Posts tagged Kentucky
Gov. Beshear says BlueOval SK plant in Hardin County will not be unionized
August 19, 2024 // During an appearance on Sunday's CBS Face the Nation, Beshear said when the Ford BlueOval SK plant opens, it will not be unionized because of an agreement reached between Ford Motor Company and the United Auto Workers. he agreement created an entity that allows non-union employees to work alongside union employees. “We respect those agreements and their negotiations,” Beshear said. “Now what did it mean? 10,000 plus UAW workers in Ford’s two other facilities in Kentucky got better wages, better benefits [and] a better life for their families.”
Trader Joe’s workers look to decertify union at first unionized store
August 16, 2024 // Workers at a unionized Trader Joe’s location in Hadley, Massachusetts, have petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold a vote to determine whether to remove Trader Joe’s United from its role representing employees at the store, according to a Monday announcement from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which is assisting the workers. The petition includes signatures from “well over” 30% of workers at the store — above the threshold the NLRB requires to trigger a decertification election — the foundation said.
Opinion: UAW’s President Shares Union’s VP Wish List, and It Conflicts With Likely Kamala Pick Shapiro
August 5, 2024 // After a notable moment of dead air, Fain explained that the UAW has "really broken down these candidates, looked at them." Who is the top favorite? Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who, the union organizer pointed out, has walked the picket line with UAW, like lame duck Pres. Biden. He also gushed about the Bluegrass state progressive governor's ability to win reelection in a "traditionally" red state: He's been with us through every bit of our walk, and he's won in a state that [former Senate Majority Leader, GOP Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell is from. It's been a red state traditionally. He's won twice there.
Memphis union workers prepare to strike ahead of AT&T negotiation deadline
August 5, 2024 // Last month, CWA members voted to authorize union leaders to call a strike at AT&T Southeast if the current contract was permitted to expire before AT&T had reached a fair agreement with its union employees. Union workers are expected to hold strike watch parties in the final hours of negotiations before the current union contract expires at 11:59 p.m.
Amazon Labor Union members vote overwhelmingly in favor of an affiliation with the Teamsters
June 19, 2024 // John Logan, a labor history professor at San Francisco State University, said teaming up with an established union was like a “lifeline” for the independent ALU because the group is “going nowhere at the moment.” “Doing it independently is just so difficult when you’re up against a company like (Amazon), which is big, wealthy and is determined to defeat the union,” Logan said. The Amazon Labor Union’s 2022 victory in Staten Island remains its only election win to date. Yet the group is the only labor organization to pull off the feat at an Amazon warehouse in the U.S., in part due to opposition from the company and the sheer size of many of its facilities.
The Delivery Business Shows Why Unions Are Struggling to Expand
May 29, 2024 // But the union has also suffered losses. Yellow, a trucking company that employed 24,000 Teamsters, shut down and filed for bankruptcy protection last year. Amazon and FedEx said they were confident in their approach to managing and compensating workers. Amazon said it had made investments that bolstered pay and benefits at its delivery contractors. FedEx said its nonunion model allowed it to quickly increase pay whereas UPS’s union employees were bound by the terms of five-year contracts.
Mercedes workers in Alabama reject union, dealing setback to UAW
May 19, 2024 // VW workers twice voted against the UAW before last month's win, and Nissan workers at a plant in Mississippi rejected the UAW by a wide margin in 2017. In 2021, workers at an Amazon.com warehouse in Alabama voted against forming a union by a more than 2-to-1 margin. The loss complicates the story of how the UAW can market its influence, especially in the South, but it likely will not deal a significant blow to the rest of the UAW's organizing efforts, labor experts said.
Judge: Kentucky distillery influenced union vote with free bottles of bourbon
April 11, 2024 // According to the judge’s decision, the distillery often gave employees bottles of bourbon for occasions such as the Kentucky Derby or when specific goals were hit but the targets were announced in advance. However, the November 2022 bottles appeared to be the idea of an upper-level manager who emailed “it may not be a bad time to gift all our employees a nice bottle like we have done a few times before,” according to the decision. Brown-Forman said the distribution was “solely in recognition of them achieving 5 consecutive months” of productivity records between May and September. However employees had not been notified in advance of a specific goal as an incentive, making the timing suspect, the judge said.
UPS Teamsters unionize new group of workers in Louisville
March 20, 2024 // Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman, of Louisville, and General President Sean O’Brien are working to expand the agreement nationwide to organize roughly 5,000 more UPS workers in similar roles at different facilities.