The judge ruled that Amazon broke labor laws in Staten Island

The Starbucks Campaign: Why We Aren’t Workers’ Rights Interested in Unionization and What We Don’t Know About It, But We Are Doin’t

There is some outside pressure for Starbucks to reconsider its anti-union stance. At that same meeting, shareholders voted on a proposal, brought by heavyweight investors including New York City’s pension fund, for a third-party audit of the company’s labor practices.

Almost immediately, Workers United filed an unfair labor practice charge against Starbucks, accusing the company of misleading employees and violating labor law by threatening benefits amid a union campaign.

The company spokesman said they were respectful of their partners’ right to organize, but they believed the best future was created with their partners.

Back in May, when it was announced that Starbucks would be giving raises and other benefits, the company stated that they were trying to prove the point.

Credit card machines at Starbucks don’t let customers add tips, making tipping an issue for many baristas.

“We do not have the ability to make improvements at locations where organizing is going on, even though they have a union,” he told shareholders.

All this seems to be working. Workers voted against unionization at other warehouses. So did workers at a Home Depot and one Trader Joe’s location. Momentum has slowed at Starbucks, where about 270 unionized locations represent less than 3% of all company-operated stores in the U.S.

“They kind of get a little angry because they’re like, ‘Well, how come we’re not getting these benefits?'” says Gailyn Berg, who works at a unionized Starbucks in Falls Church, Va.

Berg, a shift supervisor who uses the pronoun “they,” transferred to the Falls Church store after spearheading a failed union drive at another Starbucks location 10 miles away. Since then, turnover at the new store has been high. A lot of the union supporters went to college after the election. They’ve been replaced by newcomers who don’t know much, if anything, about the organizing effort.

Disheartened, Berg has backed away from the “gung-ho — gotta unionize them all!” They had a different attitude earlier in the year. But they haven’t abandoned the fight.

We’re scared. We’re terrified,” says Jasmine Leli, a barista and union leader in Buffalo, N.Y. “We just want to go to work like everybody else and do our jobs and not have to worry [about] when the other shoe is going to drop.”

The company was ordered to bring back seven workers by a federal judge. Starbucks said that those who were fired had violated the company’s policies.

The Impact of the National Labor Relations Act’s Weak Penalties on the Company and the Growth of its U.S. Stores

The National Labor Relations Act’s weak penalties for breaking them are a big problem because it doesn’t really serve as a deterrent. “Employers decide that it’s just worth it to break the law because the consequences are fairly mild.”

Berg says that they don’t seem to care about them at all. “Howard Schultz, in particular, seems very busy trying to just continue on doing his thing, and not not really acknowledging the fact that he has lost faith of so many of us that really believed in him.”

Shultz is preparing to leave the company once again, as he seems pleased with all of the progress. Starbucks announced that his successor Laxman Narasimhan, who officially joined the company Oct. 1, will take over as CEO next spring.

Starbucks’ revenue rose in the third quarter of this year, exceeding expectations. Customer loyalty — measured through the growing number of Starbucks rewards members — remains strong. In August, the company projected net new U.S. store growth of 3% to 4% annually over the next few years.

“We’ve been planning for months,” says Leli, who sits on the committee and has worked to gather input from thousands of employees around the country. “We want to make sure everyone feels seen and heard.”

A federal judge ruled that Amazon had violated Labor Laws in the run-up to union elections and that it may have violated the National Labor Relations Board

Amazon broke labor laws in the run-up to union elections at two of its New York facilities, according to a judge for the National Labor Relations Board. The company discriminated against union organizers while enforcing its solicitation policies and threatened workers with jail time if they refused to join the union, according to the judge.

The campaign defeated today has its roots in the personal history of lead organizer Heather Goodall. She took a job picking and packing items for shipment at ALB1 in February in an attempt to find out if the news she’d read about Amazon’s tough working environment was true. A series of suicides and murder-suicides by employees of GlobalFoundries, a chip manufacturer, which she believed were related to a poor working environment, developed her interest in workplace conditions. GlobalFoundries has stated that it is important for employee health and safety.

The WWPA follows a similar law that was passed in California last September (AB-701) that required employers to provide their warehouse workers with written descriptions of their quotas and also prevents employers from punishing workers for failing to meet quotas that weren’t disclosed to them.

