Posts tagged RWDSU
New York: Workers at Union Square Barnes & Noble push for unionization
May 1, 2023 // Employees at the Union Square store filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board on Friday, hoping to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. RWDSU also represents other booksellers in New York City such as McNally Jackson and Greenlight Bookstore. According to workers, the petition came hours after management at Barnes & Noble chose not to voluntarily recognize the union. A Barnes & Noble spokesperson declined to comment. . “We’re stretched thin, and with a union we’d win the pay, needed benefits and long-overdue training and safety resources we need to attract more co-workers and adequately staff the store so our customers have a safer and better experience shopping with us,” said Desiree Nelson, a lead bookseller at the Union Square store.
Street Chaos and Long Hours Push Farmers’ Market Workers to Unionize
April 28, 2023 // Most of the workers at the city’s farmers’ markets are hourly employees who make between $19 and $26 an hour. Some work year-round, but many are part time or work erratic schedules. Few receive benefits or have job security. Now, hoping to improve their wages and benefits and persuade GrowNYC to focus more on their safety, they are forming a union. In interviews, several said they were driven to organize after an especially turbulent period last summer, when market patrons or passers-by spat on them, called them racial slurs or otherwise lashed out.
‘War of attrition’: why union victories for US workers at Amazon have stalled
April 11, 2023 // The Athena Coalition, consisting of numerous worker centers and non-profits, has focused on supporting workers at Amazon and their efforts in garnering support for petitions and organizing walkouts supporting concrete demands at Amazon sites in Georgia, California, Illinois, Minnesota and elsewhere.
Barnes & Noble Education Workers Seek to Unionize, Extending Organizing Wave
April 10, 2023 // Workers say they’ve signed up most of the roughly 70 employees at the store on Rutgers University’s campus. After announcing their organizing campaign to local management, they plan to submit a filing Thursday asking the US National Labor Relations Board to conduct a unionization election. Employees are petitioning to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which currently represents retail workers at Macy’s Inc., H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB and, most recently, Recreational Equipment Inc., where it first secured a foothold last year in New York City. Barnes & Noble Education didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company, which retailer Barnes & Noble Inc. spun off in 2015, operates 785 physical bookstores for students and hundreds of online bookstores. It also has exclusive deals with schools and universities to distribute course materials.
The REI Union Effort Spreads To Another City
January 13, 2023 // REI workers in Northeast Ohio are aiming to make their store the third to unionize in less than a year, according to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The labor group said in a statement Wednesday that a “majority” of employees at the REI store in the Cleveland suburb of Orange Village had signed union cards and submitted a petition for a union election to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The board must ensure sufficient interest in unionizing before scheduling a vote.
‘Most Pro-Union President’ Runs Into Doubts in Labor Ranks
December 28, 2022 // Those who support more populist-minded policies say Mr. Biden has delivered in certain ways: enacting subsidies for domestic manufacturing and restrictions on trade with China and appointing regulators who have frequently gone to court to block large mergers.
Labor agency tallies votes in another Amazon union election
October 18, 2022 // This will be the fourth union election at an Amazon warehouse this year, and the third one led by the Amazon Labor Union. The upstart group secured an unexpected win in April at a company warehouse on Staten Island but was stung by a loss shortly thereafter at another facility nearby. A union election in Alabama, led by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, remains too close to call. Amazon has been trying to undo the ALU's lone victory, filing more than two dozen objections to the election and seeking a redo vote. Last month, a federal labor official concluded the union should be certified as a bargaining representative for the warehouse. Amazon, which hasn't recognized the union, said it intends to appeal the decision. And CEO Andy Jassy has also signaled the company could take the case to federal court. ALU organizers say they’re focused on petitioning for more elections and pressuring Amazon to negotiate a contract at the facility that voted to unionize. Experts note a win in Schodack — located near one of the most unionized metro areas in the country, according to Unionstats.com — would offer the group more leverage and a chance to demonstrate its prior win wasn’t a one-off.
Opinion: Can Unions Still Transform the Workplace?
August 18, 2022 // Starbucks workers across Buffalo created a citywide account on the GroupMe app, which enabled them to track corporate executives as they moved from café to café—and alert one another to be prepared. “What you’re seeing is organizing evolving with the times,” Eisen says. Soon after the successful union vote at her store, Eisen hopped on a Zoom call with workers at a Starbucks café in Mesa, Arizona, to share what she had learned with her counterparts on the other side of the nation. Bill Fletcher Jr, geriatric millennial, Shaun Richman, Jane McAlevey, people of color,
Amazon Hub in Newark Is Canceled After Unions and Local Groups Object
July 11, 2022 // “Unfortunately, the Port Authority and Amazon have been unable to reach an agreement on final lease terms and mutually concluded that further negotiations will not resolve the outstanding issues,” Huntley Lawrence, the Port Authority’s chief operating officer, said in a statement on Thursday. Advocacy groups and unions involved had said they could not support the lease unless Amazon made a set of concessions that included labor agreements and a zero-emissions benchmark at the facility. Make the Road New Jersey, Kim Gaddy, South Ward Environmental Alliance, Ms. Cullinane, Ms. Gaddy, airport cargo center,
AFL-CIO unveils plan to grow but some union leaders underwhelmed
June 17, 2022 // Shuler announced the creation of the Center for Transformational Organizing, a group of strategists, organizers and researcher who will focus on how to unionize new-economy companies. “We have a visionary way forward,” Shuler said. D Taylor, Mark Dimondstein,