Posts tagged voluntary recognition
CNET Workers Unionize as ‘Automated Technology Threatens Our Jobs’
May 18, 2023 // “The digital media landscape is transforming rapidly,” reads a letter written to CNET management explaining the workers’ choice to organize. “In this time of instability, our diverse content teams need industry-standard job protections, fair compensation, editorial independence and a voice in the decision-making process, especially as automated technology threatens our jobs and reputations. A union will help us adapt to new business strategies while establishing high journalistic standards and practices.” The rapid development of AI models like ChatGPT-4 has recently caused lots of concern in writing industries. The ongoing film and TV writers’ strike has labeled AI as a serious point of contention between workers and management, and the union wants to “regulate use of material produced using artificial intelligence or similar technologies” in its contract to protect writers’ jobs. AI isn’t yet good enough to replace a team of writers, but it is cheaper.
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.
MGB Housestaff File for Official Union Election After Hospital System Declines to Recognize Union
April 12, 2023 // Committee of Interns and Residents, a local of the Service Employees International Union, is the parent union of MGB Housestaff United. Annie Della Fera, a communications coordinator for CIR, said while organizers had hoped for voluntary recognition, “it’s pretty common for them to reject recognition and instead have residents go through the NLRB election process.” Within hours of the request, MGB Interim Chief Academic Officer Paul J. Anderson wrote in a message that the hospital system would not recognize them, adding that the hospital prefers to “work directly with our trainees as individuals” on resolving workplace issues. “We agree with the NLRB and the federal courts, which have described the NLRB’s secret ballot elections process as the gold standard in determining whether a majority of employees desires union representation,” Anderson wrote.
Unionize the Senate, staffers urge
February 9, 2023 // Labor advocates are pushing the Senate to recognize staff unions, in the hopes of kickstarting progress in the chamber now that their House organizing efforts have stalled under Republican control. The Congressional Workers Union sent a letter Thursday to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Rules and Administration Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Bernie Sanders, demanding a vote by the end of the month on a resolution authorizing Senate offices to unionize.
‘Hypocritical’: environmental groups blocking union efforts, US workers say
February 3, 2023 // Workers at some of the top environmental organizations in the US are calling out their managers as “incredibly hypocritical” as they argue the progressive non-profits are fighting workers’ efforts to unionize. A wave of unionization efforts has swept the non-profit sector as part of a renewed national enthusiasm for unionization. Shortly into the Covid-19 pandemic, workers at 350.org, Sunrise Movement, the National Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife, Greenpeace USA, the Public Interest Network and the Center for Biological Diversity unionized.
Voluntary Recognition of Unions Is Increasingly Popular Among U.S. Employers
January 23, 2023 // In January 2023, Microsoft recognized a union of playtesters at its subsidiary ZeniMax Studios; Major League Baseball voluntarily recognized minor league players’ choice to join the Major League Baseball Players Association in September; workers at a number of media organizations had their unions recognized throughout 2021 and 2022; and mission-driven organizations such as charities, museums, civil rights and environmentalist groups, think tanks, and other nonprofits all voluntarily recognized worker unions as well. Other businesses, including The Metals Company, Forever Energy, and the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, signed neutrality agreements with unions, under which the firms agreed to refrain from engaging in anti-union tactics during an election. Some companies have communicated that they have pursued voluntary recognition because their own organizations’ goals broadly align with those of workers. In particular, a number of mission-driven organizations have opted for voluntary recognition in recent years, including the Whitney Museum, the Shed, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Los Angeles, the Brookings Institution, the National Center for Transgender Equality, Capital Roots, Code for America, and others. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a national nonprofit that litigates to protect civil liberties, first voluntarily recognized the unionization of national staffers with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 70, also called the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, in 2021.* One of the ACLU’s state affiliates, the ACLU of Texas, also recognized its workers’ choice to unionize with United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2320 in 2022. Indeed, as the ACLU of Texas stated after recognizing its employee union: Media and news organizations have seen some of the largest voluntary recognition agreements signed in the United States. Along with workers at Politico, The Atlantic, Public News Service, The State, and others, employees at Condé Nast won voluntary recognition for their staff union with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in 2022. Spurred on by their co-workers at The New Yorker and other Condé Nast publications that voted in favor of joining the NewsGuild-CWA in 2018, these workers organized a union that covers 500 workers, including 100 subcontractors. Workers have also won voluntary recognition in the entertainment industry, including at the International Documentary Association, Seven Seas Entertainment, and the iHeartPodcast Network, as well as through the Animation Guild.
Nickelodeon Voluntarily Recognizes Production Workers Union
January 20, 2023 // About a month after the IATSE local filed for a National Labor Relations Board election, Nickelodeon has chosen to bypass that process by agreeing to recognize a bargaining unit of 177 workers — including production coordinators, production managers, asset production coordinators and others. This will amount to “the largest bargaining unit of production workers to organize under The Animation Guild” so far, TAG said in its announcement Tuesday. Nickelodeon confirmed the news as well.
ZeniMax Workers United Votes to Unionize, With Microsoft Formally Recognizing Its First Union
January 5, 2023 // While Microsoft has voluntarily recognized its very first union, Blizzard has tended to oppose efforts, with reasoning that ranges from direct communication with workers is a better option and claiming that QA workers alone should not be able to take a union vote, but the entire studio should get the chance to cast a ballot. The ZeniMax QA workers announced their intention to have a union vote last month, and this news follows the announcement by Blizzard’s recently-acquisition, Spellbreak development studio Proletariat, of a desire to unionize the entire studio.
Opinion: SEACC United clears the air on unionization
January 4, 2023 //
The Standoff Between Workers and Their Bosses Is Set To Heat Up in 2023
December 15, 2022 // Now, the strong labor market that emboldened workers is softening. The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.7% in November—it had gone as low as 3.5%—–and high-profile tech and media companies have recently cut their payrolls through steep layoffs. But that doesn’t mean workers are losing the upper hand, says Thomas Kochan, a professor of employment research at the MIT Sloan School for Management. If anything, the current economic conditions mean labor strife may accelerate next year. “I expect what we’ll see is more conflict, more strikes, and more contract rejections,” Kochan says. Workers are still focused on companies’ profits during boom years, he notes, while companies are starting to trim costs to prepare for an economic downturn. “It’s that difference in expectations,” he says, “that creates a higher probability of conflicts and strikes.”