Posts tagged Oregon
Starbucks union to greet new CEO Narasimhan with 100-cafe strike
March 22, 2023 // Unionized Starbucks Corp. baristas plan to welcome their new chief executive officer with strikes at about 100 cafes Wednesday, demanding that the company drop its alleged anti-union coercion. Striking baristas from Oregon and Washington state plan to converge for a midday protest outside Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. The work stoppage, which organizers said will involve stores in more than 40 US cities, is the union Starbucks Workers United’s latest effort to force a pivot by the coffee giant.
NY legislative staffers aren’t the only ones fighting to unionize
March 22, 2023 // New York legislative staff have a similar problem. The Taylor Law, or the Public Employees’ Fair Employment Act, compels state and local public employers to recognize unions, wrote Ken Girardin of the watchdog think tank the Empire Center. But under the Taylor Law, public employee unions within New York state cannot legally strike. Girardin also argued in a report for the Empire Center that NYSLWU would not be covered under the Taylor Law either way, writing that it “would raise numerous practical and constitutional issues.”
FEDERAL JUDGE ISSUES TRO AGAINST STATE OF OREGON IN DUES DEDUCTIONS CASE
March 9, 2023 // On March 8, U.S. District Court Judge Michael W. Mosman granted a temporary restraining order preventing Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services from continuing to deduct dues on behalf of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from a state employee who never authorized the deduction in the first place. When Victoria Bright began working for the state of Oregon in November 2022, she made a point of declining membership in SEIU, because she took exception to its political agenda and bargaining tactics.
Widmer Brothers Brewing Workers Vote to Unionize
February 13, 2023 //
Oregon senators want taxpayers to stop paying long-distance commuting costs of remote workers. Union leader says think again
February 13, 2023 // Oregon lawmakers are wrestling with whether to continue paying state workers who’ve chosen to live in far-flung states including Hawaii to travel back to the state for periodic in-person check-ins. Before the pandemic, it was not unusual for a small segment of state workers to live just outside Oregon’s borders, in Washington, Idaho, California and Nevada. But they were expected to show up at state workplaces on their own dime.
Inside the Campaign to Unionize the University of Oregon
February 13, 2023 // Student workers at the University of Oregon are trying to build a wall-to-wall union—uniting their resident assistants, dining hall staff, and all other undergraduate workers in a massive labor campaign. Over the last few years, interest in labor organizing has surged among young people, especially at colleges and universities. “Millennials and Gen Z are the first generations not better off than their parents, and the way that money has been flowing to the people at the top while becoming more and more scarce for the people at the bottom is hard to watch,” said Carolyn Roderique, a junior resident assistant at the University of Oregon. “It will become unlivable if we don’t do something about it.” So far, Kenyon College in Ohio, Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Grinnell College in Iowa, Barnard College in New York and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire have all engaged in some form of labor organizing. However, those union efforts have largely taken place at small, private colleges.
More than 600 city of Portland workers out on strike
February 2, 2023 // Portlanders will feel an impact from the strike, though it’s not clear yet just how deep or how quickly. Mayor Ted Wheeler has authorized using independent contractors to do some of the work of striking city employees. Local 483 includes people responsible for fixing sewage leaks, cleaning trash at city parks, and clearing streets of ice and snow, among other tasks. At a City Council meeting Wednesday, union representative James O’Laughlen urged commissioners to agree to the union’s proposal.
Portland city laborers rally outside Portland City Hall ahead of planned strike
January 30, 2023 // More than 600 Portland workers in the wastewater, parks and transportation fields plan to strike on Feb. 2, starting at midnight. The groups of workers planning to go on strike, according to the union, include: About 280 Bureau of Transportation workers, from concrete finishers to asphalt rakers to utility workers About 200 Parks & Recreation workers, from park technicians and turf technicians to horticulturalists and park rangers About 100 Bureau of Environmental Services workers, namely sewage and wastewater employees Other city employees, including fleet and vehicle workers
Legislative staffer unions percolate beyond D.C.
January 26, 2023 // Part of its argument is that the legislative union would violate the separation of powers because it would be overseen by Oregon’s Employment Relations Board, a part of the executive branch. “All of its members are appointed by the governor, so it's controlled by the executive branch, and that subjects the legislature to the executive branch in a specific way,” Freedom Foundation attorney Rebekah Millard told POLITICO.
Forgery Cases Give Supreme Court Opportunity to Hold Unions Accountable for Shady Tactics
January 18, 2023 // aken collectively, the forgery cases clearly suggest a coordinated strategy on the part of unions panicked into breaking the law at the prospect of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in dues money when members they’ve spent decades preying on discover that the power to decide about workplace representation has always been in their own hands. The Supreme Court made its intentions in Janus crystal clear. Public employees have an iron-clad First Amendment right to keep their jobs even if they choose to have nothing to do with a union.