Posts tagged San Francisco
‘Barbenheimer’ was a boon to movie theaters and a headache for many workers. So they’re unionizing
October 16, 2023 // Alamo held meetings in Manhattan and Brooklyn in the weeks leading up to union votes. In each gathering, management officials acknowledged discontent among staff members, while reiterating that any issues were better worked out entirely within the company. In Brooklyn, per the recordings, League reflected on the company's history, dating back to its origins in the 1990s. He spoke of his dedication to Alamo and of his own progressive affinities, including his “passionate” support for Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Both League and his wife and Alamo co-founder Karrie League have contributed to various Democratic Party candidates. Tim League has publicly praised the pro-labor senator's 2016 presidential run, telling a CNBC interviewer in 2016 that “Bernie is going to be good for America." League emphasized that he "understood" why Hollywood actors and writers were striking, and why auto workers went on strike. But for Alamo, he said, unions would be a step back, a "communication block." “I fully recognize my own personal bias here,” he said. “I don’t think that forming a union is the right solution for Alamo, that is my personal opinion. I’m concerned that a union is going to drive a wedge between us."
SF school staff union votes 99% to authorize strike
October 6, 2023 // The proposals on either side are still poles apart: The union is asking for a 16 percent raise backdated to 2020, saying its workers have gone four years without a pay increase; the union also wants one-time $3,000 bonuses and salary modifications. The school district has countered with raises of 6 percent, backdated to last year, 6 percent for this year, and 4 percent increases thereafter if certain budget conditions are agreed to by the union. SEIU declined to say how many workers participated in the vote, which took place over two days on Sep. 30 and Oct. 3, but Chelsea Fink, a union spokesperson, said the vote was 99.5 percent in favor.
International Longshore and Warehouse US dockworkers union files for bankruptcy
October 2, 2023 // The union has been facing a looming trial on claims that it illegally slowed down operations over several years at the Port of Portland, then operated by an affiliate of Philippines-based maritime company, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) representing U.S. dockworkers has filed for a chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to resolve a pending litigation with the Oregon affiliate of the International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI).
Behind the AI boom, an army of overseas workers in ‘digital sweatshops’
August 31, 2023 // In the Philippines, one of the world’s biggest destinations for outsourced digital work, former employees say that at least 10,000 of these workers do this labor on a platform called Remotasks, which is owned by the $7 billion San Francisco start-up Scale AI. Scale AI has paid workers at extremely low rates, routinely delayed or withheld payments and provided few channels for workers to seek recourse, according to interviews with workers, internal company messages and payment records, and financial statements. Rights groups and labor researchers say Scale AI is among a number of American AI companies that have not abided by basic labor standards for their workers abroad.
Will Starbucks’ union-busting stifle a union rebirth in the US?
August 28, 2023 // Many baristas say one Starbucks strategy in particular has discouraged workers from unionizing. In May 2022, Schultz announced that Starbucks would give certain raises and benefits to workers at its more than 9,000 non-union stores, but not offer those raises and benefits to its unionized workers. Starbucks insists it would be illegal to impose any raises or benefits on its unionized stores without first negotiating about them, but the NLRB’s general counsel asserts that this policy constitutes unlawful discrimination against Starbucks’ unionized workers. Under this policy, Starbucks has given its non-union workers, but not its unionized ones, a more relaxed dress code, increased training, faster sick leave accrual and, most important, credit card tipping. (Workers at the first few Starbucks stores to unionize had asked early on for credit card tipping.)
San Francisco restaurant bans armed officers, police union responds
August 28, 2023 //
State axes SF rules outlawing public employee strikes
July 28, 2023 // The California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) on July 24 returned a resounding decision against the city and in favor of the Service Employees International Union 1021 and International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers Local 21. This ruling affirms — and expands — a decision handed down last year by an administrative law judge, and appealed to the PERB panel. That state panel on Monday found that the charter provisions enacted following chaotic 1970s-era public employee walkouts, and subsequently modified by voters over the course of the ensuing decades, to be wholly incompatible with California law. While the state panel does not have the power to rescind portions of the San Francisco City Charter, it can — and, now has — declared significant swaths to be “void and unenforceable.”
San Fran socialists killed historic Anchor Brewing, critics say
July 19, 2023 // But locals such as Greenberg told The Post that a cadre of Democratic Socialists of America drove the push to unionize Anchor’s modest 61-member workforce — in hopes of inspiring the masses to “take on the power of capital.” In 2020, the Anchor Union’s first contract kicked hourly pay up by as much as 28% — a substantial bump that exacerbated the company’s pandemic slump. “I’m very sympathetic to the workers, but there also has to be some reality,” Roth said. “And that’s the problem with socialism: in the real world, the economic and math tenets quite literally do not add up.”
Snøhetta US: Employees Vote Against Unionizing in Architectural Practice Transformation
July 13, 2023 // Initially reported to be 29 to 28, the final vote count was 35 to 29. The error was caused due to the overlooking of the company’s San Francisco branch. If the vote had passed, a total of 65 employees, made up of both full-time and regular part-time employees, would have been covered by the proposed union. Moreover, the union would have included all designers, architects, project leaders, and operations staff associated with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
For ILWU, West Coast port deal to be union-ratified, here’s what has to happen next
June 16, 2023 // West Coast port management and the labor union representing port workers reached a tentative deal late on Wednesday after the intervention of California labor market pro and Biden acting Labor Secretary Julie Su in the negotiations in San Francisco, but it could be months before the full union votes to approve the deal. The tentative agreement was a welcome development after weeks of escalating tensions between workers and port management, resulting in delays in vessel servicing, congestion at ports, in containers and out to trucking, as well as some port shutdowns. But the proposed labor deal is a far way from being fully approved, according to the International Longshore & Warehouse Union. While the union statement on the deal was positive, it laid out a process that still has several steps to go before the deal moves ahead.