Posts tagged Buffalo

    Federal Charge: IAM Union Bosses Illegally Demanded Mechanic Join Union, Caused Firing When He Refused Unlawful Demand

    February 7, 2022 // Remmington Duk, who recently worked as a mechanic at the Robert Basil Buick GMC dealership in Orchard Park, has filed federal charges against the International Association of Mechanics (IAM) Lodge 447 union and the dealership. Duk’s charges say that IAM agents illegally threatened to have him fired in October 2021 because he exercised his right not to be a union member, and that Robert Basil officials followed through on this threat at IAM officials’ behest and terminated Duk less than a week later.

    Starbucks union push spreads to 54 stores in 19 states

    January 31, 2022 // At Starbucks, the pro-union workers have advocated for better staffing, training and pay, seeking a direct line to company management. Buffalo workers have joined Workers United, affiliated with the massive Service Employees International Union.

    Why even progressive companies like REI are wary of unions

    January 28, 2022 // Ultimately, a company that engages with an employee union will likely have to give up some power and control. But at a time when employees increasingly expect to have a say in everything from remote-work policies to their company’s ethical practices, trying to resist employee activism in any form is a losing proposition. Far better to embrace it.

    Workers at REI Store in Manhattan Seek to Form Retailer’s Only Union

    January 23, 2022 // Despite the organizing efforts at companies like Amazon and Starbucks last year, membership in unions declined to 10.3 percent of the work force, matching its lowest figure in Labor Department records that date back to 1983.

    Will the Starbucks union victories ignite organizing across the country?

    January 17, 2022 // All this activism could simply evaporate — just another false dawn for unions — but it's also possible that we're at the dawn of a new era, one in which the working underclass is drawn, like the industrial workers of the 1930s, into the mainstream and the labor movement is empowered. But does being unionized then become just one more attribute of being a barista? Or does union success at Starbucks signal a nationwide organizing wave across the low-wage service sector? 2022 might just be the year we see the beginnings of a new American labor movement.