Posts tagged organized labor
Opinion: Union Leaders Aren’t Fooling Anyone on Labor Day
September 6, 2023 // the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has formed a so called “Lavender Caucus” to advocate on its behalf for pro-LGBTQ legislation; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) issued a resolution demanding stricter gun control laws; the National Education Association (NEA) quietly published a gender ideology resource guide, “Schools in Transition,” in 2015 that laid the groundwork for some of the craziest positions on gendered bathrooms, high school sports and pronoun usage confounding parents and teachers across the country; NEA President Becky Pringle in 2022 issued a statement on behalf of her union excoriating the U.S. Supreme Court for its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson overturning Roe v. Wade and sending the abortion question back to the state; and, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) President Cecily Myart-Cruz in 2021 asks her union to issue a resolution condemning the state of Israel for its “war crimes” against the Palestinians.
From Strikes to New Union Contracts, Labor Day’s Organizing Roots Are Especially Strong Across the Country This Year
September 5, 2023 // The first U.S. Labor Day celebration took place in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882. Some 10,000 workers marched in a parade organized by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor. A handful of cities and states began to adopt laws recognizing Labor Day in the years that followed, yet it took more than a decade before President Grover Cleveland signed a congressional act in 1894 establishing the first Monday of September as a legal holiday.
Looming auto strike puts Biden’s labor loyalty to the test
September 1, 2023 // On Monday, the Treasury Department sent a love letter to unions in the form of a new report, arguing that unions are central to the U.S. middle class. “The Biden-Harris Administration recognizes the benefits of unions to the middle class and the broader economy and is committed to fulfilling the policy objectives of the [National Labor Relations Act],” the report said. While unions are seeing a surge in popularity in the U.S., organized labor has been in long-term decline, with union participation rates falling by half since they first started being measured in the early 1980s.
Commentary: Dem Governors Buy Union Backing — Just Like Biden
August 30, 2023 // In the backrooms where such deals are cut, buying a politician’s favor is called “influence peddling,” and President Biden, for all his seeming cognitive lapses, has been playing the game with ruthless aplomb for decades. Now he may be handing the baton to a younger, faster competitor. Recent history has shown the presidency itself can be bought if you control a big enough infusion of someone else’s dues dollars — and the promise to pay it all back with interest from the public treasury.
NLRB restores Obama-era rule speeding up union election process
August 25, 2023 // The U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Thursday finalized procedural changes that will speed up the union election process, which have been criticized by business groups for favoring organized labor. The Democrat-led board's rule restores changes to the election process that were adopted during the Obama administration and largely eliminated in 2019 when appointees of Republican former President Donald Trump led the board. Among the key provisions of the new rule are a requirement that elections be held before related litigation is resolved. Under the Trump-era regulation, the board had to rule on issues such as workers' eligibility to vote and alleged unlawful conduct by employers before holding an election.
How YIMBYs won over unions in California
August 22, 2023 // The Trades acknowledges there’s a shortage of workers for California’s needed residential construction, and they know their existing unionized workforce is getting older. A union-backed study from 2019 stipulated that to meet the state’s affordable housing goals, California would need to recruit at least 200,000 new workers. But the Trades insist things are not so dire yet that leaders need to abandon “skilled and trained” requirements, and they say more people will be incentivized to become “skilled and trained” only if lawmakers guarantee good union jobs waiting on the other end of an apprenticeship. About 70,500 people have graduated from these apprenticeships between 2010 and 2022, according to the California Department of Industrial Relations. In the end, California lawmakers didn’t really have to make a choice, and ended up passing Wicks’ bill, along with another similar bill that included the Trades’ preferred “skilled and trained” language. For now, developers basically can choose which law they want to follow if they want to convert strip malls to housing. (Yes, really.) “AB2011 was a huge victory, but they allowed the building trades to save face by passing both bills,” said David, the YIMBY activist.
Why Can’t U.S. Ports Get Automated?
August 21, 2023 // But U.S. officials say the country’s ports face big hurdles in adding robots, including space constraints, the tough economics of getting a return on hefty investments and, most prominently, fierce opposition from organized labor. The labor concerns at ports are part of the questions over automation arising in the broader industrial economy as businesses look to use more robotics in a range of logistics operations, from warehouse work to self-driving trucks. Wrangling over automation was one reason recent contract talks between West Coast dockworkers and their employers dragged on for more than a year before the two sides reached a tentative agreement in June. The hot-button issue is now shifting to the ports on the East Coast and Gulf Coast. The leader of the union that represents East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers, the International Longshoremen’s Association, told a convention in July he intends to build an international coalition of maritime unions to stop automation in maritime operations. “There’s going to be an explosion and the ILA and the dockers around the world are going to light the fuse,” ILA President Harold Daggett said. “It’s time we put companies out of business that push automation.”
Opinion: TALKING TRANSPORTATION: Union Power and the Potential Strike at Metro-North
August 8, 2023 // The union, which represents car inspectors, coach cleaners and mechanics has been without a contract since 2019 and says MTA management is dragging its heels on a new contract. The union has entered mediation through the Railroad Labor Act but says the first round did not go well. Under New York State law the union does have the right to strike and that would pretty much halt train service. But the effect of that might be far less in these post-COVID times as we’ve all learned how to WFH (work from home). This labor unrest comes as the MTA admits it paid $1.3 billion in overtime last year. About 1100 of its employees doubled their salaries with OT. There are mechanics and MTA cops taking home over $300,000 due to extra duty. Under their contracts, available overtime must first be offered to the most senior (and highest paid) staffers so those veterans, closest to retirement, are raking it in.
Who’s on strike and who’s close? Labor unions are flexing
August 8, 2023 // Recent decades suggest there won’t be a strike at more than one at once. UAW (United Auto Workers) typically picks one “target” at which to focus negotiations and possibly strike and then demand that the other two unionized automakers agree to the same “pattern” deal. That one really has the chance to hurt the Democrats since the union is very upset about the auto industry plans to shift to EVs (electric vehicles). They see EVs as a jobs killer because of so many fewer parts – it takes about one-third fewer jobs to build an EV than an internal combustion engine (ICE) car. And many of the EV jobs are at battery plants being built nationwide right now, but which are joint ventures between the automakers and foreign battery companies, and thus not guaranteed to be unionized. Even if those battery plants end up with a union, it’s not clear the joint venture will agree to UAW-level wages. The one UAW-represented plant in Ohio pays roughly half of what workers are paid at an engine or transmission plant owned by one of the Big Three (US automakers) and represented by the UAW.
LA Strikes Embody Widespread Anxiety Over Worker Pay, Rise of AI
July 31, 2023 // The city has almost accidentally become a microcosm for worker unrest. Actors and writers—on strike simultaneously for the first time since 1960—have paralyzed Hollywood. Cleaners and cooks are sporadically picketing outside hotels, including the Beverly Hilton, the longtime venue of the Golden Globe Awards. Thousands of UPS drivers could strike next week if the Teamsters rank and file don’t quickly approve a tentative agreement announced Tuesday, following in the footsteps of port workers who walked off the job last month. Los Angeles Unified School District teachers also went on strike this year, winning a 30% pay increase after more than 400,000 students were out of class for three days. And in May, performers at a North Hollywood bar formed the first strippers’ union in the US in nearly three decades. Companies say they’re being unfairly blamed for the rising cost of living while they try to find common ground with unions—a dominant source of worker angst that has also resulted in California having the highest rate of homelessness in the nation.