In the decision, the judge points out that Abruzzo is attempting to overturn other NLRB decisions in a way that could make some of Amazon’s tactics illegal. Forced anti-union meetings, which Abruzzo has been trying to get rid of, is perhaps the most notable. These meetings were where the alleged threats about pay and benefits occurred. The board has the authority to overturn precedent, unlike the judge who only has the power to change labor law.

Further evidence of the stress placed on Amazon warehouse employees can be found in a 2021 report by the advocacy group Strategic Organizing Center, which found that Amazon workers are twice as likely to be injured than people that work for warehouses within similar companies.

New York Times: The Story of Two Storey Workers Who Beat the odds to Form Amazon, and How They Went to JFK8

This transcript was made with speech recognition software. The reviewer may have made mistakes while reviewing it. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

Hey, it’s Michael. The daily revisits some of their favorite episodes of the year and learns what’s happened since they first ran. Today, we return to the story of how two friends and fellow warehouse workers, Chris Smalls and Derrick Palmer, beat the odds to form Amazon’s first union and learn the current state of their organizing efforts. It’s Tuesday, December 27.

I am thankful because you guys are talking to us at the very top of your lives, and I am aware that it is the biggest moment of your lives.

I would like to thank you. Thank you so much. I want to ask Chris and Christopher how they got to Amazon, as well as how they got to the JFK8 warehouse. What was it that brought you both there?

I’ve been employed by Amazon since 2015. I opened up three facilities for Amazon when I started as a process assistant, and I was an entry-level worker.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

New York Times Associated Press Contribution: “I Was a PA at JFK During the Open Days of the Open Competition in 1988-1997”

Right, right. At this time, I was already a PA for over four years, trained hundreds of the employees, trained management as well that was hired within the company. I moved to JFK but it wasn’t open yet. It was still being built. My plan was to get into that building when it was launched.

With my rank, and knowing that I should be able to pick my shift and times, I was sure I could open a new building when I wanted. I did not get that opportunity. They threw me on to the worst shift.

12 hours Thursday, Friday, Saturday — they took my whole weekend away. And I live in New Jersey and didn’t have a vehicle at the time. My commute was three hours each way.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

New York Times – Amazon’s New York: Where are the New Workers? How Do New Yorkers Get Their Work? What Amass, When Are They Going Home?

Oh, I mean, at the time, you know, I was unemployed. I worked a lot of temp jobs. I wouldn’t be at Amazon if it wasn’t for my mother. So my mother —

Yeah. She told me about Amazon. So at the time, I didn’t really know too much about it. I knew that many people were going to be hired by Amazon. And I said, you know what? Let me just try it out and see what happens.

I thought that Amazon was in the best interest of the worker. I thought they were just like, all right, you work hard, you move up. So immediately I adapted that philosophy. And I just worked as hard as I could.

Yeah. I was like, you know what? I’m going to move up with this company. I’m going to do great because of Amazon. It didn’t go that way.

At the time I didn’t know. I thought I had to keep working hard and that I would be promoted. But what they did do was they offered me an ambassador position. So ambassador are basically workers who train other workers. My responsibility was to train all the new employees.

So what Chris and Derrick are describing is their experience. It is actually part of the company’s design according to our reporting. Jeff Bezos intentionally created the system where the lower-level warehouse jobs were the lower-level warehouse jobs. They were expected to have lots of turnover.

This is a huge warehouse. It’s serving this huge market. It is serving New York City. Amazon is recognizing people’s need for the services it provides as the Pandemic shuts down everything. And so what we’re seeing is that right in this period of greatest fear and greatest uncertainty, when every American who can get sent home is going home, Amazon is trying to figure out how to get its staff to work to meet this demand.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

When I got a job, I went out and told the manager that I was going to go back to work, but I wasn’t lighted up

It was only the fact that we were not lighted up. We didn’t know what the hell we was doing, what was going on with the virus because we’re watching it on the news, and the company is doing something else.

There was something off in the building and with managers. I was like, what the hell is going on here? We’re in the break room sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. Derrick can tell you. We were sitting there joking, we’re all going to die because we’re sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, and we’re watching CNN, and they’re telling us we need to be six feet apart with masks.

I was scared the same way. I’m like, the energy in the building was just like, everyone was quiet, and no one knew what the next steps were. And we didn’t know what Amazon’s plans were. The energy that was going on was what it was at that time.

