The Weekly Download

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Anneisha Williams, fast food worker and Fast Food Council member; Michelle Healy, SEIU Director of Breakthrough Campaigns; and Maria Maldonado, statewide director and Fast Food Council member, to discuss the organizing and innovation achieved by the California Fast Food Workers Union, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Tune in to hear about the union's non-traditional sectoral bargaining strategy and what fast food workers in California have achieved so far, such as a pay increase to $20 per hour and the establishment of a historic Fast Food Council.”

“Federal labor officials announced Friday increased protections for the growing number of seasonal foreign workers whom agricultural employers rely upon as they navigate domestic labor shortages. The final rule aims to reduce abuses faced by temporary agricultural laborers with H-2A visas, including human trafficking and wage theft, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The regulations will help ensure the program treats workers fairly while promoting employer accountability, Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su said during a press conference in Santa Rosa.”

“At the end of 2023, McDonald’s sent out a survey to its nearly 2,000 franchisees across the country. Under pressure from activists, the nation’s largest fast-food chain said the results of the survey would inform an effort to curb the skyrocketing number of child labor law violations committed in its restaurants. But while the new training modules teased by the company may help franchisees understand the regulations, the economic incentives to violate them are still in place. Even the most egregious cases are met by minuscule penalties; after a 15-year-old McDonald’s worker in Tennessee suffered severe burns while using a deep fryer last year, the Department of Labor fined the McDonald’s franchise a paltry $3,258. McDonald’s is hardly alone. For employers across the country, fines levied by the Department of Labor have become a minor cost of doing business, according to a new congressional report — even when labor law violations cost workers their lives.” 

“The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced $7 billion in grants for solar energy programs in residential communities. It is the latest round of public funding for the clean energy sector, which has seen $464 billion in investments since 2022. The money is intended to help local governments and non-profit organizations develop initiatives that lower energy costs in low-income and historically disadvantaged areas across the country. But questions linger about how well the industry reflects the nation’s diversity.”

“The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during the Biden administration has supported workers’ rights to form unions and engage in collective bargaining, standing in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s anti-worker record.”

“Growing up, I looked up to my father and aunt, who began restaurant industry careers after immigrating from Eritrea in the 1970s. When I started working, a restaurant job was a natural choice. While I took great pride in my work, I struggled with the conditions. I was often on my feet for 10-12 hour shifts six days a week, had no access to affordable health care, was wholly unaware of my worker rights, and constantly worried about money.”

“Global temperatures are rising—and workers in one of America’s hottest cities are finally getting some relief. During the summer of 2023, millions of  people in Phoenix suffered a record-breaking thirty-one straight days of temperatures exceeding 110 degrees. In response, the city broke new ground with an ordinance requiring employers with  contracts to provide rest, water, and shade for workers exposed to extreme heat. The municipal ordinance, passed in March, will extend protections to approximately 10,000 workers, including many (but not all) who work at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.‘This will change my life,’ says Filiberto Lares, an airport worker at Sky Chefs and a member of UNITE HERE Local 11. ‘When the temperatures reach extremes, the asphalt on the tarmac is even hotter.’”

“A federal judge has rebuked Trader Joe’s for filing a ‘meritless’ trademark claim against its workers’ union and ordered the grocer to cover the union’s legal fees as a deterrent against similar litigation. The company had claimed that Trader Joe’s United, a new union representing employees at four stores, violated Trader Joe’s trademarks through its name and logo. But U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera dismissed the lawsuit in January, finding that Trader Joe’s had tried to ‘weaponize the legal system’ against its own workers. In a new order issued Tuesday, Vera went a step further and said Trader Joe’s should have to pay more than $112,000 in attorney’s fees for the union. He wrote that the trademark claim was notable for its ‘lack of substantive merit,’ and reiterated his belief that Trader Joe’s never would have filed it if it wasn’t battling the union in an organizing campaign.”

“Today, Massachusetts State Auditor Diana DiZoglio released an official report documenting how companies like Uber and Lyft have cheated the state’s employee protection programs out of hundreds of millions of dollars by misclassifying workers as independent contractors. According to conservative estimates, Uber and Lyft have avoided paying more than $266 million into the state’s workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, and paid family leave programs over the past 10 years, including an estimated $47 million in 2023 alone…’The Massachusetts State Auditor’s report exposes the true cost of worker misclassification. Companies like Uber and Lyft are exploiting workers and taxpayers in the name of innovation and convenience,’ said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien.” 

“Members of the United Auto Workers courageously fought corporate greed at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis last fall during the historic six-week Stand-Up Strike. Because of their determination and commitment, we won record contracts with the Big Three automakers. After decades of falling behind, UAW autoworkers are finally moving forward again. We made a lot of ambitious demands at the bargaining table. One in particular may not have gotten the same attention as the reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments or the reopening of the Stellantis assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill. — but it could also prove transformational: We aligned our contracts to expire at midnight on April 30, 2028. We are fully preparing to strike on May Day 2028, which is critically important for several reasons.”

