Posts tagged Richmond
Okonite union workers continue strike after health coverage cut following contract rejection
May 28, 2025 // Okonite’s website says 186 people are employed at the Santa Maria facility. According to Reynolds, about 160 of those are union members and they’re the ones currently feeling the fallout from the rejected contract, the sudden insurance loss, and the termination notices.
COMMENTARY: US Postal Workers Are Fighting Massive Service Cuts
November 11, 2024 // Thousands of US Postal Service jobs are at stake under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s modernization plan, which would close 200 mail processing plants and funnel all mail to 60 mega-plants. Postal workers are organizing to stop the plan.
Trucking Company Employees Force Out Teamsters Union Bosses in Virginia, Similar Ouster Could Soon Come in New Jersey
November 4, 2024 // Nelson Chilson, a truck driver for NAPA Transportation in Richmond, VA, submitted a petition earlier this month in which the majority of his coworkers asked the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a vote to remove Teamsters Local 322 union bosses. Just days earlier, a group of Philadelphia-area Penske Logistics truckers led by Shawn Shute also filed a petition demanding the same kind of NLRB election to oust Teamsters Local 500. Both Chilson and Shute are receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
Thousands Of Virginia Public School Teachers And Staff Vote To Unionize
June 12, 2024 // The labor victory is the biggest for Virginia unions since Democratic lawmakers overturned a decadesold prohibition on public-sector bargaining.
Virginia is battleground in baristas’ organizing fight
April 18, 2023 // The biggest morale boost for Richmond Starbucks barista Tyler Hofmann is when customers make up names like “union solidarity” to identify their orders. “It gets printed out and [employees] have to call out union stuff in the café,” he said. That opens up an opportunity for discussion about workers’ ongoing grievances against the specialty coffee giant. Hofmann is working at Starbucks again after having been fired last May in what his union and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) claimed was illegal retaliation for his organizing efforts at the Richmond store. A private settlement was reached between the company and the regional board of the Workers United union, according to the NLRB, and Hofmann was reinstated.
VIRGINIA: Richmond Public Schools principals unionize
February 28, 2023 // More than 150 Richmond Public Schools administrative staff members, including principals, assistant principals and directors, will now be represented during labor negotiations over pay, benefits and more. According to a Monday press release, 98% of the school district’s administrative staff who voted in the union election approved joining the Teamsters Local 592 union to become one of the first groups of Virginia public school principals to unionize. Virginia’s longstanding ban on unions for public sector workers, which include teachers, law enforcement and firefighters, was lifted when state lawmakers passed legislation in 2020.
Column: Why Starbucks has become a huge unionization target — and why the company is in a panic
April 25, 2022 // Many American consumer companies, including Amazon and McDonalds, have been dealing with a surging interest in unionization by their employees, spurred in part by the pandemic-driven recognition that their employers have consistently undervalued their contributions to business success.
Welcome to Indiana, a Right-to-Work State
April 15, 2022 // Our study indicates that right to work has broad benefits, and states are harming themselves by not adopting these laws. Policy makers interested in making their states more attractive to employers, especially in union-dense industries such as manufacturing, should consider right to work. They would entice more employers such as Ms. Phillips and the thousands of high-quality and in-demand jobs they create.
Chevron pulls union workers from California refinery ahead of strike
March 22, 2022 // On Saturday, the union had advised machinists to go to the refinery and remove their personal tools before the contract extension expires.
SEIU DROPS ITS FRONT IN UNIONIZING STARBUCKS
March 7, 2022 // Proponents had insisted that the movement, which now extends to 103 stores, was a homespun phenomenon arising spontaneously throughout the chain’s domestic arm. The narrative held that the baristas-turned-organizers were union neophytes who discovered they shared a desire to have more say on the brand’s direction and store operations, without any choreography from an outside labor force. Few reports even mentioned that the activist employees were receiving advice or financial support from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) through its Workers United affiliate.