Posts tagged union-busting

    PLAYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS WARN SPORTS ILLUSTRATED ON UNION BUSTING

    March 7, 2024 // The AFL-CIO Sports Council, which launched in 2022 to assist athletes in unionizing, released the statement Monday. The warning doesn’t mention any specific consequence that could arise. However, players in those leagues could refuse to conduct interviews with SI writers and podcasters, decline to attend SI parties and otherwise boycott creation of SI content. For the storied publication, which for decades influenced the sports industry like no other, a loss of access to players and their unions would make reporting more difficult, and it would both diminish and delegitimize the SI brand.

    REI SoHo workers unionized in 2022, but still don’t have a contract. This play tells their story

    February 21, 2024 // Neill first put on the play, called Foot Wears House, for her coworkers and fellow union members, through a reading at RWDSU’s office. Now, it will be open to the public with a reading at Hudson Park Library on February 24, once again starring members of the REI Soho union. The reading is supported by Working Theater, which is focused on stories for and about working people, and is free to the public, with the option for donations to the REI Union Hardship Fund.

    Teamsters will rally at Iowa Capitol against alleged ‘union-busting,’ raise strike funds

    February 20, 2024 // The union also is leaving the door open for the possibility of “rolling strikes,” with Teamsters Local 238 Secretary-Treasurer Jesse Case saying it is raising money to offset any fines that might occur from striking. Striking is prohibited for public employees in Iowa, among whose unions the Teamsters are prominent. “You can’t legislate a movement out of existence," Case said in a prepared statement. "Union busting legislators need to know that strikes are legal in the private sector, and we are raising money to offset their punitive fines while we contemplate rolling strikes in the public sector. The only way to avoid disrupting business in Iowa is to not disrupt workers’ rights.”

    Eureka Walmart denies union busting in response to labor board complaint

    February 20, 2024 // The NLRB and Walmart — the nation’s largest private employer — are scheduled for a hearing before an administrative law judge on May 14, but they could discuss a possible settlement prior to the hearing. “The Complaint fails, in whole or in part, because even if any of the alleged conduct is found to be violation of the Act, which it is not, Walmart effectively repudiated any such conduct,” Walmart’s answer said.

    Brunswick Staples workers vote against unionizing

    January 9, 2024 // Had a majority voted to unionize, the store would have been the first Staples to unionize in the U.S. The company, founded in 1986, has 997 retail stores in the U.S., including 10 in Maine, and more than 34,000 workers, according to its website.

    New York solar firm accused of union busting after furloughing staff

    January 7, 2024 // EmPower Solar suspended 40% of its workforce but says action is unrelated to recent successful election of workers to join UAW

    COMMENTARY: Good news: 2023 won’t mark a union revival

    January 3, 2024 // The decline of union membership has been remarkably steady over the last four decades. Since 2000, the year-to-year change in the unionization rate has been positive only six times, and those small gains have quickly been reversed. Moreover, the latest data show that unionization is increasingly concentrated in the government sector, especially local services such as K-12 education and public safety. Only 6% of private sector workers are union members.

    UAW files unfair labor practice charges against Hyundai, Honda and Volkswagen

    December 14, 2023 // The UAW has filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Honda, Hyundai and Volkswagen, the union said. The union alleges management at facilities for the companies have participated in illegal “union-busting as workers organize to join the UAW.” The charges come roughly two weeks after the UAW said it was launching an unprecedented campaign to organize 13 nonunion automakers in the U.S.

    Commentary: Unions are coming not just for the few, but for everyone

    December 6, 2023 // This week brought wonderful news on that front. The United Auto Workers (UAW), fresh off a historic, victorious strike against the Big Three automakers, announced plans to unionize not just one, not two, but more than a dozen of the remaining non-union auto companies in the US. Tesla, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen – essentially all of them. After the attractive contracts won in the strikes brought a flood of interest from workers across the country, the union has decided to seize the moment. The UAW is aiming to be exactly where a strong union needs to be: everywhere. Is this plan bold? Yes. Will it be difficult? Yes. Are they in for years-long fights against enormous multinational corporations backed by hostile state governments? Yes. But the great insight that the UAW is showing here is this: the fact that facing down an existential threat will be hard doesn’t matter. If the auto workers’ union is not capable of organizing foreign companies’ auto plants in hostile southern states, its power will die; and if it is not capable of organizing workers at rich and growing and staunchly anti-union companies like Tesla, its power will die. So the choices are to do those things, or die. Despite the difficulty of the task, the choice, when presented like that, is very easy.

    Amazon Forces Removal of Pro-Union Display at Major Cargo Hub

    December 3, 2023 // The workers last week filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board, arguing the threats were designed to chill protected union speech at Amazon facilities. Managers allegedly gave final warnings to about a dozen employees who had refused to remove the display, but the workers ultimately relented to avoid getting fired and to protect their union effort, according to interviews with three people involved as well as audio and video recordings the workers provided to Bloomberg Law in support of their account. Kentucky and most other states allow one person to legally tape record a conversation without informing the other participants.