Posts tagged picket
UPS Teamsters strike threat lingers, here’s how a strike could impact non-union workers
July 14, 2023 // Non-union workers are likely to see additional workload expectations in the event of a strike. Management, supervisors and other clerical staff that may not be covered by the Teamsters contract "could be told to keep the packages moving" while the union members walk the picket lines, Morris said. Clark said UPS could try and lean on the non-union workers to keep the company afloat during a strike.
WGA To Picket Amazon’s “Prime Day” Next Week, Recasting It As “Crime Day”
July 12, 2023 // The Writers Guild will picket Amazon’s upcoming “Prime Day,” the retail giant’s biggest sales event of the year. Recasting it as “Crime Day,” the guild says it will take to social media to let the company know it “won’t let Amazon turn Hollywood into a gig economy with its Silicon Valley business practices.” The guild, whose strike is now in its 68th day, also will picket Amazon’s Culver Studios on Wednesday.
US workers strike for green jobs
July 11, 2023 // Prototypes for green locomotives are already made at the plant. In negotiations with the employer, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America Locals 506 and 618, proposed language that would guarantee that green locomotive work be done in Erie. Instead, Wabtec threatened move at least 275 jobs out of the plant. The two locals voted down the employer’s offer and went on strike on 22 June for a contract that will allow them to move forward with green locomotive production.
Starbucks union wants to enlist customers to organize pickets
July 10, 2023 // The Workers United union plans to hand out flyers during a 13-city bus tour to customers with a QR code that takes them to a sign-up sheet to organize their own protests during a "national 'Adopt-a-Store' day of action" on Aug. 7, according to copies of the flyers seen by Reuters. "(Employees) voted for bargaining not buses," the company said, adding that stalled negotiations have led workers to be so frustrated that they filed petitions to kick out the union at several stores. The union's tour has two legs: one travels through the Midwest, South and East, while a second leg will run up the Pacific coast, arriving in Seattle around Aug. 7, the union said. The tour will also target Starbucks board members such as Land O'Lakes CEO Beth Ford, whose likeness was carved into a statue made of butter that union members delivered to the creamery's Minneapolis headquarters in April.
What to know about the potential UPS Teamsters strike
July 10, 2023 // UPS is among the largest shipping companies in the U.S. According to Pitney Bowes, UPS shipped 5.2 billion U.S. parcels in 2022, representing nearly a quarter of all parcels shipped in the country. Should the UPS Teamsters go on strike, there's "no doubt" the economy would be impacted, from businesses to individual households, Thomas Goldsby, a professor in logistics at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville's Haslam College of Business, told ABC News. "You just don't take a player the size of UPS out of the market or largely out of the market without people having to take notice," Goldsby said.
Southwest Airlines pilots approach potential strike with request to leave negotiation proceedings
July 6, 2023 // In the transportation labor negotiations process, the National Mediation Board mediates contract discussions between the carrier and its employees. When a party requests a release from mediation, the board must determine whether continuing with the negotiations process would be productive. If the answer is no, the NMB allows "a cooling-off period" of 30 days, after which a strike can happen. SWAPA pilots are planning a nationwide picket on Aug. 31 in five cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles. Earlier this month, Southwest reached agreements in principle with its flight attendants union — whose board later rejected the agreement — and its aircraft mechanics union, which moved forward with a tentative agreement.
WICHITA: Nurses at Ascension Via Christi hit the picket line
June 28, 2023 // While the nurses plan to walk back into the hospital Wednesday morning to resume their work, Ascension Via Christi said nurses who participated in the strike won’t be allowed to work until Saturday, July 1. Watson said, “Ascension locking us out was definitely retaliation, but locking out nursing is locking out your community. I am part of the community, and they’re locking us out of the hospital. We’re still going to try to work tomorrow. We’re going to show us. It’s going to be business as usual. Hopefully, they will do the right thing and let nurses work.”
Sean O’Brien’s summer of the strike
June 26, 2023 // It’s the spark for the combative spirit that permeates Teamsters headquarters, where a whiteboard charts a long-term battle plan on a timeline — “practice picketing,” “CAT trainings” (for “contract action teams”), “identify strike teams” … and finally, on the July 31 spot that marks the end of the current contract: “STRIKE.” Why strike now? As O’Brien himself acknowledged in his Senate testimony, UPS already offers the most plum jobs in the logistics industry, with driver salaries starting at $93,000. But O’Brien argues that the pandemic gave UPS workers the greatest leverage they’ve had in decades. In 2020, union members risked their health to keep packages moving. UPS’s profits surged and have remained high, with customers still hooked on the online shopping habits they adopted during the lockdowns. “Our members are fed up” and remain convinced, he said, that “the only concern that was being addressed was UPS’s bottom line and their balance sheet.” No better time, O’Brien reasons, for workers to go to the mat to demand wages beginning at $20 an hour, tighter safety provisions and an end to the two-tier employment system ushered in by the last contract.
Amazon Drivers in Union Extend Strike to Second Warehouse
June 26, 2023 // Striking Amazon delivery drivers and dispatchers in Palmdale extended their picket lines to a second warehouse in San Bernardino, according to a statement from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Workers in the union demand Amazon stop its unfair labor practices Growing strike will continue until Amazon reinstates “unlawfully terminated” employees and addresses low pay and dangerous working conditions
Predawn Picket Lines Help Writers Disrupt Studio Productions
May 30, 2023 // But production shutdowns are affecting not only the studios. Crews and other workers — like drivers, set designers, caterers — lose paychecks. And if the shutdowns accumulate and more people are unable to work, some wonder whether the writers will begin to erode the current good will from other workers. Lindsay Dougherty is the lead organizer of Local 399, the Teamsters’ Los Angeles division, which represents more than 6,000 movie workers, from the truck drivers the writers are trying to turn away to casting directors, location managers and animal trainers. A second-generation Teamster, Ms. Dougherty is one of the union’s few female leaders. Her copious tattoos, including one of the former Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, and her frequently profane speech have made her a bit of a celebrity to the writers during the strike. And she said the solidarity with the writers remained strong. “I think collectively, we’re all on the same page in that streaming has dramatically changed the industry,” Ms. Dougherty said in an interview. “And these tech companies that we’re bargaining with, during the last writers’ strike — Amazon, Apple, Netflix — they weren’t even part of the conversation.”