Posts tagged Ro Khanna
Starbucks workers contend company is busting unions. ‘This will be a priority for me,’ congressman says.
February 21, 2023 // Since then, the congressman’s staff has been in touch with the company, whose representatives have told them that Starbucks is allowing workers to exercise their rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Khanna told the employees on Friday that he has corresponded with new Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan and expects to meet with him after he takes over April 1. “I’m hopeful that between the approach to him and the approach to some of the board members, who I know, that they may see the light — allowing for reasonable unionization and reasonable terms,” Khanna said. He mentioned that Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -2.29% last year came to a neutrality agreement with the Communications Workers of America; Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is a Starbucks board member.
Labor unions expand into legislator offices
January 23, 2023 // “Unionizing staffers in legislative offices makes no sense because it creates more problems than it solves,” says Brigette Herbst, senior organizing director for AFFT and a former state legislative staffer, “How does unionization work with the long and unpredictable hours during a legislative session? How will elected officials handle untrustworthy staffers? Union organizers haven’t answered these important questions.” Labor unions have also turned their focus to legislative staffers at the state level.
What’s next for staffer unions on the Hill?
November 1, 2022 // Staff for another five members — all Democrats — have filed petitions with the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to hold elections. Since the initial eight offices filed petitions when they were first allowed to in July, only two more have done so — staff for Reps. Dina Titus of Nevada and Sean Casten of Illinois. If all form unions, around 100 House staffers out of 9,100 will be represented by the Congressional Workers Union.
Rep. Omar Statement on Unanimous Staff Unionization Vote
October 3, 2022 // Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) released the following statement after workers in her office unanimously voted to form a union. Rep. Omar's office became one of the first to unionize, along with workers in the offices of Rep. Andy Levin and Rep. Ro Khanna. “As a former union member myself and someone who represents a union district in Minnesota, I am deeply proud of my staff for making their collective voices heard and voting to unionize," Rep. Omar said. “Unions are the bedrock of the middle class. The labor movement helped get us the 40 hour work week, the weekend, and child labor laws. Every single worker deserves a union to represent them and fight for their wages, benefits, and basic workplace protections. It is long past time the United States Congress became a unionized workplace, and that includes my own staff. I am proud of all the people on my team who have played a leading role in the staff unionization effort. Solidarity forever.”
Unanswered questions surround unionizing effort by congressional staffers
July 26, 2022 // For starters, congressional offices have different budgets from which to draw salaries for staff — and those amounts are fixed once decided annually. That makes bargaining across multiple personal member offices difficult, as even ideologically aligned members of Congress may have differences in their personnel budget and staffing structure. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, House Compensation and Diversity Study, Census Bureau, Massachusetts Institute of Technology