Posts tagged Buffalo
The labor movement could prove pivotal this election year
September 5, 2024 //
Donald Trump Calls Tesla CEO Elon Musk ‘Greatest Cutter’ For Terminating Workers Who Want To Unionize
August 14, 2024 // “You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump said in a 3-hour-long Spaces event with the billionaire entrepreneur. “I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say: ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike- I won't mention the name of the company, but they go on strike. And you say, ‘That's OK, you're all gone. You're all gone.” The former President was seemingly referring to the termination of about 30 Tesla employees early last year in what was allegedly a response to unionizing efforts at its facility in Buffalo, New York.
Op-Ed: The Supreme Court Ruling in the Starbucks Case Proves the Law Won’t Save Labor
June 17, 2024 // As a union organizer and Starbucks worker, I’ve seen the effects of corporate retaliation up close. In December 2020, I took a job at the Elmwood Avenue Starbucks in Buffalo, with the goal of unionizing my workplace. A year later, our store voted to become the first unionized corporate Starbucks location in the United States, sparking a wave of organizing across the company. In response to our union campaign, Starbucks unleashed a union-busting effort that began with managers and executives swarming our stores in Buffalo and escalated to firings (including my own), store closings, and the withholding of new benefits, like seniority pay and credit card tipping, from unionized stores nationwide.
Albany Starbucks Employees Seek Vote to Kick Out SBWU Union
March 1, 2024 // Dowey and her colleagues join Starbucks partners and other coffee company employees across the country in banding together to vote out SBWU union officials. In the past year, Starbucks employees in Manhattan, NY; two Buffalo, NY locations; Pittsburgh, PA; Bloomington, MN; Salt Lake City, UT; Greenville, SC; Oklahoma City, OK; San Antonio, TX; and Philadelphia, PA, have all sought free Foundation legal aid in filing or defending decertification petitions at the NLRB. Foundation attorneys have helped employees at independent Philadelphia coffee shops Good Karma Café and Ultimo Coffee successfully oust Workers United union officials, who are affiliated with SBWU. Many employees of Starbucks or other coffee establishments are requesting decertification votes from the NLRB roughly one year after union bosses attained power in their workplaces, which is the earliest opportunity afforded by federal law to do so.
Starbucks and Workers United, long at odds, say they’ll restart labor talks
February 28, 2024 // Workers have voted to unionize at more than 370 company-owned Starbucks stores in the U.S., but none of those stores has reached a labor agreement with the company. The process has been contentious. In multiple cases, federal courts have ordered Starbucks to reinstate workers who were fired after leading unionization efforts at their stores. Regional offices of the National Labor Relations Board also have issued at least 120 complaints against Starbucks for unfair labor practices, including refusal to bargain and reserving pay raises and other benefits for non-union workers.
Starbucks proposes restarting union talks, reaching labor deals in major reversal
December 11, 2023 // The company may also be trying to head off an effort by the Strategic Organizing Center, a labor group, to elect three pro-union candidates to Starbucks’ board of directors next year.
What would happen if clergy unionized?
December 3, 2023 // Knowing the economy they’re part of is leaving them worse off than previous generations, members of Generation Z are demanding a better work-life balance and healthier, more flexible work environments. They’re looking to unions to help them achieve these demands. If almost half of young pastors are considering leaving the ministry, they will need more than a little mentoring to convince them to stay. They will need the kind of community and sense of solidarity that unions provide, as well as the tools and resources they offer.
Tesla beats US claim that it fired factory workers amid union campaign
December 1, 2023 //
Workers at Buffalo AKG Art Museum Launch Unionization Effort
December 1, 2023 // “We recognize that Art and the Labor movement are aligned in collective struggle, and we believe that unionizing is the best path to ensure that we, the workers at the Buffalo AKG, can all take pride of ownership and feel a secure sense of belonging in our workplace and the broader community,” said the workers’ statement, posted on Instagram and on X (formerly known as Twitter) on November 16.
Buffalo Starbucks Baristas Blast National Labor Relations Board’s Move to Trap Workers in Union at Court of Appeals
November 29, 2023 // “Given the biases of the current Board, it is disheartening ― but not surprising ― to see the NLRB claim Cortes’ petition is the product of Starbucks’ alleged unfair labor practices,” the brief states. “Its own records show that nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, Cortes collected her petition because of the Union’s anti-employee behavior.” The employees’ brief also contends that the relief NLRB lawyers are seeking from the Second Circuit – a 10(j) injunction under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) that will force Starbucks managers into working with SBWU union bosses to craft a monopoly bargaining contract – is extreme. Such injunctions can only be ordered when the harm done to workers in their absence would be “irreparable.” Foundation attorneys argue that the fact that Cortes and other employees have attempted to decertify does not make any injuries suffered by the union “irreparable.” “The NLRB’s argument it needs an injunction to suppress decertification efforts already underway―which have already garnered majority support―is a tacit admission it is seeking to alter the status quo, not preserve it,” states the brief.