The Weekly Download

“In this blogcast, Northeastern University students from Huskies Organizing with Labor, or HOWL, take over the Power At Work blog for a discussion about how to get involved on university campuses, use your leverage as a student, and organize alongside workers. Abigail Thomas, August Escandon, and Amelia (Mimi) Yu share HOWL's top five tenets for undergraduate organizing and tell stories from their previous campaigns. You don't want to miss this special Power At Work blogcast!”

“During a period when union membership in the United States has continued its precipitous decline, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ has been growing steadily, having successfully organized more than 100,000 workers since 1999.  The innovative strategies and tactics used by SEIU’s Justice for Janitors (JforJ) campaigns explain important aspects of this increase, but usually overlooked is the role that trigger mechanisms have played in this growth.”

"Approximately 600 workers at Activision Central Quality Assurance have joined CWA. This marks the first union to form at Activision since Microsoft and CWA reached a labor neutrality agreement in 2022. Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA joins the wave of game workers at Raven Software, ZeniMax, Blizzard Albany, SEGA, TCGPlayer/eBay, and more, who have organized with CODE-CWA to build a better workplace. The workers will be joining CWA Locals 9400 (California), 6215 (Texas), and 7250 (Minnesota).”

“For farmworkers in Skagit Valley, Washington, the year passes in crops. In February, flower and bulb season starts. By the end of spring, it’s berry season, which continues through hot and smoky summer months and winds down in autumn. As the weather cools, the work shifts to pruning. There is less work during this part of the winter, and it is harder to earn enough money, but before long, flower season has started again, and the cycle repeats itself.”

“After the UAW’s stand-up strike against the Big 3, the union pledged to embark on an aggressive campaign to organize nonunion automakers. Today, the UAW announced it is filing an election at the Chattanooga, Tennessee, Volkswagen plant.”

“And workers say it’s not just the pace of the work that’s dangerous. Jaye Hochuli, a team leader at the plant, says the plant had her crawl under a deck to clean out the sand, silica dust and chemicals that come out of the machines.‘It was a confined space,’ she said. ‘I should’ve been in a respirator and a hazmat suit. All they gave me was a KN-95 mask. How can the richest car company in the world not follow basic safety practices? We’re organizing to fix what’s wrong and win the protections we need.’”

“MarketWatch staff working in New York announced yesterday they have formed a union and are joining their colleagues at locations across the country already represented by IAPE. Through a mission statement delivered to Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour, Barron’s Editor in Chief David Cho, two-dozen other managers at MarketWatch and all MKTW News staff, New York-based employees stated their intention ‘to join our brethren employees at other branch offices of MarketWatch and Dow Jones as a collective unit under the IAPE Local 1096.’”

“Over 140 workers at DO & CO Chicago Catering, Inc. in Des Plaines, Ill., joined UFCW Local 1546 on Feb. 6. The workers, who joined our union family via card check, prepare and package premium catered food items for high-end international airlines. They joined UFCW Local 1546 because they wanted the better wages, benefits, and workplace protections that come with a union contract.”

“The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) has voluntarily recognized the union its workers formed through AFSCME Council 57. That means the Oakland Museum of California Workers United (OMCAWU) avoided the cumbersome process of holding a union election. Council 57 will be the bargaining representative for over 60 museum workers, including preparators, ticketing and retail associates, curators, designers, program developers, and more.”

“New data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) highlight how important unions continue to be for increasing Americans’ wealth—the total value of what people own minus the value of all their debts. The data show that the median union household has significantly more wealth than the median nonunion household, and these large wealth differences hold across various demographic groups, including race and ethnicity as well as education levels….These findings are consistent with Center for American Progress analysis of surveys from prior years, which found union membership is associated with significantly higher wealth for all households and tends to provide the biggest boost to groups who have historically had less wealth, such as Black and Hispanic households as well as those without a college degree.”

