Posts tagged Bernie Sanders
How Utah Is Protecting Workers Without the Baggage of Unions | Opinion
March 28, 2023 // Utah's Portable Benefit Plan is a national breakthrough for independent contractors, establishing a legal pathway for entities to offer fully voluntary benefits plans that self-employed workers can open on their own. Unlike employer-sponsored health plans for traditional employees that are tied to jobs, Utah's self-employed workers instead will soon have access to a variety of new benefits plans that are entirely their own and entirely portable for their evolving careers. The possibilities of products that may be established are broad, including the potential for health insurance, unemployment insurance, and disability insurance related products. There is even a pre-existing financial tool known as a "Utah medical care savings account" that self-employed Utahns may conveniently use to pay for their portable health insurance benefits and medical expenses. Many opponents of independent contracting argue that such workers are exploited and deserve the health care and other benefits that many traditional employees receive.
Graduate Unions: Why Student Workers at University of California, Temple, More Are Striking
March 27, 2023 // HELU was founded in 2021 in an effort to fill those shoes. At a digital summit that July, members of 75 unions and labor organizations convened to draft a “vision platform” laying out everything from their legislative commitments (like Sen. Bernie Sanders’s College for All Act) to their support of student debt cancelation. The endgame is a unified academic labor movement capable of securing public investment and reorienting higher ed to “prioritize people and the common good over profit and prestige.” To date, 130 unions and affiliated groups representing over half a million workers have endorsed the platform. The first step in realizing this vision, says Jaime, who attended the 2021 summit, is to build union density. “Transforming academia is not going to happen in one single contract campaign. We have to organize workers in every single university in order to achieve real change,” he says.
ATA Expresses Concern Over Labor Secretary Nominee Julie Su
March 17, 2023 // In a letter to U.S. Senate labor leaders, American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear expressed concern about the track record that Labor Secretary nominee Julie Su would bring to the job, specifically as it relates to the rights of truck drivers to be independent contractors. “California’s AB 5, which Ms. Su helped pass and implement as Secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, essentially outlaws their business model,” Spear wrote in a letter to Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and ranking member Bill Cassidy (R-La.). The letter was copied to members of the committee.
Starbucks CEO to testify before Senate over opposition to stores unionizing
March 8, 2023 // Starbucks initially pushed back on efforts to compel Schultz to testify before the US Senate Help committee, offering other Starbucks executives in lieu of Schultz. Sanders criticized Starbucks’ response. Starbucks Workers United has called out Schultz on social media, using a #DearHoward hashtag to criticize how Starbucks has responded to unionization efforts and its impact on workers in anticipation of the Senate testimony.
Opinion: Let’s Continue to Fight for Freelancers
February 24, 2023 // New Senate HELP Committee Chairman and avowed socialist Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is eager to reintroduce the PRO Act in the chamber soon. The bill’s most recent version contained the following provisions: an ABC test that deems most workers employees and not independent contractors; a statute to abolish right-to-work; making union membership conditional for employment; and giving unions unfettered access to private worker information.
YouTube Music Workers Strike in Austin Over ‘Anti-Union’ Return-to-Office Mandate
February 24, 2023 // Gossell and Marschner are upset that Google, whom they see as their employer, has deferred to Cognizant. “I’ve gone through Google training. I go through their security training. I go through their ethics training…. [But] if we want to negotiate over pay, they say, ‘Pay is based on the contract we have with Google, so we can’t bargain over that.'” Marschner says. The employees, affiliated with the Alphabet Workers Union, which has never held a strike, are awaiting National Labor Relations Board decisions on their election petition and the two Unfair Labor Practice complaints. “It’s going to be a long labor movement, because we’re not stopping until we have a union,” Gossell says. Referring to recent union activity at Amazon, Disney and Tesla, he adds: “I’m not saying we’re the tip of the spear, but we’re part of something bigger that’s going on in America. All you have to do is pick up a history book to see how this ends.”
Starbucks CEO says things have gone sour for young people
February 24, 2023 // As of mid-February, the National Labor Relations Board has certified 282 stores that voted to unionize, and 56 that voted against. There are about 9,300 US company-operated Starbucks stores, and a relatively small number have voted to unionize. To Schultz, this means that the vast majority of workers at Starbucks stores are happy with how things are. When Schultz re-joined the company last year, he spent months visiting with employees as part of a listening tour that helped him develop a new roadmap for the company, which he said had “lost its way.” “I’ve talked to thousands of our Starbucks partners,” he told Harlow. “I was shocked, stunned to hear the loneliness, the anxiety, the fracturing of trust in government, fracturing of trust in companies, fracturing of trust in families, the lack of hope in terms of opportunity.” American companies are “faced with unionization because [workers are] upset, not so much with the company, but the situation.”
Starbucks workers contend company is busting unions. ‘This will be a priority for me,’ congressman says.
February 21, 2023 // Since then, the congressman’s staff has been in touch with the company, whose representatives have told them that Starbucks is allowing workers to exercise their rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Khanna told the employees on Friday that he has corresponded with new Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan and expects to meet with him after he takes over April 1. “I’m hopeful that between the approach to him and the approach to some of the board members, who I know, that they may see the light — allowing for reasonable unionization and reasonable terms,” Khanna said. He mentioned that Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -2.29% last year came to a neutrality agreement with the Communications Workers of America; Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is a Starbucks board member.
In new role, Sanders demands answers from Starbucks’ Schultz
February 16, 2023 // Sanders’ demand for testimony from Schultz is an opening act in his new role as chairman of the HELP panel, which has expansive jurisdiction over issues that have been central to his more than four decades in public service. And thanks to Democrats adding a seat to their majority in last year's election, Sanders can fully exercise the oversight powers of the gavel and potentially issue subpoenas without Republican support. Sanders said he’s not done challenging individual corporations, mentioning Amazon as another company he believes has acted illegally against unions. And “if you are a multinational pharmaceutical company that’s been ripping off the American people and charging us outrageously high prices, you should be nervous, because I’m going to hold you accountable,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. “I’m going to do something about it.”
Unionize the Senate, staffers urge
February 9, 2023 // Labor advocates are pushing the Senate to recognize staff unions, in the hopes of kickstarting progress in the chamber now that their House organizing efforts have stalled under Republican control. The Congressional Workers Union sent a letter Thursday to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Rules and Administration Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Bernie Sanders, demanding a vote by the end of the month on a resolution authorizing Senate offices to unionize.