Posts tagged UPS

    From Strikes to New Union Contracts, Labor Day’s Organizing Roots Are Especially Strong Across the Country This Year

    September 5, 2023 // The first U.S. Labor Day celebration took place in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882. Some 10,000 workers marched in a parade organized by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor. A handful of cities and states began to adopt laws recognizing Labor Day in the years that followed, yet it took more than a decade before President Grover Cleveland signed a congressional act in 1894 establishing the first Monday of September as a legal holiday.

    Looming auto strike puts Biden’s labor loyalty to the test

    September 1, 2023 // On Monday, the Treasury Department sent a love letter to unions in the form of a new report, arguing that unions are central to the U.S. middle class. “The Biden-Harris Administration recognizes the benefits of unions to the middle class and the broader economy and is committed to fulfilling the policy objectives of the [National Labor Relations Act],” the report said. While unions are seeing a surge in popularity in the U.S., organized labor has been in long-term decline, with union participation rates falling by half since they first started being measured in the early 1980s.

    Labor unions are pushing hard for double-digit raises and better hours. Many are winning

    August 28, 2023 // More than 320,000 workers have participated in at least 230 strikes so far this year, according to data from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. That’s already higher than the roughly 224,000 workers who participated in roughly 420 strikes in 2022, due in large part to tens of thousands of striking workers with the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Writers Guild of America. “Major” strikes involving 1,000 or more workers so far amount to just 16 such work stoppages this year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That compares to a recent high of 25 recorded major work stoppages in 2019 and 23 last year.

    Are salaried workers required to cross a picket line during a labor strike? What happens.

    August 23, 2023 // "If (nonunion workers) refuse to follow the direction they’ve been given by management, they could potentially lose their job if the company wanted to take such drastic measures," Kaminski said. "They could be fired for refusing to accept an assignment." ◾ Sympathy strikers can be permanently replaced, Kaminski said. Depending on their rank in an organization, some will retain the right to be put on a preferred recall list for a limited period of time. Many people consider being fired and being permanently replaced as the same, though technically different, Kaminski said.

    Commentary: Shrinking labor unions flex their muscles

    August 23, 2023 // Clearly, labor unions are flexing their muscles. But every year, a smaller percentage of workers belong to a union. That’s especially true for those in the private sector. Membership is down from 10.3 percent in 2021 to 10.1 percent last year, making it the lowest on record, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The percentage of union workers has nearly been cut in half since 1983, when 20.1 percent were represented. And it’s been dropping faster than that in the private sector. Government employees now make up one third of all union members. Law enforcement officers, firefighters, teachers and library employees have the highest percentages of union workers. Those workers earn, on average, 15 percent more than workers not in a union.

    Teamsters overwhelmingly ratify UPS contract

    August 23, 2023 // According to the Teamsters, 86.3% of voters ratified the contract, the largest margin in the long history of collective bargaining agreements between the two sides. It is unclear how many of the 340,000 unionized UPS workers cast ballots. All 44 supplemental agreements were ratified, except for a supplement covering 174 members in Florida. The national, or “master,” agreement will go into effect once the supplement is renegotiated and ratified, the Teamsters said. Each supplement covers specific regions of the country and is tailored to the needs of Teamsters members in the respective regions.

    Terence Crawford Takes Aim at Boxing Corruption, Wants to Start Union

    August 18, 2023 // “If all of the top fighters with a name and a brand behind them came together, we could make change,” he said. “We have different races, different ages, different countries — it’s everyone from all walks of life coming together. I think it can be done.” In January 2022, Crawford filed a lawsuit seeking nearly $10 million against his former promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank, accusing him of racial bias against promoting Black fighters. “Boxing is one of the most corrupted sports there is and ever [has] been in the history of sports,” Crawford said in another interview with Boardroom. “We’ll take a $5 million guarantee not knowing there’s $30 million dollars that we missed,” he added. “Once I started asking [contract] questions and learning a bit here and there, it became a problem between me and my old promoter, and at that point in time, I knew it was time to go.”

    TCG Player employees claim two victories in fight to unionize

    August 18, 2023 // "As a result of the NLRB decision, we have recognized the CWA as the collective bargaining representative for the now certified unit of our AC team members. Unfortunately, whether certain disputed job classifications should be included in that bargaining unit was not addressed by the NLRB decision and remains unresolved. However, these unanswered questions will not delay our commitment to bargaining over a contract for those non-contested AC job classifications. We are taking steps to immediately move forward with the bargaining process with the goal of reaching a labor contract."