Because after Chris got fired, a lot of workers were scared — scared to speak out about anything in general. If I go into the building, I will show Amazon that I am not going to give up. I was aware that it is what it is and they can’t do anything about it. I will go out with a fight.

I applied pressure on HR. Every day I would go in there, and, like, what are y’all going to do — until March 24 when I came into work. One of the supervisors that worked the first half of the week was walking very slowly. She had her own mask.

And I looked at her, and I’m like, yo, what’s going on? What’s up with you? She was like, I don’t feel good. I got tested yesterday. I said, wait a second. Would you take a test? They let you do it, tested you?

Right. So I’m like, wait a second. And I was watching the news. They said that it was important to show severe symptoms in order to get the test. She was showing all of them symptoms.

So I said, you should probably leave as a friend and a colleague. She did. She went right home. I said, I’ll take care of your assignments. I’ll do all your engagements. She was working around hundreds of people for a long time and tested positive.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

I’m going to work with Derrick and Is he going to go home? A walkout at Kentucky’s Warehouse is coming down at noon on March 30

I wondered, am I crazy, I’m looking around. You, like, I am leaving. I’m clocking out and going home. And that’s exactly — I went right downstairs, got Derrick because I ride to work with him. The time was noon. I said, yo, we need to get out of here.

So the next day, I came back to work, and Derrick came with me. We went straight into the break room at 7:00, 7:15. And at the top of our lungs, we yelling around, yo, we need to do something. The building had to be closed so that it could be cleaned.

You know people who worked in the warehouse tested positive for HIV and so you want the building to be shut down. That is your request.

Yeah. We wanted to be closed for 14 days and come back to work. We probably wouldn’t be here today.

Yeah, Kentucky did a walkout and their governor closed their warehouse. And I saw that in the article. I am perplexed as to why we can’t get that. So that’s when I said, all right, let’s plan a walkout here.

The media began to call. And I’m like, oh, all right. All right. I am telling them that it is going down at noon on March 30. I keep telling the media that. Yes, we’re planning a walkout. How many people? And I knew the media wasn’t going to come if I would have said five people.

Oh, wow. I didn’t sleep the night before so we got up real early on the day of the walk out. I had a stomach that was turning and I was eating Slim Shady mom’s spaghetti. He came to get me. It was like we was going across the bridge, and I’m, like — in my head, I’m like, damn, we’re about to do something, and I don’t even know what it’s going to look like.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. Yeah. All these emotions are going through. And we get to the building. We saw a helicopter hovering and I knew it was real. We saw a row of vans. I’m like, oh, shit. Yo, look what we did.

In five minutes, I see 100 workers come out. It is like the small group of people that are in the parking lot holding signs.

Dozens of workers walked out today over safety concerns about the spread of coronavirus, demanding the facility be closed for at least two weeks and sanitized. They’re also asking for —

Chris was violating bianque, an official explanation from Amazon has always been. On the same day that Chris was fired, Amazon HR officials sent text messages to each other. They are saying things like, come on. They were social in nature. There was a peaceful protest. His right to organize is not in danger. This is going to be seen as a way to retaliate.

So because you’ve held this walkout, you’ve been fired. This email has gone out about you that’s pretty derogatory. What happens next? What are you going to do?

At that moment, that’s when we decide to continue to advocate for workers. The congress of essential workers was founded by us. I said, “You know what?” We need to form something that’s going to just bring us in collectively in sort of like a coalition. And we formed this organization.

And we traveled the country starting in New York at Jeff Bezos’ mansions and penthouses that we can Google. We could not find all of them. We missed a few. We missed the one in Miami, but we started in New York. We ended up going to DC. And then we went to Beverly Hills. Then we went to Seattle. And then we — at that time, that’s when they started to unionize in Bessemer.

It is an important period to remember because it really shows that Chris and Derrick did not have a lot of success. There was a burst of publicity when Chris was let go, but at this point it had faded. It just feels like the company has the upper hand.

They offer health care on day one and good wages. It is unlikely that a small group of workers will be able to significantly challenge the company in the midst of all this. But then, like Chris says, comes Bessemer.

Yeah, I was like, OK, sure I support it 100 percent. And I supported it so much that we decided to drive 16 hours down there. I think that would be helpful to their efforts. We want to do this the way they did it in Alabama. And I said, whatever the hell that means. What’s the Alabama way? I don’t know. But I know now what it is because they didn’t allow us to rally. They didn’t want us to talk to the workers. They told us we wouldn’t want to talk to the workers because they would be frightened by you getting fired.

