Posts tagged Pandemic
Workers in the game industry turn to unions for protection from rampant layoffs
March 21, 2024 // Jessica Gonzalez, a longtime quality assurance (QA) worker in the games industry and a labor organizer with CODE-CWA, said unionizing can also help workers negotiate more “ethical layoffs” if their roles are being cut from the company. This entails negotiating protections such as extended health care coverage and severance pay, benefits she noted are not always honored by companies dealing with non-union employees.
Beyond Unionizing: Strippers Run the Show in a Worker Cooperative
March 15, 2024 // Worker co-ops are not as popular in the U.S. as they are in other countries, but they are on the rise. According to the Democracy at Work Institute’s 2021 Worker Cooperative State of the Sector Report, from 2019 to 2021, U.S. co-ops grew 30%, and there are about 10,000 in the country. There is precedent for this – the Lusty Lady was a peep show in San Francisco that unionized in the 90s, became a worker-owned cooperative in 2003, and closed in 2013.
Op-ed: Congress tries to destroy working women’s flexibility
March 12, 2024 // Flexibility is valued by all workers, but more so for women. Women are more likely than men to prioritize hours and job location. A clear gender gap exists between men and women over compensation preferences: Women are flexibility maximizers, and men are pay maximizers. For millions of women, a W-2 job, even if hybrid or fully remote, cannot provide the level of flexibility they need to balance priorities such as raising children, managing a disability or illness, or caring for an aging parent. Consequently, over half of the nation’s 70 million-plus freelancers are women.
Teamsters work to galvanize Amazon workers, hitting the company when it hurts most
March 7, 2024 // The resolution alleges that Amazon “exploits its employees, contractors, and employees of contractors via: wage theft, fraudulent classification, intense production quotas, dehumanizing work environments, unsafe workplaces and production standards, low wages, high turnover, no voice on the job, lack of job security and outsourced jobs.” The Teamsters have spent five years speaking to thousands of Amazon workers to develop the best strategies for organizing, the resolution states. The announcement comes during Prime Day, Amazon’s annual sales event and one of the busiest times of the year for workers in the company’s warehouses.
Opinion: Construction Unions Face Fork In The Road: Shrink Or Seize The Moment
February 16, 2024 // “This is the best shot the unions have had in decades,” said Joshua Freeman, a Queens College, City University of New York history professor. “There’s low unemployment, a sympathetic administration, an infrastructure ramp and sympathetic public attitudes. Lots of things are going in the right direction for unions.”
Adda Coffee & Tea House reaches agreement with union
February 14, 2024 // Under the preliminary agreement, the company will give employees a compensation package in exchange for the union withdrawing its petition to the National Labor Relations Board for an election to represent the workers. Adda Coffee & Tea House, which had four locations, announced in January that it was closed effective immediately. The business said it had been operating at a loss since the beginning and the pandemic exacerbated its struggles.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin workers vote to unionize
February 13, 2024 // The vote was 56-13 in favor of forming a union, according to a tally of ballots cast in an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board and counted on Thursday. Of the 133 Planned Parenthood workers eligible to vote in the election, 69 cast a ballot, according to a press release.
Biden’s war on work undermines the American dream
February 6, 2024 // Biden’s Labor Department rule pursues the same goals as AB 5 and would put the monthly incomes of tens of millions of people — disproportionately women (especially mothers) and minorities — at risk.
Teamsters union pays $2.9m to settle racial discrimination lawsuit
January 31, 2024 // The terminations “set back the Organizing Department’s goals of effectively recruiting and organizing non-whites”, it alleged, “in favor of bolstering the majority white membership and leadership of the union. In total, Teamsters terminated 72.73% of the department’s staffers who were people of color, while firing only 28.57% of white staffers. Teamsters then proceeded to hire new staff members who were 73.33% white.” The lawsuit also claimed that O’Brien “publicly humiliated” the plaintiffs in the case, claiming they were fired because they were “bad apples” and were “lazy” in their work. O’Brien has been facing criticism from members of the Teamsters recently over his decision to meet with the former president and Republican presidential primary frontrunner Donald Trump. They cited Trump’s long record of being anti-union and his prejudicial behavior and comments toward women, minorities and the LGBTQ+ community.