The Weekly Download is the place for ideas, features, research, and news coverage about workers, worker power, and unions — delivered to your inbox and the Power at Work Blog, every week. The Weekly Download hopes to promote the writing, research, and analysis that advances a discourse putting workers and their unions at the center of the national conversation. If you have an item that we should include in The Weekly Download, or a source we should review for future items, please email us at [email protected]. Subscribe to the Power At Work Blog here to get The Weekly Download sent directly to your inbox.
Corporate Power Opposing Worker Power:
Under a New Labor Rule, Justice Is Coming for Starbucks Workers - More Perfect Union
(@MorePerfectUS) February 16, 2023
“She was 17, working as a barista, and living in her car. Days before her high school graduation, Starbucks fired Katie for union organizing. Her plans for a new apartment & college were put on hold. Now, thanks to a new federal labor rule, Starbucks may have to pay her tens of thousands of dollars.”
Tesla Fired Buffalo Workers Seeking to Organize, Union Says — New York Times
By Jack Ewing (@JackEwingNYT) and Noam Scheiber (@noamscheiber), February 16, 2023
“Tesla fired at least 18 employees, including several leaders of a unionization campaign, a day after they announced plans to organize a Tesla plant in Buffalo, workers said in a filing to the National Labor Relations Board.”
A ‘Toxic Partner’: How Starbucks Is Using Under-Staffing to Try to Break the Union - The Progressive
By Saurav Sarkar (@sauravthewriter), February 15, 2023
“Falling on Valentine’s Day, the 110-plus actions were themed around the idea of Starbucks as a “toxic partner”—a play on Starbucks terming its workers “partners.” The informational pickets were the latest in a series of maneuvers by SBWU to attempt to push back against retaliatory actions by Starbucks.”
Ninth Circuit Invalidates California Law Against Forced Arbitration - OnLabor
By Anita Alem, February 15, 2023
“The Ninth Circuit granted a preliminary injunction against the California legislature’s latest attempt to protect workers’ ability to enforce their rights in court in the case Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta. Tuesday’s decision joins a long line of Supreme Court and Circuit Court precedent that upholds arbitration agreements as “consensual,” regardless of their coercive nature, particularly in employment agreements.”
OPINION: How corporations hope to eviscerate workers’ right to strike - Labor Tribune
By Tom Conway, February 13, 2023
“Joe Oliveira and his coworkers relied greatly on donations of food and gift cards after going on an Unfair Labor Practice strike against multibillion-dollar specialty steelmaker ATI in 2021... As much as the strike tested workers, however, it pressured ATI even more and ultimately enabled Oliveira and more than 1,300 other members of the United Steelworkers (USW) to secure long-overdue raises and stave off the company’s attempt to gut benefits. Corporations so fear this kind of worker power that they’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rig the scales and help them kill future strikes before they even begin.”
Labor Markets, Public Policy, and Worker Power:
Mary Kay Henry on Unions and the U.S. Economy - C-SPAN
By John McArdle (@cspanMcArdle), February 13, 2023
“Service Employees International Union (SEIU) International President Mary Kay Henry talked about the state of labor unions in the U.S. and President Biden’s economic policies.”
Thousands Tune In for Public Hearing on Bill Proposing Overtime Restriction for Farm Workers — KPQ 101.7FM
By Terra Sokol, February 12, 2023
“Over 2,000 Washingtonians tuned in to the public hearing on a bill that would increase the amount of hours an agricultural worker would need for overtime pay to 50 hours per week.”
California Democrats Propose $25 Minimum Wage for Health Sector Workers - Truthout
By Samantha Young (@youngsamantha), February 15, 2023
“Union-aligned Democrats were set to introduce legislation Wednesday mandating a statewide $25 minimum wage for health workers and support staffers, likely setting up a pitched battle with hospitals, nursing homes, and dialysis clinics.”
What AFGE federal government union leaders want from Congress — Federal Times
By Molly Weisner (@molly_weisner), February 14, 2023
“More than 700,000 federal employees across agencies are represented by AFGE, and while the challenges facing agencies differed depending on their mission, the meeting showcased a series of priorities that were shared across the workforce.”