It was frustrating because his story is so important if you want to convince workers to join a union. So I felt like it was like, oh, you guys from New York, y’all can leave. We don’t need y’all.

They were so confident that they were going to win. That type of vibe did not appeal to me. Workers were not on board the way the media was portraying it as if this union was doing this amazing campaign. That’s not what we saw. We saw something totally different.

Right. And the reason this matters — and correct me if I’m wrong, Jodi — is that when it comes to a union vote in a place like Bessemer, every single worker’s vote counts.

Well, I should say, technically, the fight in Bessemer has stretched on a long time. The vote to form a union did not pan out. When that happened, a lot of people just said that the conventional wisdom is true. An Amazon warehouse is not possible to organize.

Yeah. The reason I went down there was to see how Bessemer handled their campaign, which was a red flag because they weren’t engaging with the workers.

Got it. It’s interesting, since this has been a big moment for unions. I mean, in a lot of ways because of your contribution to that, there have been several other companies driving towards unions. Starbucks comes to mind but also Apple, Chipotle, Trader Joe’s, the retailer REI.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

New York Amazon Union: Where Do We Go From Here? Where Do I Go? What Did I Want to Do? How I Decide to Go?

We didn’t hesitate. We should wait because there was some people on my team when it was over. They wanted to study her. They wanted to study all of these expertise. They did. We agreed to take the courses. I never got a chance to take them. You know, Derrick was working.

So I said, let’s go while the Iron is hot. I thought in my head that we will listen to expertise, when this has never been done before. We are the experts in reality. We were the people who invested in the company. We know the ins and outs of the company.

OK. Chris and Derrick, you get back to New York after your experience in Alabama. Tell us a little bit about how you are attempting to build your own union.

We didn’t know what to do. We decided to go to Walmart and buy some things, we spent $150 on GoFundMe, so we were like, we are going. And we went out to JFK8, and we said, all right, let’s stay here by the bus stop. We just picked that spot.

It was nothing in the beginning. I was out there on my own. I would go there, set up the whole setup by myself on hot summer days and sit out there for hours just like that, sit —

Feet up, waiting for the workers to leave the bus. I would just catch them. I tried to get as many people as possible. We didn’t know what we were throwing at. We were just like, yo, I need you to sign up. We’re going to form a union. We didn’t have anything to offer. We only had a pamphlet and authorization cards. That’s it.

Yes. They’re the first step towards forming a union. You need enough cards signed from workers to show that you have enough support to even trigger an election. 30 percent is the average when you get enough signatures.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

What I’m teaching the ALU staff about TCOEW – what I am trying to tell them about the Congress of Essential Workers (CSEW)

It appears that the second time Amazon handling of you seems to have a major effect on your understanding of how this plays out.

Yes. First of all, we have the TCOEW — Congress Of Essential Workers — shirts. So I’m wearing it throughout the building. I am letting Amazon know this is my stance and I will let them know after that. I am going to keep working. And I’m going to be like the voice of the associates in the inside of the facility.

They’re telling you not to talk to ALU members. They’re a group of workers with no experience as far as having a union. They were saying, oh, you will have to pay dues [CHUCKLES]: if you sign this card. They had all sorts of jabs at us.

But me being organized and me being an insider, that’s my job to ease the tension and let them know that, look, you sign this authorization card. There will be no penalty for signing the card. We just need to gather support so that we can have an election so that we can have a union. I will be talking to workers every single day. They would either sign the card inside the building, or if they didn’t sign the card inside, I’d go out there and talk to Chris. And it worked.

I had a game outside. They were able to play the inside game. And every day, shift change — we know that we were about to see 600 to 800 workers getting on and off this bus. It came to a point where we already signed them all up. Now we like, did you sign it — we’re asking the same people that are there, so we had to change up our strategy.

We were just focusing more on days. We got to do the overnight now. So now I’m telling the team, y’all got to come at a later time, so you got to stay into the morning because we got to get the night shift. And night shift was lovely. We had nights on lock since we started. People like the fact that we were setting up bonfires.

