Posts tagged Amazon Labor Union
Teamsters union launches new division for Amazon employees
September 8, 2022 // Teamsters' plans to create a company-specific division for Amazon, the second-largest U.S. private employer, were laid out last year. "Our new division affords a nationwide network of resources to all Amazon workers, behind the wheel of any truck or hard at work in any facility, to strategize with the union, mobilize in their communities, and succeed together," Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien said in a statement. Teamsters, which has 1.2 million members, appointed Randy Korgan as director of the new Amazon division.
‘Retaliation Fund’: NY Amazon Workers Hoping To Unionize Start GoFundMe
August 29, 2022 // Employees at an Amazon fulfillment center in New York who are trying to unionize have launched a GoFundMe campaign to combat what they describe as retaliation from management.
Amazon Hub in Newark Is Canceled After Unions and Local Groups Object
July 11, 2022 // “Unfortunately, the Port Authority and Amazon have been unable to reach an agreement on final lease terms and mutually concluded that further negotiations will not resolve the outstanding issues,” Huntley Lawrence, the Port Authority’s chief operating officer, said in a statement on Thursday. Advocacy groups and unions involved had said they could not support the lease unless Amazon made a set of concessions that included labor agreements and a zero-emissions benchmark at the facility. Make the Road New Jersey, Kim Gaddy, South Ward Environmental Alliance, Ms. Cullinane, Ms. Gaddy, airport cargo center,
NLRB’s Top Prosecutor Seeks Big Changes, Faces Uphill Battle
June 28, 2022 // Abruzzo has signaled it’s one of the many decisions she intends to undo from the Trump era, when cases were spearheaded by her predecessor Peter Robb, who was widely seen by organized labor and Democrats as favoring employers. Biden later fired Robb. “The hypocrisy is off the charts when you think about the employee rights,” Nix said. “When she gets done with the job, she ought to apply for the lobbyist job at the AFL-CIO, because she’s going even farther than union officials have even imagined.” John Logan, San Francisco State University, pro-union experts,
AFL-CIO unveils plan to grow but some union leaders underwhelmed
June 17, 2022 // Shuler announced the creation of the Center for Transformational Organizing, a group of strategists, organizers and researcher who will focus on how to unionize new-economy companies. “We have a visionary way forward,” Shuler said. D Taylor, Mark Dimondstein,
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,