Posts tagged Buffalo
Starbucks Worker Asks Labor Board to Review Order Denying Vote to Remove Unwanted Union
June 13, 2023 // Cortes’ decertification petition, which was filed on April 28, has support from a majority of her coworkers who also want to remove the union from their workplace. After her initial filing, Cortes began receiving free legal assistance from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. “They have treated us like pawns, promising us that we could remove them after a year if we no longer wanted their representation, and are now trying to stop us from exercising our right to vote,” Cortes said in a statement about why so many of her coworkers support removing the union. “It’s obvious they care more about power and control than respecting our individual rights.” Under federal law, workers can trigger an NLRB-supervised decertification election with the signatures of 30% or more of the employees in a workplace. After receiving the petition, NLRB officials should then promptly move to schedule an election. However, on May 25, the NLRB Region 3 Regional Director issued an order dismissing the decertification petition.
Local labor unions show their solidarity during writers strike
June 12, 2023 // Local labor unions, in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, gathered in front of the production studio that's under construction at the corner of Niagara and West Ferry. Organizers say there are no stories to tell without writers. "The potential has always been here, and now with the realization of places like this, and the idea that local crews are available and things of that nature, millions upon millions of dollars can come into the area," Writers Guild screenwriter Jeff Wilbur told 2 On Your Side.
One of the first Starbucks to vote to unionize now is trying to oust the union
May 5, 2023 // The store is down to 14 workers – 19 participated in the union vote – so about four of them would have to agree to file a decertification petition. But, in order for the union to be decertified, a majority of workers would have to vote that way.
New York’s biggest labor actions of the past year
February 28, 2023 // Only one other state, Hawaii, has a unionization rate higher than New York’s 20.7%. In the public sector, just around two-thirds of New Yorkers are in a union. In 2022 alone, nearly 200 workplaces in the state filed for representation through the National Labor Relations Board. But, despite the hype and a 57-year high in Americans’ approval of labor unions, New York’s union participation (and the country’s as a whole) is still trending downward. In 2012, 23.2% of New York workers were union members, 2.5 points higher than it is today. CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies Labor Department Chair Ruth Milkman said that despite 2022’s historic union victories, many were with small firms. “So all this publicity and media attention to these iconic companies that have had some recent experience of successful unionization, it’s kind of a drop in the bucket in terms of the whole labor market in New York,” she said.
Union campaign at Tesla marks second attempt to organize workers
February 21, 2023 //
Tesla Workers Reportedly Fired After Trying to Unionize
February 17, 2023 // The move comes just a day after a worker organizing committee, known as Tesla Workers United, notified Musk by email of their intent to unionize. The group is comprised of 25 Tesla employees that process and mark data for Tesla’s Autopilot driver assist system. Tesla Workers United and the larger Workers United union are working in partnership as they attempt to organize Tesla’s Buffalo operation. If the latter name sounds familiar, it’s because the organization recently helped unionize hundreds of Starbucks locations. The group hopes to unionize employees tagging Autopilot data as well as a further 1,000 manufacturing staff at the facility. According to the union, one of the fired employees was a member of the organizing committee, while several others that were fired had been involved in discussions around unionization
Tesla workers trying to unionize are turning to the group that launched Starbucks’ nationwide union wave
February 16, 2023 // The Buffalo factory has about 2,000 employees, about 800 of whom work for the company’s Autopilot division, the technology that allows Tesla’s cars to maneuver controls automatically. The remainder of the workers are part of manufacturing or other functions, according to the Wall Street Journal. Since December 2021, when Starbucks workers first organized in Buffalo, over 250 more stores have voted in favor of unionizing. The company has adopted a hardline stance towards its unions. Starbucks has yet to agree to or sign any contracts with its unions, even though it has said it’s open to discussions. With executives pushing back and negotiations faltering, the unionization effort in the world’s largest coffeehouse chain has begun to slow in recent months with a softer pace of contract bargaining.
As Starbucks unionizing slows, some strike, others skeptical
January 11, 2023 // Contract negotiations at three stores in Buffalo and Arizona began last spring. Since then, bargaining sessions have been held at 75 stores, but Starbucks has walked out on the meetings because it opposes having union officials join by Zoom. Starbucks says labor organizers are violating the rules by failing to share Zoom links or name remote participants and, in at least two cases, posting recordings from bargaining sessions on social media. The union says Starbucks is reversing itself after initially allowing Zoom negotiations last spring.
Big Labor’s Astroturfed Unionization of Starbucks
January 10, 2023 // It’s unclear the degree to which the Starbucks campaign has featured salts, but Brisack isn’t the only one. Articles in union and socialist publications Jacobin, In These Times, and Labor Notes all reference the organizing role played by employees who “consciously took jobs at Starbucks to organize.” Outside the workplace, Workers United also funded an array of consultants, organizers, and attorneys to support the campaign. When organizing her co-workers, Brisack would introduce them to professional organizers such as Bensinger “to show the baristas that she had a real union backing her,” according to the Washington Post.