We were making some s’mores. We were playing music and singing. It felt like we built a community at the bus stop. Sometimes we would be praying, holding hands, crying and singing. It was just like a real — you can’t explain the emotions that were going on. It was spiritual.

I knew that this was going to work. We were like a glimmer of hope for these workers because when they got out of the bus, if we wasn’t there, they were like, yo, where was y’all?

Then think about how we said we went to Bessemer and they were not engaging with the workers. We have to make sure we do that consistently.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

New York amazon union: Where do we stand? Where are we going? How did we get there and what kind of commitment did we need?

They said they signed up because they watched the last year of Y’all there. We sacrificed. We all sacrificed our personal lives. When we were not at Amazon, I would tell my team that we were losing. So we got to be there — one of us, two of us got to be out there. No matter what y’all do, you have to be there.

We would have our alarm set on our phone so that the alarm go off, and, oh, these workers are about to get off. So that type of commitment — workers seeing us there consistently — helped ease the tension.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

Workers in the building — I was a patient, I was there with a friend. I was going to the hospital and I went to work at the hospital. I walked out of the building

We were giving out drugs. We were giving out books. We was giving out clothing items. We were not helping workers, we were helping people. A person came out with high blood pressure. He needed to get to the hospital — $100 Uber, go to the hospital. Amazon refused to pay for it — refused. They urged him to get on the bus. Whatever it took to get even one person, we were doing it. And we got the national agreement signed. That was in December. Now we switched up our strategy again.

Sure. This is one of the important things that happens. They can organize inside the building thanks to a landmark settlement from the National Labor Relations Board. So now the team is spending hours and hours a day in the break room. Chris tends to come to the building on one day to deliver food to workers inside.

Trust me. It was a pleasure for them to see me get arrested for giving food to people that were not in agreement about the union. That was the turning point. They lost the election right there.

The economy is one of the factors. Economists say a recession wouldn’t stop union enthusiasm because it’s not a given. Sometimes, when things look down, workers may feel like they need a union to represent them. It is difficult for labor to organize and campaigns for better pay during an economic downturn.

The Amazon front-seat: I’m not going to tell them about me. I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from my experience

Amazon has six multi-billion dollar lawyers — compared to our one pro-bono lawyer — on their side, six of them. And then we sit in the front. Two people are allowed. One on each side get to sit at the table in front of the ballot count.

There are board agents. Two or three of them are opening the ballots to make sure they’re read correctly. One person is reading them. Two of the others are summing them. It is from right to left. We are sitting in front of a small table, and they are sliding, and we are watching them decide.

When they got down to the last 2 boxes, they weren’t coming back from our 300, 400 lead. I looked at my team and I saw that there was a box.

Yeah. I stood up and saluted the cameras. I was trying to tell people, stop being nervous. We got this. I will not lie. Several members of my team thought we lost too. I’m not going to call them out.

Even though I was not out at that bus stop, I was still looking at articles and quotes from people who knew the things they were talking about. We out here. Y’all have the right to say what they want. I was aware of what we were doing. I thought they didn’t have an idea.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

What we did after the Amazon Labor Union break: When we found out that the Amazon Union was standing there, and what we wanted to do about it

We got a worker’s budget and sometimes no budget. So our campaign was built off of pure love and caring for one another. That is it. There are more than 50 buildings that we got contacted by.

People should know me by now. We’re fighters. That is one thing for sure. We are fighters. They are going to get a contract with us, no matter what. We are going to get it done, whatever it takes.

I called back to find out where the Amazon Labor Union stands after the break. We will return right back.

So it’s been about eight months since we last spoke. And when we left off last time, you and Chris were telling us about how you got this union vote to go your way. It was historic, and it was huge. You said at the time it was the beginning of a long process. So catch us up on the major developments that have happened since then.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

New York’s Amazon’s union: Campaigning in Albany, California, the Valley of California, San Bernardino, and Staten Island

Well, we’ve been basically trying to get other campaigns going at different facilities. One campaign was at LDJ5 in Staten Island, which is directly across the street from JFK8. That is in Albany, New York.

No. The buildings have started their campaigns. ONT8 in the Valley of California, San Bernardino — they have their campaign going there. The way it appears, it looks like they will be able to file a petition for an election soon. But we want to get as many signatures as possible before we just file. So we want to build up as much support there to guarantee that the workers will vote yes when it’s time to vote.

