The Weekly Download

“United Parcel Service (UPS) said Friday it will be training non-union delivery drivers in the coming weeks as the threat of a strike from tens of thousands of unionized workers looms closer. In a statement Friday, shipping giant UPS said many of their employees will ‘participate in training that would help them safely serve our customers if there is a labor disruption.’...Contract negotiations between UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters fell apart last week, increasing the chances the estimated 340,000 workers could strike after their current contract expires at the end of July. The UPS Teamsters, which represents over half of the UPS workforce, is fighting for better benefits and working conditions.”

“Facing a wave of strikes as the summer season kicked off, California hotels found a new way to fight back - apps that hire temporary workers and automatically penalize them if they join the strikers, union leaders say. Replacements hired through the apps have seen their employee ratings cut and shifts canceled for taking to the picket lines, said Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, which called July's walkouts over pay, conditions and housing costs. ‘These apps automatically punish workers for participating in union activities ... This is the first time we've ever seen this,’ said Petersen, whose union represents more than 30,000 hospitality workers in Southern California - from cleaners to dishwashers and waiters.”

“DoorDash Inc. illegally prohibited office employees from discussing working conditions and fired one because of their organizing efforts, US labor board prosecutors alleged. The food delivery company threatened to punish staff in Arizona if they took collective action and told them it was illegal to discuss worker conditions on their days off, a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board wrote in a complaint filed on behalf of the agency’s general counsel. DoorDash also engaged in illegal interrogations and surveillance of employees’ workplace activism, according to the complaint, and terminated an employee because they formed an organization, the Service Desk Analysts group, to address working conditions there.”

“Trader Joe’s has sued its workers’ union to prevent it from selling T-shirts, tote bags and mugs emblazoned with the union’s logo and name, Trader Joe’s United. The grocer filed a lawsuit in federal court in California on Thursday claiming the merchandise in the union’s online store infringes on its trademark and ‘dilutes’ its brand. The company alleges that the sale of the items ― including a reusable shopping bag that says Trader Joe’s United and shows a raised fist clenching a box cutter ― could cause ‘significant reputational harm.’”

“Public safety workers whose timesheets were illegally altered by the state of Maryland are getting justice. Thousands of current and former employees of Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) will share a total of $13 million after an investigation by the federal Department of Labor resulted in a settlement with the state. Spurred by complaints from AFSCME Maryland Council 3, the Labor Department focused on allegations that the state was altering workers’ timesheets to pay them less – a violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.”

“On Friday, Delta Air Lines workers and their allies in the labor movement rallied at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to demand that the company stop its anti-union propaganda campaign amid an organizing drive where as many as 45,000 people employed at the carrier are actively seeking to join unions…Mechanics and related workers are organizing to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; ramp, cargo, and tower workers are seeking to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM); and Delta flight attendants are organizing for representation with the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA).Last month, Delta shareholders rejected a proposal whereby the company would agree to remain neutral during a union organizing drive.”

"The United Farm Workers just had its biggest unionizing success in years, and it didn’t happen in California. In a first for the historic labor union, it organized nearly 500 workers at five farms in New York. The victories, which will increase UFW’s membership by 8%, come four years after a state law passed giving farm workers the right to organize…Like many unions, UFW has struggled to organize over the last few decades, its membership dwindling from 60,000 to around 6,000. Even with legal protection, farmworker organizing is often slow, painstaking work. Many prospective union members are reluctant to give up 3% of their already low wages for dues, and worry that their immigration status leaves them vulnerable to employer retaliation. But there are signs of a resurgence on both sides of the country.”

“I appeared on CBS News Live (CBS's digital service) on Monday night, July 17 with the great political reporter and commentator John Dickerson to talk about the rising number of workers on strike and the causes of rising worker activism. My answers: the pandemic, rising corporate profits, and America's current political economy. In particular, I mentioned UPS, Amazon, the corporate studios in Hollywood, and some others. Friends-of-the-blog the Cornell ILR Labor Action Tracker provided critical data for the set-up discussion.”

