Posts tagged Walmart
Teamsters Sacrifices 30,000 Workers: 3 Ways Union Contributed to Yellow Trucking’s Demise
August 2, 2023 // A key reason Yellow was said to be closing its doors is that the union was refusing Yellow’s restructuring and modernization efforts. Part of that restructuring would have included efficiency savings by enabling an additional 600 utility truck drivers to also sometimes perform dock work, but the union controls what tasks workers are allowed to perform, and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien asserted that this restructuring “would have decimated thousands of Teamsters jobs.” Instead, the union’s refusal to allow company management to do what it felt necessary to save the business contributed to the decimation of 22,000 Teamsters jobs.
Trucking giant Yellow shuts down: The 99-year-old company which has almost 30,000 staff and 12,000 big-rigs ceases operations immediately
July 31, 2023 // Yellow is saddled with some $1.5 billion in debt as of late March, including $729.2 million owed to the federal government for a controversial pandemic-era loan the Treasury Department extended on national security grounds in 2020. A June 2023 congressional report concluded the Treasury Department dodged its own policies to issue the loan and the previous administration had made a mistake in doing so. In May, Yellow reported a loss of $54.6 million, a decline of $1.06 per share, for its first quarter of 2023. Operating revenue was about $1.16 billion in the period.
ESG Is a Front for Labor
July 24, 2023 // House Republicans have declared July “ESG month,” planning hearings and bills to push back against politicized environmental, social, and governance investing. Yet so far, lawmakers have almost exclusively focused on environmental issues. Republicans should also pay attention to the “S” in ESG, which labor unions are using to advance their agenda at the expense of workers, their own members, and even taxpayers — a problem that President Biden has significantly worsened. The 2023 proxy season, which started in January and ended in June, shows the union campaign in action. Union funds and their allies, such as the New York City Employees’ Retirement System and like-minded investment managers, introduced many ESG-focused shareholder proposals designed to accelerate unionization. Consider Apple, which was targeted by five New York City pension funds, multiple investment managers, and the SEIU Master Trust Pension Plan, among others.
Strike at trucking firm Yellow averted after deal
July 24, 2023 // In 2020, then-U.S. President Donald Trump bailed out the company with a $700 million pandemic relief loan. In exchange, the federal government took a 30% stake in Yellow. The Nashville, Tennessee-based company formerly called YRC Worldwide has not significantly repaid that loan, which is part of $1.2 billion in debt it is scrambling to refinance before it comes due next year. Yellow's other lenders include a group led by Apollo Global Management (APO.N). Company executives appealed to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters for help slashing expenses as cash dwindles. It has successfully won such concessions in the past, but this time was rebuffed by new Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien. "Following years of worker give backs, federal loans, and other bail outs, this deadbeat company has only itself to blame for being in this embarrassing position," O'Brien said in a statement last week. O’Brien is also leading negotiations covering roughly 340,000 U.S. employees at United Parcel Service (UPS.N). A federal judge in Kansas on Friday rejected Yellow's request to block the Teamsters from striking over the delinquent benefit payments.
The Cyberpicket: A New Frontier for Labor Law
June 12, 2023 // a cyberpicket would alert potential customers to a labor dispute and put them to the choice of whether to continue transacting with the business. Instead of encountering rows of workers outfitted with signs and pamphlets, however, e-shoppers would come across a notification that materializes at a site’s landing page — the business’s “entrance.” The technology needed to implement a cyberpicket breaks no new ground. In fact, it’s already widely utilized by online businesses for compliance with the European Union’s (EU) “Cookie Law,” which requires that websites give visitors the right to refuse data tracking.14 So-called “consent banners” — now familiar fixtures for netizens across the pond15 — present a tried-and-true template for the cyberpicket. Not only is the cyberpicket a viable alternative to its in-person counterpart, it’s a right owed to employees of online businesses. This Note sharpens the concept of a cyberpicket by expanding on its legal justification, expected benefits, and possible challenges.
Focus organizing drives on workers without college degrees, US unions told
May 8, 2023 // n contrast, unionization hasn’t taken off nearly as rapidly at many blue-collar, lower-paid workplaces. No other Chipotle restaurant has unionized since workers in Lansing, Michigan, voted last August to make theirs the nation’s first unionized Chipotle. Only one Amazon warehouse is unionized in the US, just two Apple stores and four Trader Joe’s. Those companies have mounted fierce anti-union counterattacks to slow and they hope stop the spread. Chris Rosell, the Teamsters’ organizing director, says one reason unionization of blue-collar workers often doesn’t catch fire is that it’s frequently easier for anti-union consultants to scare and deter those workers. “Blue-collar workers often aren’t as educated about this union-busting stuff,” he said. “They could be more susceptible to these kinds of tactics.” Rosell said the Teamsters often run elaborate campaigns that seek to inoculate workers from the pressures and propaganda from anti-union consultants. He said the Teamsters’ president, Sean O’Brien, hopes to double the union’s membership and focus organizing on such area trucking, warehouses and sanitation work. Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs with Justice, a labor rights group, says it’s often harder to unionize blue-collar workers because they tend to have less economic security than educated workers and have greater fear of what will happen to them if they’re retaliated against, perhaps getting fired, for seeking to unionize.
A new union is born in the South
December 1, 2022 // USSW workers and staff are bullish on their new union, believing that its fusion of labor and human rights organizing will help them secure livable wages, stronger safety protections, control over their work schedules, and new respect for the African Americans and Latinos who make up the majority of their members. They are encouraged by the growing public approval for labor unions and the increase in worker protest during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among essential or frontline workers. They are also building off of nine years of organizing through Raise Up — the Southern expression of the Fight for $15 and a Union and an affiliate of the sprawling Service Employees International Union. Raise Up veterans like Gas and Smalls, and the Durham, North Carolina-based Ieisha Franceis and Jamila Allen, will be critical to the USSW's success. Beginning in September 2020 and continuing over the next year, Franceis and Allen led three walkouts that forced their employer, Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers, to agree to their demands for raises, paid leave for employees in quarantine, and new sanitation procedures. Franceis was initially hesitant about striking, but she trusted the much younger and more soft-spoken Allen, who had been meeting with Raise Up organizers for a year and gently prodding her coworkers to take collective action.
Labor board rules Tesla must let workers wear union clothing
August 30, 2022 // The National Labor Relations Board has reversed a Trump-era decision by finding that Tesla can’t stop factory employees from wearing clothing with union insignia while on the job. The board, in a 3-2 decision released Monday, overruled a 2019 NLRB decision involving Walmart and union clothing. The board wrote that a 1945 Supreme Court decision established the precedent for allowing the clothing.
Target employees at Virginia store file for union election amid a broader labor push at big companies
May 12, 2022 // Target said in a statement Wednesday that it has been investing in its workforce, with a starting wage range of between $15 to $24 per hour, health care benefits and a program that covers the cost of some associate and undergraduate degrees.
Workers Are Beating Big Bosses, but Organized Labor Can’t Keep Up
April 27, 2022 // Worker-led unions are transformational, while organized labor has become transactional.