It isn’t sad, I mean. We have to understand what is happening. You have to understand the dynamics. These Starbucks stores — they have about 20 people. You have to get 30 percent of them to sign authorization cards under the National Labor Relations Board process compared to us, where we have over 8,000 workers and you’re only able to do it with 30 percent of them.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You want to get the large fulfillment centers. We want that to be what we’ve been aiming for because there are so many people there. If more workers are pro-union, the pressure is on Amazon to negotiate a contract.

Well, right now, we have to get our certification to even bargain. So that’s number one, and that should be coming before the new year. So once we get that, we’re going to put in an immediate bargaining order with Amazon to negotiate. But that is a process too. There is a chance that Amazon could appeal.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

Two weeks after the New York Assembly, I’m going to have to report back to work (and I’ll be there in the next few days)

We know from our conversation that Chris left the company. He told us he was no longer with us. The warehouse you work in is where you guys unionized. So what has it been like there for you as a worker?

Yes, yes. Yeah. So, just about two weeks ago, myself and Chris and other organizers were at the bus stop — not even on the property, not in the building — at the bus stop on public ground, passing out union literature to workers. There was a disagreement between the workers and the organizers. I was suspended from my job for an incident that occurred that week.

I was told that I would be suspended for seven days with pay. As of yesterday, the days were back to normal, because I was born yesterday. They extended the suspension for two more weeks. And I will have to report back to work on the 28th of December, pending this, quote, unquote, investigation.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/new-york-amazon-union.html

The Daily at the Fermilab Tevatron Synchrotron Optical Power Plant (FERMI) Rooms – Part I: The Daily

It was interesting. For just a moment, sketch out the future. Let’s say we’re talking to you in a year’s time. What do you think/hope that this is going to all look like?

We will have a contract by 2024 for sure. That’s the goal. And also, other facilities will be unionized as well. And that’s just what’s going to happen.

Today’s episode was produced by Diana Nguyen and Mooj Zadie, with help from Clare Toeniskoetter and Kaitlin Roberts. It was edited by Lisa Tobin, Michael Benoist, John Ketchum, and Anita Badejo, and contains original music from Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood and Sofia Lanman.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thank you to Karen Weise, Martin Dicicco, and Steve Maing. That’s it for “The Daily.” Michael Barbaro is my name. See you tomorrow.

The Rise and Fall of the Resurgent Labor Movement: The Greatest Union Campaigns of the 21st Century (with More than a Million Members)

Starbucks and Amazon were far from alone facing major union drives. As unemployment remained low and wages grew, workers in education and healthcare, food service and retail continued the pandemic-era push for higher pay, better sick leave and other changes to their working conditions. It’s hard to quantify the results so far. 2023 may tell us a lot more about the durability and clout of the resurgent labor movement.

The Gallup survey found that 29% of Americans approve of unions, the highest approval rate since 1955, and up from 23% in 2009, the most recent year for which figures are available.

Other notable union campaigns of this year include graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, health care workers at Kaiser Permanente and autoworkers at Ultium Cells, a GM-owned electric vehicle battery cell plant.

For all of the prominent union wins in the 21st century, getting to a collective-bargaining contract to negotiate pay raises is very slow.

Wages increased 5.2% over last year. Wages at the lowest paying jobs grew even faster than available workers because there were so many openings. But adjusting for 7% inflation, overall wages actually declined, and many workers felt like they were losing ground.

Rail workers didn’t get everything they wanted out of the talks, however they did get a 7% raise in 2022, and another 8.5% for the next two years, plus cash bonuses every year.

Food service workers at San Francisco International Airport won a 30% wage increase in the last two years. They will see wages rise from $17 an hour to $22 by the year 204. Health insurance, retirement, and a bonus were included in the deal.

Apple is a union, but does it really work? Apple and the Labor Relations Board are there, but what do they have to do about it?

Only about 10% of U.S. workers belong to a union, but 68% of Americans approve of unions, according to Gallup. It’s not been seen since 1965, at that level of support.

But Amazon has since formally requested a review of that decision. If that review doesn’t go in its favor, Amazon can still take its case to federal circuit court for another round.

The judge made the “not obvious or clear cut” statement in the section of the decision dedicated to the consequences Amazon will face for engaging in unfair labor practices. That quote is in context.

