Posts tagged Brooklyn
Park Slope Starbucks closing, after October unionization
January 17, 2025 // While Starbucks said in a statement that the company has “engaged Workers United to discuss transfer options for the 14 partners currently employed at this location to continue working at nearby stores,” Sammy said Starbucks had told partners they were not guaranteed a job at another store, but Starbucks would do its best to find them a position within the company.
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.
Op-Ed: Hochul needs to shut down this pricey home-health-care power grab
September 25, 2024 // And bidders are all too likely to fold: “The political world does not mess” with 1199 SEIU,” snarks Empire Center health-industry expert Bill Hammond. “Any bidder with the slightest understanding of what they were getting into when entering into this contract would know what that meant when [1199 SEIU] put that piece of paper in front of them.” Unionizing 200,000 caregivers would be a huge win for 1199, which already boasts 450,000 members. Yet it would defeat the purpose of the program — which, again, is to help family members, not unionized employees, to care for loved ones.
NLRB seeks to force Trader Joe’s to reopen New York wine store
January 25, 2024 // The NLRB said its general counsel is seeking remedies including compelling Trader Joe’s to reopen the store, which was located in New York City’s Union Square neighborhood and closed in 2022, and “make-whole relief” for its workers. The NLRB intends to encourage the union and Trader Joe’s to reach a settlement and has scheduled a hearing before an administrative law judge starting on May 7. Either party could appeal the judge’s decision to the board and ultimately to a federal appeals court. The UFCW hailed the NLRB’s decision to file the complaint as a victory for Trader Joe’s workers in their effort to gain leverage against Trader Joe’s.
Brooklyn Electrical Workers Win Year-Long Legal Battle to Remove Unwanted Union from Workplace
January 11, 2024 // Spira’s legal team traveled to New York to defend his rights against the union’s allegations in the NLRB case. Minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin before an NLRB Administrative Law Judge, NLRB lawyers conceded they could produce no witnesses to testify in favor of the union’s charges against Horsepower Electric. Soon after, the NLRB formally dropped its complaint against Horsepower Electric, thus clearing the way for the ballots to be counted. Finally, on December 12, 2023, IUJAT union officials issued a disclaimer of interest effectively announcing they were departing the workplace. This was presumably done to avoid a vote count the union figured it would lose.
Peltola urges pizza workers in Alaska to unionize so she can have a slice
July 19, 2023 // It may cost Alaskans more, however, to share a pizza with Peltola. Currently, a line cook at Moose’s Tooth in Anchorage starts at $16 an hour. No experience is needed, and it comes with an array of benefits, such as a 401(k) matching retirement plan, health and dental insurance, vision insurance employee discount on food, paid time off, and an energetic working environment. A sous chef at the Bear Tooth Grill, a sister establishment, gets paid $22 to $27 an hour. No degree is required, but two years of restaurant experience is requested. The average cost of a pizza nationally is $17.81, but in Alaska, that same pizza is going for $21.74, a 22% increase in cost for Alaskans over their fellow pizza eaters in the Lower 48.
Tied vote stymies union effort at Lower East Side Trader Joe’s
April 24, 2023 // A two-day union vote at a Lower East Side Trader Joe’s ended in a tie, handing a loss to workers who supported the effort, the union announced Friday. The final vote at the Essex Crossing Trader Joe’s was 76-76, legally marking a win for the company, worker-led union Trader Joe’s United said in a news release. Despite the tie, however, worker-organizers at the store said they would continue to fight for a union.
Trader Joe’s United’s first loss is further proof that unionizing isn’t easy
November 2, 2022 // Ananya Bhattacharya Mon, October 31, 2022 at 4:43 AM·3 min read Three months into its unionizing efforts, Trader Joe’s United has lost its winning streak. At a Trader Joe’s store in Brooklyn, workers on Oct. 28 voted 94 to 66 against joining the independent union, which represents employees at two other stores in Massachusetts and in Minnesota.
Communications Workers of America Files Unfair Labor Complaint Against Verizon Express Portland
August 12, 2022 // This week’s move follows a wave of union organizing among Verizon retail workers. Workers at Seattle-area Verizon stores voted to unionize in April, and in Flint, Michigan, have a pending NLRB union election. Unlike workers at full-service stores, workers at Verizon Express stores do not make a commission on sales, leaving them with less take-home pay compared to workers at other stores. The Portland workers are the first Verizon Express store workers in the country to file for formal union representation. Lori Claxton
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,