Strikes and Other Worker Collective Actions:
IAM Rail Division Leadership Joins Major Rail Unions, U.S. Senators to Demand Paid Sick Time for Rail Workers - International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
(@MachinistsUnion) February 10, 2023
“IAM Special Assistant to the International President for the Rail Division Josh Hartford and TCU/IAM Assistant National Legislative Director David Arouca, along with representatives from other major rail unions, joined U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Mike Braun (R-IN) for a press conference on Capitol Hill demanding paid sick time from rail companies for all rail workers.”
HarperCollins and striking union reach tentative agreement — NPR and AP
(@NPR), (@AP), February 10, 2023
“HarperCollins Publishers and the union representing around 250 striking employees reached a tentative agreement providing increases to entry level salaries. If union members ratify the contract, it will run through the end of 2025 and end a walkout that began nearly three months ago.”
Collective Bargaining:
Virginia Local Ratifies State’s First Contract in 40 Years — International Association of Fire Fighters
(@IAFFofficial) February 10, 2023
“Alexandria, VA Local 2141 became the first Virginia IAFF affiliate in more than four decades to ratify a contract with its employer when the Alexandria City Council voted unanimously Jan. 24 to approve the historic agreement.”
Building Worker Power Through Organizing:
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: WNBA Players Are Latest Group of Athletes to Affiliate with AFL-CIO - AFL-CIO Blog
By Kenneth Quinnell, February 9, 2023
“Today, we welcome the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) to the AFL-CIO. The labor movement’s commitment to gender and racial diversity isn’t simply rhetoric. We’re a movement about action. The WNBPA’s affiliation is a historic step in our ongoing efforts to advance the rights and freedoms of women and people of color.”
At This Jersey Factory, Pension-Backed Private Equity Takes On Union Workers - The Lever
By Matthew Cunningham-Cook (@matthewccook5), February 8, 2023
“At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Refresco — a transnational corporation that produces and bottles soft drinks for major brands such as Tropicana and Gatorade — had a single response to its staff about the public health crisis unfolding at its Wharton, NJ plant an hour outside of New York City: show up to work … Outraged, the predominantly immigrant workforce formed a union, winning their first election in June 2021 in what was one of the largest blue-collar union victories during the pandemic.”
Game Workers Are About To Take On The Biggest Boss Fight Of All —In These Times
By Stephen Franklin, February 15, 2023
“Yet his new job, at Noble Knight Games in a Madison suburb, had a special draw. The store has the world’s largest collection of role-playing, tabletop and video games, old and new, and it’s full of gamers like him, for whom games, since childhood, have always meant good memories and experiences. But the appeal was tempered after hearing his new colleagues’ complaints about low wages.”
Lifting Education Higher: USW’s College Professors Fight for Better Universities for Faculty, Students — United Steel Workers
(@steelworkers) February 15, 2023
“When Rich Schiavoni tells people that he is a member of the United Steelworkers union, they often will ask him what he makes.“I make college students,” is the answer he has at the ready, knowing that isn’t necessarily the response people expect.”
Ideas to Build Worker Power:
Unions Are More Relevant Today Than Ever - World In Black
By Fred Redmond (@STRedmond), February 10, 2023
“On the 55th anniversary of the Memphis Sanitation Strike, Fred Redmond — the nation’s highest-ranking African American to ever serve in the labor movement — hopes to ‘unleash a new era of economic prosperity for Black workers.’”
Review: Labor Power and Strategy: Learning from the Garment Workers - Labor Notes
By Jeffery Hermanson, February 15, 2023
“John Womack Jr.’s new book, Labor Power and Strategy (PM Press, 2023), edited by Peter Olney and Glenn Perusek and with responses from 10 organizers, labor activists, and educators, is a timely consideration of some basic strategic principles. Womack maintains that the primary power that workers have is structural power—that is, power based on their position in the production process. Associational power—developed via collective organizations like unions—derives from this structural power.”
Gleeson Authors Book on Migrant Worker Rights — Cornell ILR School
(@cornellilr) February 9, 2023
“A new book coauthored by ILR School Professor Shannon Gleeson and Xóchitl Bada analyzes how labor unions, worker centers, legal aid groups and other immigrant advocates put tactical pressure on government bureaucracies to holistically defend migrant rights… The book is available to read online for free.”
Anti-Worker Discourse around the Biden-Era Economic Legislation — The Power At Work Blog
By Seth Harris (@MrSethHarris), February 14
“In Jonathan Weisman’s account in the New York Times, the economic legislation promoted by President Biden and passed by a Democratic Congress is little more than a political quid pro quo… This discourse is wrong, anti-worker, and destructive of worker power.”
