Posts tagged Retail
The South Has a New Union — and Workers Have Black Women to Thank
January 17, 2023 // Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), a first-of-its-kind cross-sector union offering membership to fast food, retail, warehouse, care, and other service industry workers across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. USSW is a continuance of Raise Up, the very active southern chapter of the Fight for $15 and a Union that formed in 2013 and took root in North Carolina. USSW will function as a part of the Service Employees International Union, a labor union that represents nearly 2 million workers in the U.S. and Canada.
How Gen Z helped galvanize a national retail unionization movement in 2022
January 4, 2023 // This generation is also connecting with organizers across the country and using social media to amplify their efforts. Starbucks workers in California, for example, swapped tips throughout the organizing drive. And the Inland Empire Amazon Workers coalition is running an Instagram series featuring stories of warehouse workers sharing their experiences.
A new union is born in the South
December 1, 2022 // USSW workers and staff are bullish on their new union, believing that its fusion of labor and human rights organizing will help them secure livable wages, stronger safety protections, control over their work schedules, and new respect for the African Americans and Latinos who make up the majority of their members. They are encouraged by the growing public approval for labor unions and the increase in worker protest during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among essential or frontline workers. They are also building off of nine years of organizing through Raise Up — the Southern expression of the Fight for $15 and a Union and an affiliate of the sprawling Service Employees International Union. Raise Up veterans like Gas and Smalls, and the Durham, North Carolina-based Ieisha Franceis and Jamila Allen, will be critical to the USSW's success. Beginning in September 2020 and continuing over the next year, Franceis and Allen led three walkouts that forced their employer, Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers, to agree to their demands for raises, paid leave for employees in quarantine, and new sanitation procedures. Franceis was initially hesitant about striking, but she trusted the much younger and more soft-spoken Allen, who had been meeting with Raise Up organizers for a year and gently prodding her coworkers to take collective action.
Philly art museum workers resume strike in effort to secure better wages, benefits in first union contract
September 26, 2022 // "After two years of negotiations, our membership cannot accept further stalling and union-busting," said Adam Rizzo, a museum educator and president of Local 397. "We had hoped the museum's appointment of a new director and CEO, Sasha Suda, would signal a change in tone and that she would be more involved in helping us reach a fair agreement. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. If the choice is between accepting the status quo or going on strike, we choose to strike. It's up to museum management to present a better option."
Sparked by Pandemic Stresses, Unionizing Workers Seek Respect and a Place at the Table
August 18, 2022 // Throughout the pandemic, we were called ‘essential workers,’ yet we weren’t given the wages, benefits or respect that being ‘essential’ would denote.” Nick Kalm, John Logan, Labor and Employment Studies Department at San Francisco State University
Maryland Apple store workers face hurdles after their vote to unionize
June 22, 2022 // Ruth Milkman, Michael Duff, Josh Lipton,
Apple workers vote to unionize at Maryland store
June 20, 2022 // Many unionization efforts have been led by young workers in their 20s and even in their teens. A group of Google engineers and other workers formed the Alphabet Workers Union last year, which represents around 800 Google employees and is run by five people who are under 35. Amazon workers at a warehouse in New York City voted to unionize in April, the first successful U.S. organizing effort in the retail giant’s history. However, workers at another Amazon warehouse on Staten Island overwhelmingly rejected a union bid last month. Meanwhile, Starbucks workers at dozens of U.S. stores have voted to unionize in recent months, after two of the coffee chain’s stores in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize late last year. industrial trade union, TOWSON, Baltimore, Josh Lipton, Robert Martinez Jr.,
Workers Start Union Push at Trader Joe’s in Massachusetts
May 18, 2022 // Even though unionization by Trader Joe’s workers at the start of the pandemic failed, labor conditions have changed under the Biden administration and National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abbruzzo, said O’Brien, the Boston College professor. “She's much more pro-union and that's going to work in favor of the Trader Joe's workers," she said.
The push to unionize Philly’s food scene
May 9, 2022 // Workers used both carrot and stick to give employers an incentive to join the union. They applied pressure with “sip-ins,” in which pro-union customers would monopolize tables while lingering over coffee. The union oversaw training and discipline for its members, and also encouraged forming restaurant associations to defray costs for small business owners.
Indeed Study Shows Women Took Gig Work, Preferring Flexibility Over Stability During The Pandemic
March 23, 2022 // These opportunities enhance employment options for women. Due to the nature of gig roles, they offer flexibility in the amount of days and hours worked. As studies show, women have been disproportionately hurt by the pandemic—partly because they were overrepresented in the hardest-hit sectors, such as hospitality, leisure, travel, restaurants, retail and food services. It's also due to the fact that women were more apt to leave their jobs during the pandemic to take care of their children. This was particularly acute when public schools closed and childcare services were hard to find or too expensive, which made holding a full-time job not financially viable.