The General Counsel asked for atypical remedies, including a notice reading and supervisor training. I deny these requests. I have not found many unfair labor practices and the ones I did find were not entirely obvious or clear cut. I think the Board’s traditional remedies are enough to effectuate the policies of the Act.

Last year, the board said that the company illegally threatened and surveilled union organizers in New York, and if they issue a complaint again this year, it will be the first. The election redo at LDJ5 was required by the determination and so far, the National Labor Relations Board has not said that it needs to be done at that location.

Apple’s goal was to make employees think twice about voting to unionize. What is the legality of its method? It was ambiguous. The meetings that Apple and other employers describe as informational lunch ‘n’ learns have been described by union activists and a key US official as being of illegal coerciveness. “It was just like six weeks of solid union-busting roundtables, which were scheduled throughout the day,” Civick says. The queue back at the store was longer in the meantime.

“For me and a lot of my other coworkers, it was the worst six weeks to work at Apple,” says the five-year veteran—a particularly notable comparison at a store where she and other workers complain they have sometimes been made to clean up leaking sewage.

The Progress of the Proteading the Right to Organize Act, a Democrat Democrat Lobbyist-Activist Conference

They have filed many unfair labor practices charges against companies they say have closed stores, cut hours, and fired workers who were trying to unionize. The companies have also filed unfair labor practice charges against unions.

The Protecting the Right to Organize Act has passed the House of Representatives twice since 2020, but the Senate has failed to advance the measure. Civick spoke today alongside Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and other lawmakers at a press conference marking the reintroduction of the proposal. The bill is sponsored by a Republican, Brian Fitzpatrick.

Democrats no longer control the House and hold only a narrow majority in the Senate and this looks to be the case for the third time around, making the PRO Act even less favorable. Civick is undeterred. She says that she doesn’t want other people to have to go through the intimidation and fear that Apple tried to put them through.

Mr. Smalls called the revolt by his former allies an attempted coup and emphasized that many of the dissidents are white while the union leadership is largely Black, as are many workers. uel Mohan, a mixed-race worker involved with the union who is one of the critics, said that he didn’t see anything race related in the rift.

At the tense union meeting in December, Mr. Smalls told the organizers that they should step aside if they couldn’t get along with him. “You got a problem with me? He said that he was using a synonym for “goodbye.” The two factions have been operating independently since the meeting.

The Champagne Pop: Where are we heading? The state of labor in the wake of Amazon’s boycott of a New York City warehouse worker

The Champagne pop was heard in the economy. A fired Amazon warehouse worker was an activist and he drank from a bottle in New York City one year ago.

In the labor movement, researchers say labor law is tilted in favor of employers, making it more difficult to overcome corporate hostility towards unions. The recent public support is not enough to reignite the union’s dormant resurgence.

It is too modest in scope and too fiercely resisted by employers to move the needle, according to Ruth Milkman, a labor sociologist at the Graduate Center.

Milkman says that the law allows companies to engage in anti-union activity and find ways to slow down the organizing process.

Starbucks, for example, insisted early on that individual stores, which often employ just 25 to 30 people, should not be allowed to hold union elections, but rather, all stores in a geographic region must vote together in one election, increasing the degree of difficulty for union organizers. Federal labor officials ruled in favor of Starbucks, and elections were held at the store level but without significant delays.

Following a marathon Zoom hearing last summer, federal labor officials found Amazon’s objections to the Staten Island union election to be meritless and in January ordered the company to begin negotiations with the union.

But even where the NLRB has found violations of workers’ rights to organize, the board’s decisions don’t have much financial bite. Back pay, reimbursement and other remedies can only be imposed on the agency’s administrative law judges by way of make whole remedies.

But with a divided Congress, hopes for passage are slim. Milkman does not believe that there will be a significant increase in unionization in the U.S. without any change in the law.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/28/1165294695/labor-union-starbucks-amazon-howard-schultz-workers

Proposed Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Proposal to End the “Relentless Union-Bosting Campaign” in the House of Representatives

The PRO Act is failing, so Sen.BernieSanders is looking for a new way to shame those in power. Earlier this year, Sanders threatened to subpoena Schultz, calling on him to end the “relentless union-busting campaign” at Starbucks.

Results are expected this week, but even if the proposal wins a significant number of votes, it’s unclear how much weight it would have. Starbucks encouraged shareholders to vote against the proposal because it had begun a third-party human rights impact assessment.