Posts tagged San Francisco
DHL Express workers extend picket lines across US
December 17, 2023 // The Teamsters represent more than 1,100 DHL employees who load and unload freighters at CVG, and 6,000 workers nationwide. Workers voted in April to join Teamsters Local 100 after a yearlong campaign and began collective bargaining for their first contract in July. They went on strike Dec. 7 after demands for better pay and safety conditions as well as an end to alleged union-busting activities were not met. The labor action comes at the busiest time of year for parcel carriers, who are in the final sprint of delivering online purchases and personal gift exchanges in time for the holidays. DHL brought in temporary workers and managers to pick up some of the labor slack in Cincinnati and diverted cargo jets to other gateways in its air network in an effort to maintain service schedules.
SF school district reaches memorandum of understanding with tradespeople, staving off strike
December 4, 2023 // “SFUSD and Common Crafts agreed to negotiate in good faith to address outstanding grievances, arbitrations, memorandums of understanding, and other contract negotiation-related issues,” said the school district. The district has agreed to meet with employees to negotiate salary and resolve outstanding pay issues, convene a task force to work toward completing these negotiations by Feb. 1, and will pay Common Crafts unit members a one-time, off-schedule $3,000 stipend by Friday, SFUSD officials said.
Workers at Chinese-state-owned hotel in SF on strike after foodborne illness complaints
November 15, 2023 // Workers at the Chinese-state-owned BEI Hotel in SF suffered food poisoning after the hotel "unilaterally laid off its cooks and outsourced cafeteria meals," starting in May of this year, a press release said. The BEI is a 400-room hotel owned by Beijing Tourism Group, an enterprise managed by a subsidiary of the Beijing government.
‘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.”