Posts tagged National Labor Relations Board
Worker strikes and union elections surged in 2022 – could it mark a turning point for organized labor?
January 10, 2023 // The increase in strike activity is also important. And while the major strikes that involve 1,000 or more employees and are tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics arouse the greatest attention, they represent only the tip of the iceberg. The bureau recorded 20 major strikes in 2022, which is about 25% more than the average of 16 a year over the past two decades.
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.
Upwork Report: Freelancers Make Up 39% Of U.S. Workforce
January 6, 2023 // Upwork, a freelance marketplace, recently released its annual Freelance Forward survey. Their survey is considered “the most comprehensive study of the U.S. independent workforce.” Their 2022 report, released last month, says more American workers are seeking independent contract work “to find greater professional fulfillment, flexibility and financial stability, and a new approach to managing their career trajectory.”
Appeals panel: Chicago must force telecom companies to hire union labor to upgrade their equipment on city-owned poles
January 6, 2023 // A state appeals panel has ruled a labor union can force the city of Chicago to require telecommunications companies to hire union workers to install 5G antennas on city-owned utility poles. After Chicago officials allowed nonunion contractors to install modern cellular service antennas on light and traffic poles, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local No. 9 filed a grievance alleging a violation of its multiproject labor agreement with the city. An arbitrator ruled in favor of the union. But after the city challenged that ruling, Cook County Circuit Judge Anna Loftus vacated the award in June 2021.
Opinion: SEACC United clears the air on unionization
January 4, 2023 //
Howard Brown Health workers begin 3-day strike
January 4, 2023 // “After looking at every option for cost-saving measures, many of which we have already started to implement, we are now taking difficult but necessary actions to reduce expenses with a reduction in workforce,” said David Ernesto Munar, president and CEO of Howard Brown. “The goal is to minimize the impact on our employees and maintain the high-quality services that our patients expect and deserve. While painful in the short term, these cost-saving measures will help ensure Howard Brown’s ability to serve our communities for decades to come.” Margo Gislain, an organizer with the Illinois Nurses Association, said she hopes the charges before the National Labor Relations Board will result in the workers’ jobs being restored with back pay.
How Gen Z helped galvanize a national retail unionization movement in 2022
January 4, 2023 // This generation is also connecting with organizers across the country and using social media to amplify their efforts. Starbucks workers in California, for example, swapped tips throughout the organizing drive. And the Inland Empire Amazon Workers coalition is running an Instagram series featuring stories of warehouse workers sharing their experiences.
UC strike energizes unprecedented national surge of union organizing by academic workers
January 3, 2023 // In 2022 alone, graduate students representing 30,000 peers at nearly a dozen institutions filed documents with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. They include USC, Northwestern, Yale, Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Caltech plans to officially kick off its organizing campaign this month, and other academic researchers are working to form unions at the University of Alaska, Western Washington University, the National Institutes of Health and such influential think tanks as the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute. Princeton University, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Pasadena, Caltech, Pardee Rand Graduate School, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Chicago saw a wave of new unions form in 2022. Getting to the bargaining table is the next challenge.
January 2, 2023 // But it’s not just Starbucks: In Chicago, museum workers at the Art Institute, faculty and staff members at its affiliated school and employees at the Newberry Library have all unionized this year. So have workers at Howard Brown Health, budtenders at Zen Leaf cannabis dispensaries and booksellers at Half Price Books in Niles. Baristas at four La Colombe Coffee Roaster locations filed for union elections in December. Thousands of graduate students at Northwestern and the University of Chicago filed petitions within two weeks of each other in November. For the hundreds of newly unionized workers in Chicago, the hard work has only just begun; now they must negotiate a first contract with their employers. Labor leaders see a contract as the gold standard for protecting workers’ rights and securing gains in areas like pay and benefits. But the process can take years.