Posts tagged Workers United
Unions say Starbucks violates worker rights it claims to uphold — and its membership in U.N. corporate initiative is ‘self-serving’
June 6, 2023 // Trull added that “the complaints and [administrative law judge] rulings against Starbucks involve allegations some of which are disputed by Starbucks, none of which are final, and are not equivalent to findings that violations have occurred under the system of adjudication Congress created.” Elena Bombis, the senior manager of integrity at the U.N. Global Compact and the person to whom the unions’ complaint was addressed, did not immediately return a request for comment. The compact has been known to delist companies that have failed to adhere to the agreement’s principles.
BEN & JERRY’S AGREES TO VOLUNTARILY RECOGNIZE SCOOPERS UNITED UNION!
June 2, 2023 // "We are taught from the beginning of our employment that equality and justice are integral rights of ours as people. But what happens when Vermont's Finest are continuously left out of these conversations?" the scoopers wrote in a letter at the time. Ben & Jerry's responded to the announcement saying it supported workers' organizing efforts. The company followed up Tuesday's card check by voluntarily recognizing the result.
U.S. employers have gone from opposing international labor standards to hiding behind them. Now a complaint is trying to stop U.S.-style union busting from taking over the world
May 31, 2023 // What explains the shift? International standards are increasingly becoming part of the fabric of global governance. They might be embedded in trade agreements, procurement rules, or within the codes of conduct of investors. It’s not acceptable anymore for a global company to tell its investors that they reject international labor standards. So instead of being honest, employers seek to distort the meaning of international labor standards beyond recognition. It’s time for the ILO to make clear that U.S.-style interference with workers’ efforts to come together in a union violates the ILO Convention on Freedom of Association (convention 87). Such a finding might not deliver a change in U.S. law, but it would send a message to companies that they can’t hide behind the United Nations and the ILO to justify their union-busting tactics.
Group behind Starbucks’ unionization runs into its own labor problem
May 12, 2023 // The union behind the organization of Starbucks suffered an ironic role reversal Wednesday when its employees went on strike in a push for higher wages. The workers hit the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) with many of the same accusations an affiliate of the union has hurled at Starbucks and other restaurant employers. The employees, members of the SEIU’s Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), charged the parent group with delaying contract negotiations and trying to bust the subordinate union.
Virginia is battleground in baristas’ organizing fight
April 18, 2023 // The biggest morale boost for Richmond Starbucks barista Tyler Hofmann is when customers make up names like “union solidarity” to identify their orders. “It gets printed out and [employees] have to call out union stuff in the café,” he said. That opens up an opportunity for discussion about workers’ ongoing grievances against the specialty coffee giant. Hofmann is working at Starbucks again after having been fired last May in what his union and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) claimed was illegal retaliation for his organizing efforts at the Richmond store. A private settlement was reached between the company and the regional board of the Workers United union, according to the NLRB, and Hofmann was reinstated.
Ben & Jerry’s workers in flagship Vermont store file for union election
April 18, 2023 // The company's stance on this recent unionization push isn't yet known. In 1998, the company challenged a unionization attempt made by maintenance workers in its Vermont plant, arguing the union vote should be held among all plant workers.
The Undercover Organizers Behind America’s Union Wins
April 5, 2023 // The practice of joining a workplace with the secret aim of organizing it is called “salting.” Westlake was addressing recruits at the Inside Organizer School, a workshop held a couple times a year by a loose confederation of labor organizers. At these meetups, experienced activists train other attendees in the art of going undercover. Speakers lecture and lead discussions on how to pass employer screenings, forge relationships with co-workers and process the complicated feelings that can accompany a double life. Most salts are volunteers, not paid union officials, but unions sometimes fund their housing or, later, tap them for full-time jobs. Workers United, the Service Employees International Union affiliate that’s home to the new Starbucks union, hired Westlake as an organizer around the time the coffee chain fired him last fall.
Workers United Has an Alter Ego
April 4, 2023 // Workers United is the largest shareholder of “union controlled” Amalgamated Bank, and is frequently described as its majority owner given its unique control of the bank. Amalgamated reports investments to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that go against both the union and the bank’s self-proclaimed values. Both Workers United and the bank have put forth an image of progressive values and social responsibility. This image has helped Workers United popularize some of its major organizing campaigns, including efforts to organize baristas throughout the country.
Report: baristas and fast-food workers behind sharp uptick in strikes in 2022
February 23, 2023 // Baristas, cashiers, cooks and servers were involved in at least 144 strikes and lockouts, a third of the work stoppages that the report documented. The overwhelming majority of those work stoppages were led by organizers from Starbucks Workers United campaign and the Fight for $15, two national labor movements that have made significant gains in the past few years. More than 278 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since 2021, and the Fight for $15 campaign has gained political traction in state legislatures, most recently in California. While fast-food and service workers were particularly active last year, they were far from the only food industry workers to protest, walk off the job, or go on strike. The report documents four confirmed work stoppages led by farmworkers, including two strikes in the strawberry fields of Santa Maria, California. In May 2022, at least 100 strawberry pickers walked off the job at J & G Berry Farms and demanded their employer pay them $3.50 for every box of strawberries they picked, which amounted to a 66 percent raise. J & G Berry Farms offered to pay its employees $2.20 per box instead, a 4 percent raise that workers say they agreed to because they could not afford to miss another day of work. Hundreds of food transportation workers also organized work stoppages. The report found that employees at Sysco, one of the largest food distribution companies in the world, went on strike at least five times last year. In April 2022, more than 200 of the company’s drivers refused to make food deliveries to regular customers in the Washington-D.C.-Metropolitan Area, which included the U.S. Capitol and the White House.