“Luz Martínez was working on remodeling a school without air conditioning in the summer when one of her coworkers fell over, vomited and passed out from the heat. On Friday, she joined other workers, labor advocates and politicians on the steps of Houston’s City Hall to protest a new Texas law that will take away cities’ power to help workers who must endure the Texas heat.”

“I was fortunate to be invited onto two television outlets on July 13, 2023 to discuss SAG-AFTRA's announcement that it would strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers beginning at midnight that night. They join the Writers Guild of America in striking against the corporate Hollywood studios. The discussions inevitably expanded into a conversation about rising worker activism and strike activity, including the breakdown of negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS and the UAW's aggressive posture in its forthcoming negotiations with Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. I gave my take on why worker activism is rising and suggested that the speech SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher gave at her press conference today could have been delivered in any Teamsters or UAW union hall anywhere in the country.”

“United Parcel Service (UPS.N) on Wednesday said it would return to the bargaining table with a better offer for roughly 340,000 Teamsters-represented U.S. workers, in a bid to avert a potentially economically damaging strike on Aug. 1…The union said the world's largest delivery company contacted it on Wednesday with an offer to resume talks next week, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said in a statement on Twitter…A key sticking point in the talks is pay increases for experienced part-time workers who are making roughly the same or even less than new hires because starting wages jumped due to the labor shortage in the last few years.”

“Celebrities like Fran Drescher got a lot of media attention last week when they went on strike. The 160,000+ members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) joined 11,000 already striking film and television writers in the first industrywide shutdown in 63 years. But it is not just actors—workers across the economy are either walking a picket line or preparing for labor actions later this summer. This has led many to wonder: why do so many workers feel their only option this summer is to strike?”

“While actors and writers across the country are striking, audiences are wondering how their entertainment consumption affects the strike. Amid prominent movie debuts, such as the highly anticipated ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer,’ fans are asking on social media whether purchasing tickets to the cinema or streaming new seasons of television shows increases barriers to a new union contract.”

“Teachers went on strike on May 4, 2023, just three weeks before the last day of the academic calendar. The strike lasted seven school days. In negotiations, teachers not only fought for higher salaries and a better schedule, but for a set of what they called ‘common good’ demands — like ensuring that all unhoused families in the district are expedited for Section 8 housing vouchers and implementing a task force on reparations. The strike had what appeared to be fairly widespread support based on turnout at school sites, though many caregivers and community members expressed confusion about the broader demands on climate and housing. Wasn’t this a salary renegotiation? Why were the teachers talking about transportation? These demands are part of a broader movement among unions to bargain for the common good by including provisions in teachers’ contract demands that don’t just affect them directly, but also the quality of life for their students and the city.”

“The union representing UPS pilots says they will not cross picket lines if Teamsters drivers and package sorters walk off the job when the current contract expires Aug. 1, resulting in the immediate shutdown of the express logistics company’s global air operations. UPS (NYSE: UPS) has 3,300 pilots who are represented by the Independent Pilots Association (IPA), a separate union from the Teamsters. ‘If the Teamsters are on strike, we will honor that strike and we will not fly,’ IPA spokesman Brian Gaudet told FreightWaves.”

“In the middle of Amazon’s Prime Day promotional sales rush, 60 warehouse workers walked out for more than three hours at its delivery station in Pontiac, Michigan—bringing the facility to the brink of a total shutdown. A delivery station is the last warehouse an Amazon package passes through before it is loaded into a truck or van en route to the customer. This year’s “Prime Day” shopping bonanza July 11 and 12 set a record for the largest sales day in Amazon’s history. The crush of Prime Day puts even more pressure on workers to keep up with conveyor belts overflowing with boxes that can weigh as much as 50 pounds.”