“The California Privacy Protection Agency board on Friday voted 3-2 to advance rules about how businesses use artificial intelligence and collect the personal information of consumers, workers, and students. The vote, which took place in Oakland, continues a process that started in November 2021. The proposed rules seek to create guidelines for the many areas in which AI and personal data can influence the lives of Californians: job compensation, demotion, and opportunity; housing, insurance, health care, and student expulsion. For example, under the rules, if an employer wanted to use AI to make predictions about a person’s emotional state or personality during a job interview, a job candidate could opt out without fear of discrimination for choosing to do so.”

“There’s a huge and ubiquitous problem we’re not talking enough about: mass layoffs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines mass layoffs as 50 or more workers filing for unemployment insurance at a single company during a five-week span. Millions of workers have experienced them over the past several decades. Mass layoffs are driven by Wall Street’s incessant demand for cost-cutting measures to service debt payments and fund stock buybacks. The consequences of ignoring mass layoffs are enormous. Not only do they cause suffering and trauma for working families who experience them, but they are fueling the growth of far right authoritarianism. However, mass layoffs are not inevitable. They are the products of policy choices, and they can be stopped.”

“A group of the nation’s health experts will regularly meet this spring and summer in an effort to better protect farmworkers from extreme heat and wildfire smoke. The new initiative is the brainchild of Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, whose father picked crops in California farm fields.”

“Unionized editorial workers, represented by The NewsGuild of New York at LexisNexis-owned Law360, have walked off the job in a 24-hour work stoppage to protest layoffs that violate labor law.”

“AFSCME members who work for the city of Virginia, Minnesota, have called off their strike after management finally offered them a contract they took back just days ago.”

“Starbucks has agreed to sit down with workers representing its 400 unionized stores in late April and start hammering out principles for a labor accord, another sign the coffee chain and the union may be on the cusp of a new, productive relationship. Both sides said the bargaining sessions were meant to create a framework for collective bargaining agreements at the stores represented by the union, Workers United. Each union store will have its own delegate, though how many take part in the in-person talks hasn’t been determined yet.”

“Southwest Airlines (LUV.N), opens new tab and the union representing nearly 20,000 of its flight attendants have reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract, the carrier said on Wednesday, after two previous attempts failed to secure a deal. The Transport Workers Union's local chapter will directly present details of the deal to the cabin crew members, the airline said, with voting set to begin in a few weeks. Cabin crew members had approved a strike mandate in January after rejecting a second tentative contract, which proposed a 20% pay raise for 2024 and a 3% annual raise in 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028. The previous contract came up for renewal in 2018.”

“St. Cloud Metro Bus workers represented by Teamsters Local 638 have voted overwhelmingly to ratify a three-year collective bargaining agreement. The 100 bus drivers and dispatchers provide transportation services for the cities of St. Cloud, Sauk Rapids, and Waite Park. The agreement includes wage increases from 17 percent to 24 percent over the life of the contract, Juneteenth as a paid holiday, increased pension contributions, reduced disciplinary time, trainer pay for all hours worked, and improved vacation language.”

“Members of the union that represents RTC bus drivers voted to accept their new contract following months of negotiations, threats of a strike, and a previous tentative contract agreement that was rejected. Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1637 voted Tuesday to accept the contract with 363 members voting yes and 153 members voting no. ATU members voted against a previous tentative contract agreement on Feb. 16. RTC bus drivers’ union reaches tentative contract agreement following months of negotiations, sources say In January, the union voted to authorize a strike vote. RTC workers cite safety concerns following several recent violent incidents on local buses including multiple shootings and a murder. Workers are seeking better pay and increased safety while on the job.”

“On Feb. 12, over 1,000 members of UFCW Local 152 who work in the retail departments at Acme Markets in New Jersey ratified a historic new contract that protects benefits and strengthens wages. These members are employed as retail clerks at Acme Markets stores in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, and southern Ocean counties in New Jersey.”

“Workers at the Cleveland Cliffs Butler Works steel mill in Butler, PA, are speaking out about a proposed Department of Energy rule that threatens good union jobs at the mill. In a new video, UAW Local 3303 members describe the fight to save jobs for the 1,100 workers at the plant who produce grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) used for electric vehicles and EV chargers.”

“We’ve watched the movies. We’ve tallied the votes. We’ve handed out the awards. And now, we are ready to announce the winners of #LaborOscars2024 to our entire audience.”