Posts tagged organized labor
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.
‘This is a problem’: Biden faces looming strikes that could rock economy
July 25, 2023 // Privately, some Democrats said the White House was caught off-guard by Fain’s ascension to the top of UAW. They described Biden’s team as currently being in an information-gathering mode about the union’s new leadership — a stark contrast from the close relationship it had enjoyed with former UAW president Ray Curry. Other Democrats said the White House was clearly aware of Fain’s criticism of how the Biden administration had doled out federal funds. But privately, some people in Biden’s orbit have continued to express worries that there’s distance between his agenda and a major union representing voters in a state key to his reelection. Biden’s senior staff has told allies “that the rhetoric from the new UAW leadership is concerning, this is a problem, and we’ve got to figure this out together,” according to a person familiar with the administration’s thinking.
Opinion Project labor agreements are not right for Prince George’s new schools
July 10, 2023 // A debate has arisen over the use of project labor agreements (PLAs) on the construction of six new schools in Prince George’s County. But PLAs, which require union construction crews, are not the solution for Prince George’s County. PLAs are government mandates that exist exclusively as a method for public officials to steer tax dollars to organized labor. Most local businesses, particularly those owned by racial minorities, cannot work on projects covered by PLAs. These businesses risk financial ruin in the form of exorbitant pension withdrawal liabilities by agreeing to the terms of PLAs. Consider the case of a trucking company in New Jersey that unwittingly agreed to work on a PLA project and, years later, was hit with a demand from the union’s pension fund for $700,000 — more than twice what the company earned on the project.
Ex-New York Building Trades Chief Sentenced in Bribe Scheme
May 25, 2023 // Prosecutors say Cahill took more than $140,000 in cash plus other benefits such as appliances and free labor on a vacation home from an unidentified contractor while he was president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council. Additionally, Cahill introduced the contractor to leaders at plumbers’ and pipefitters’ union Local 638 in New York City, where he had been a business agent, and at Local 200 on Long Island, who also accepted bribes from the contractor, prosecutors say. In exchange, the union leaders would support the contractor’s bids on projects, consider labor agreements that were favorable to the firm and allow it to falsely claim it employed union workers.
OPINION: WHEN TEACHERS’ UNIONS BECOME MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE TEACHERS THEY REPRESENT
April 6, 2023 // Union leaders often use their influence to protect the interests of veteran teachers who’ve been reliably paying dues to the union for many years, while newer, less experienced teachers — whose loyalty can’t simply be assumed — are left to fend for themselves. This is particularly evident when it comes to issues such as salary negotiations, promotions and even job security. Union leaders are notoriously more focused on protecting the interests of their most senior members, even if it means throwing young teachers under the school bus. Moreover, organized labor pioneered the use of propaganda, and modern unions have raised the use of deceitful rhetoric to a high art form. Union leaders often use propaganda to rally their members around certain issues or to promote their own interests. They use persuasive language to create a sense of solidarity among union members, even if when it’s built on a foundation of lies and intimidation. One of the most insidious forms of union propaganda is the notion that teachers are always under attack from external forces, such as politicians or school administrators.
Union ties could make or break the Chicago mayoral race
March 23, 2023 // Progressive Brandon Johnson and centrist Paul Vallas, both Democrats, fought through a nine-way race that saw the incumbent mayor fail to make the April 4 runoff. The election is “a movement that unions helped to anchor,” CTU President Stacy Davis Gates told Morning Shift. Johnson, a former public school teacher who’s done paid work for the CTU — his opponents call him a lobbyist — has received millions from teachers’ unions, and is set to receive up to $2 million more from a recently-announced plan to apportion $8 from each CTU member’s monthly dues to PACs for him. Vallas, a former CEO of Chicago Public Schools who’s been criticized for relative conservatism in a Democrat-run town, nabbed endorsements from the local Fraternal Order of Police, firefighters and construction unions.