“Those of us who are old enough to have lived through the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s remember a long, dismal era for the labor movement. Ronald Reagan using a federal law banning federal employees’ strikes to bust the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) in 1981 was the signal anti-union assault of that period. Yet, concessions bargaining across many industries during that time may have played an even greater role in eroding unions’ status as reliable fighters for economic justice and the right choice for workers seeking to secure middle-class jobs.”

“American Airlines' (AAL.O) pilot union has warned that the ratification of the company's new contract deal is in "jeopardy" as United Airlines (UAL.O) has raised the benchmark with its own deal, according to a union memo seen by Reuters. American pilots are due to start voting next week on a new four-year deal that provides for a pay increase of about 42% and other benefits. But the Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents over 15,000 American pilots, said the proposed pay rates as well as some quality-of-life items in the agreement pale in comparison with those in United's preliminary deal.”

“As the climate crisis intensifies, workers are being forced to work amid noxious wildfire smoke and in dangerously high temperatures. But workers at UPS and elsewhere are organizing to demand health and safety precautions from their employers.”

"Meat, Seafood & Deli Workers (UFCW) Local 88 reached a tentative contract agreement with Schnucks grocery stores in Missouri and Illinois last week after earlier authorizing a strike 'should it become necessary' as negotiations continued."

"Food and beverage workers at Barclays Center have a new tentative agreement with their employer, Levy, averting a planned strike authorization vote. If ratified by membership vote, Levy workers will receive raises between $5-$11.20 an hour. By the end of the contract, the lowest paid worker will earn a wage of $25 an hour."

“In interviews, three studio chairs who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the labor situation, said Hollywood’s content factories could sit idle for little more than a month — roughly until Labor Day — until there would be a serious impact on the release calendar for 2024, particularly for movies. A work stoppage that stretches into September could force studios to delay big projects for next year by six months, making 2024 resemble the ghost town of recent memory set off by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“Full employment policies and strong enforcement of labor laws by federal agencies during the Biden administration have improved labor protections and increased union membership, promoting gains in worker power. Simultaneously, however, the American labor market has continued to experience a growth in employer monopsony that undermines worker power. The administration has attempted to create a balance of power between workers and employers, but additional policies are needed to complement existing efforts. This brief calls for the implementation of sectoral bargaining to enhance worker power so that it can withstand a weakened labor market and counteract anticompetitive corporate practices.”

“In Hollywood, the cool kids have joined the picket line. I mean no offense, as a writer, to the screenwriters who have been on strike against film and TV studios for over two months. But writers know the score. We’re the words, not the faces. The cleverest picket sign joke is no match for the attention-focusing power of Margot Robbie or Matt Damon…But for all the focus that a few boldface names will get in this strike, I invite you to consider a term that has come up a lot in the current negotiations: ‘Background actors.’...You and I may be the protagonists of our own narratives, but in the grand scheme most of us are background players. We face the same risk — that every time a technological or cultural shift happens, companies will rewrite the terms of employment to their advantage, citing financial pressures while paying their top executives tens and hundreds of millions.”

"It’s important to understand what Starbucks has done — and what it hasn’t done. The company has been accused of deploying familiar anti-labor tactics, such as the shuttering of some union stronghold cafes. (Starbucks denies closing stores in response to union drives and blames other factors, such as crime.) Union activists reported being spied upon, harassed or fired on flimsy pretexts, complaints that Starbucks disputes. But Starbucks has also done a lot of nothing — time-buying, morale-eroding, innocent-seeming nothing. The company dedicated to caffeinating the world turns out to be very good at moving slowly, and the inaction is devastating for the workers, many of whom are economically vulnerable. Starbucks, on the other hand, faces little risk. Even if the company eventually ends up losing cases on the final appeal — a stage that could take years — the N.L.R.B. is barred from imposing monetary penalties. The board can only order employers to “make whole” anyone who lost money and warn them to do better."