Posts tagged COVID-19
Actors and writers unions are fighting technological change. Expect change to win.
July 24, 2023 // Other issues relating to technology involve establishing standards for use of AI, which holds out the possibility that Hollywood may someday do away with actors altogether. The actors and writers can negotiate for better pay and more residuals (that’s likely what ultimately happens here) but the automation and efficiency being promoted by streamlining, digital, and AI are here for good. Show business was long assumed to be resistant to the type of automation that cost factory worker jobs. Machines cannot do what actors and writers can do. The unions are realizing that may no longer be the case.
Unemployment rate steady as CT Labor Dept notes massive fraud
July 21, 2023 // The Connecticut Business and Industry Association, meanwhile, did not see many positives to the most recent report. “The June numbers point to the ongoing volatility in Connecticut’s job market while highlighting the challenges we face with resolving the labor shortage crisis,” CBIA CEO Chris DiPentima said in a statement. “Connecticut’s year-over-year job growth is now just 1.2%, well below the national average of 2.5%, and among the slowest of all states.” DiPentima also pointed to continued declines in the state’s overall workforce, something the organization highlighted last month. The number of people working in the state has declined since last year and while the CBIA does not know exactly why that is, they say it poses a concern for business leaders in the state who may not be able to fill open positions. All of this comes just one day after the Department of Labor issued an alert to Connecticut residents saying that they have found nearly 75% of unemployment claims to be the result of fraud. These fraudulent claims, they say, are the result of identity theft, and consumers in the state should be on alert for any changes to their credit reports. If you do notice fraud, you are urged to report it. You should also report to the department if you receive a tax form from them but did not file for unemployment benefits.
San Fran socialists killed historic Anchor Brewing, critics say
July 19, 2023 // But locals such as Greenberg told The Post that a cadre of Democratic Socialists of America drove the push to unionize Anchor’s modest 61-member workforce — in hopes of inspiring the masses to “take on the power of capital.” In 2020, the Anchor Union’s first contract kicked hourly pay up by as much as 28% — a substantial bump that exacerbated the company’s pandemic slump. “I’m very sympathetic to the workers, but there also has to be some reality,” Roth said. “And that’s the problem with socialism: in the real world, the economic and math tenets quite literally do not add up.”
Op-ed: Placing teachers unions’ power above students’ lives
July 11, 2023 // Ms. Weingarten is the head of the powerful American Federation of Teachers union, and Mr. Pompeo’s assessment notwithstanding, President Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, just appointed her to serve on the Department of Homeland Security’s school safety council. According to Mr. Mayorkas, the council will advise the department on school safety and help it “counter the evolving and emerging threats to the homeland.”
UPS Agrees to Ax Two-Tier Wage System in Win for Teamsters
July 3, 2023 // United Parcel Service Inc. has agreed to end a dual wage system for delivery drivers in its next contract with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, dramatically lowering the chances of a nationwide strike when the current labor agreement expires at the end of July. The Teamsters announced the tentative pact on Twitter Saturday evening, adding they also persuaded UPS to end a mandatory overtime policy for unscheduled workdays and provide Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a paid holiday
As Boston’s own Sean O’Brien matches UPS at the bargaining table, Amazon could be next
June 26, 2023 // But O’Brien said he’d support pulling the trigger — putting the International’s $300 million-plus “strike defense fund” to use — if he doesn’t see adequate financial gains for his membership. For him, this battle over the largest private-sector union contract in the United States isn’t only about righting the wrongs baked into the union’s current agreement with UPS. It’s meant to show how organized labor can flex its muscle against giant companies. And it’s a prelude for a long-awaited showdown with decidedly anti-union Amazon, where the Teamsters hope to organize the online retail giant’s massive logistics workforce. “All eyes are upon what the Teamsters do in these negotiations,” O’Brien said in an interview. “It’s going to be the defining moment in the labor movement. It’s going to be a template on how we take on Corporate America, how we take on big business.” Dissatisfaction with the current UPS contract, signed in 2018, helped O’Brien win his race to lead the Teamsters two years ago. Then the head of the Teamsters Local 25 in Charlestown, O’Brien broke away from the previous International leadership, led by James Hoffa, because of disagreements over the last round of UPS negotiations.
Student Activists Are Turning Their Attention to the Labor Movement
June 22, 2023 // Last year, the Young Democratic Socialists of America’s Red Hot Summer program trained hundreds of young people to organize their workplaces and helped launch union drives representing thousands. This year’s program hopes to be even bigger, writes YDSA’s cochair. Student workers across the country are engaged in an unprecedented wave of labor organization. Spurred on by the support of organizations like the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), of which I am cochair, undergraduate student workers have launched union drives on nearly thirty public and private campuses in the United States. These workers are fighting for increased pay, improvements to scheduling and hours, sick pay, and better health care. They are also fighting for issues that go beyond bread and butter, like removing Israeli products from dining halls.
Google’s return-to-office crackdown gets backlash from some employees: ‘Check my work, not my badge’
June 15, 2023 // “Managers of non-remote Googlers who have been consistently absent from the office will be cc’ed on emails to these Googlers (subject to local requirements), so they can support Googlers in either ramping back to the office or exploring other flexibility options,” the document says. On Friday, YouTube held its own all-hands meeting with employees about the office policy update. At the event, executives presented the plans virtually, a paradox that didn’t go unnoticed.
Op-ed: Trader Joe’s union is not what we bargained for
June 13, 2023 // First, as reported by the Freedom Foundation, SEIU and Workers United have also targeted my previous employer, Starbucks, with a multimillion-dollar unionization campaign featuring some of the very organizers involved in the Hadley Trader Joe’s campaign. Untold numbers of paid union “salts” — many fresh out of college with little to no work experience — have been deployed to get jobs at targeted employers and covertly organize them from the inside. Second, few resources are available to workers skeptical of or opposed to unionization. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) staff I’ve contacted have shown they only care about workers that want to unionize.
Labor organizers reflect on a new era of unionization at Dartmouth
June 13, 2023 // Over the past three years, Dartmouth students and faculty members have made large strides in labor organizing through three unions: the Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth, the Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth and the Dartmouth College Library Workers Union. The Dartmouth College Library Worker Collective is the only union which has not been recognized by the College as of press time.which has not been recognized by the College as of press time. The Dartmouth spoke with various members of these unions to understand the motives, goals and challenges that they have faced.