, Hadley, Maeg Yosef, Patricia Campos-Medina, Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations,
Bigger Than Amazon Why Nonprofit Worker Unionizing Matters
June 13, 2022 // The growth of nonprofit worker organizing is one sector to watch for the slow resurgence of the labor movement. The unionization of nonprofits is the best way to defend public-sector workers, who have the highest rate of unionization. Unionized nonprofit workers make outsourcing and privatization more expensive and slow the further dismantling of the public sector. This is why unions such as IFPTE and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which have large numbers of members in public employment, find it necessary to support unionization in the nonprofit sector. Ultimately, continued organizing will be most effective coming from the bottom up. The fiery Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU) is the nonprofit equivalent of the Amazon Labor Union founded by Chris Smalls in Staten Island. NPEU was formed in 1998 when a group of workers at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) decided to unionize, and it remained small until the pandemic. Affiliated with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 70, in the past four years, NPEU has grown a stunning 500%. Kaitlin Bell, NPEU communications chair and CLINIC Workers United member, told me recently, “Since 2018, NPEU has grown from 300 workers at 12 organizations to 1,300 workers at about 50 organizations.” unaccountable boards, ,outside funders,
Amazon files motion to close hearing on union victory to the public
June 10, 2022 // Amazon’s lawyers filed a motion to close the hearing, according to a filing provided by ALU attorney Seth Goldstein to The Washington Post. NLRB hearings are typically held in person and open to the public. But Amazon argues in its motion that because the hearing is being held on Zoom, it makes it difficult to know if witnesses who aren’t supposed to be able to observe the proceedings are in attendance, or if the hearing is being recorded and shared with those witnesses. Caroline O'Donovan, Jeff Bezos,
Microsoft’s union pledge, and the new era of organized labor in tech
June 8, 2022 // Courtney said he sees a direct connection between Microsoft’s announcement, the pending Activision-Blizzard acquisition, and President Joe Biden’s promise to run the most pro-union administration in U.S. history. TODD BISHOP, Marcus Courtney, software tester, principles for employee organizing and engagement with labor organizations, Margaret O’Mara, University of Washington, regulatory approval, video-game testers,
Unions lobby Biden for bolder approach to student debt relief
June 8, 2022 // Labor organizations have already had some success in pushing Biden on student debt relief over the past year. Unions representing teachers, fire fighters, health care workers and government employees were a driving force behind the Education Department’s decision last year to use emergency powers to expand the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Labor of Love: EWOC is Pioneering a New Model for Empowering Workers
May 26, 2022 // EWOC is most strongly concentrated in California, Illinois, Texas and New York. In New York City, the group has over 500 people — workers, volunteers and trainees — involved in its network. Its volunteer organizers have successfully organized workers at Sara Lawrence College and at Bright Horizons, the nation’s largest provider of employer-sponsored child care. Some of the REI-Soho worker-organizers who would eventually see through a successful union drive with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union went through EWOC’s training program. EWOC volunteers also help to funnel Starbucks workers who reach out to them to Starbucks Workers United, the newly-formed, independent Starbucks union.
Trader Joe’s workers push to unionize amid wave of organizing efforts
May 26, 2022 // It would be the first unionized Trader Joe’s store out of more than 530 locations in the US. Workers are organizing independently, citing the similar framework of the Amazon Labor Union, which is not affiliated with traditional, established labor unions.
The NLRB doesn’t want Amazon workers to know the truth about unions
May 23, 2022 // Freedom of speech, even harassment, is protected by the NLRB, it seems, if it's under the guise of a protest. But if an employer hosts a meeting for all staff to hear about the implications of unionization, that's not OK.