“Thousands of hotel workers across the U.S. and Canada will protest on May 1 as they prepare for possible widespread labor disputes at major hotel brands including Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt. Union contracts covering around 40,000 workers have expired or are set to expire this year. Workers are calling for the hotel industry to “Respect Our Work” and “Respect Our Guests” by raising wages, reversing staffing cuts that have led to painful working conditions, and agreeing to protect guest services and amenities. Since the onset of the pandemic, many hotels have scaled back services and staffing, and hotel room rates have reached record highs as these service cuts linger. The hotel industry’s gross operating profit was 26.63% higher in 2022 than 2019, but hotel workers report heavy workloads, loss of hours, and jobs that aren’t enough to afford the cost of living.”

“Around 1,100 members of UAW Local 869 at Stellantis’ Warren Stamping Plant in Warren, Mich., will take a strike authorization vote on Monday, May 6th, after Stellantis’ failure to resolve health & safety grievances in the plant. On Monday, members will vote on whether to authorize strike action against Stellantis at the plant, over health & safety and outside contractor grievances that the company has failed to resolve.”

“A Boilermakers union strike at T&W Stamping in Austintown, Ohio, has passed the five-week mark with the employer finally talking with the union about the possibility of getting back to the table, with union’s expectation that the bargaining will be in good faith. Local 1622 had been attempting to renegotiate a contract since November 2023, after the previous contract expired. On March 25, the union went on strike after filing unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board against T&W, protesting illegal actions by their employer.”

“In a move directly affecting approximately 8,000 workers in California and Nevada, CWA members at AT&T West in District 9 have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, if necessary. The AT&T West contract expired on April 6. The vote results showed over 92 percent in favor.”

“The United Auto Workers' new labor contract with truck and bus maker Daimler Truck (DTGGe.DE), opens new tab is likely to energize workers ahead of the union's next target in the U.S. South - organizing a Mercedes-Benz (MBGn.DE), opens new tab auto assembly plant in Alabama. The tentative Daimler Truck contract, agreed to late on Friday, includes a 25% general wage increase over four years and, for the first time, profit-sharing and cost-of-living adjustments for workers at the maker of Freightliner and Western Star trucks and Thomas Built buses.”

“In a departure from the labor rebellions that roiled Hollywood last year, the latest set of contract negotiations between a major entertainment union and the top studios has unfolded about as smoothly as could be expected. So far. The various West Coast studio locals that make up the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which advocates for film and TV crew members, have engaged over the last month in separate bargaining sessions with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Walt Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. and other entertainment companies. Those talks — tailored to the specific concerns of costume designers, hair and makeup artists, set decorators and other workers — transpired without incident. Now the union representing so-called below-the-line workers was poised to enter broader negotiations Monday for its basic agreement, which will cover the most pressing items affecting entertainment craftspeople. This phase is the big one that could, depending on how talks go, result in another historic agreement or yet another work stoppage.”

“A little over a year ago, House cafeteria workers with Unite Here Local 23 were contemplating protests and pickets if negotiations with Sodexo turned sour. Now, they’re celebrating a new contract that raises wages and improves working conditions….Notable in the new contract, which was ratified last month and applies to around 100 House cafeteria workers, is a $3 hourly pay bump in the first year and a raise of $7.50 over five years. By the end of the contract term, the lowest starting non-tipped wage will be $24.15 an hour.”

“On April 17, workers at PEN America, the largest of the one hundred centers worldwide that comprise PEN International, a century-old organization devoted to the promotion of intellectual cooperation and mutual defense among writers, held a rally outside the organization’s headquarters in lower Manhattan. Decked out in red union shirts, the workers’ chants echoed down Broadway. They were hoping to pressure management to speed up bargaining a first contract, which has now dragged on for eighteen months.”

“Each year, May Day invites us to revisit and rethink revolutionary traditions from the nineteenth century for the present and the future. The annual international holiday comes out of a trajectory from the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886, when police attacked workers making demands for an eight-hour workday. At that time, the demand for an eight-hour workday was understood as a total opposition to the capitalist workplace, where employers extracted as much as possible from their exhausted workforce. The beginnings of May Day were not about better wages and working conditions but about an opposition to the whole system of life governed by capital and ruled by money. To insist on sixteen hours for play and rest every single day was understood as a real threat to capital, a fact corroborated by the hostile opposition to those making the demand. Take a look at the history of May Day, International Workers’ Day, and you will see that it comes from immigrants, anarchists, communists, socialists, revolutionaries of many varieties, and others disenchanted. I think one could argue that May Day is the holiday of imaginary power and real horizons.”

“AFSCME members in Minnesota showed that when working people show up and stand together, politicians listen. Around 500 members of AFSCME Council 5 rallied at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul earlier this month for a massive Day on the Hill lobby day. They were welcomed by Gov. Tim Walz, Secretary of State Steve Simon, State Auditor Julie Blaha, and Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy.”

“The 2023 membership and financial data for individual U.S. unions are now available from the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS). Which unions gained membership, and which unions lost membership? What are the long-term trends for each union since 2010? What is the relationship between membership growth (or decline) and the balance sheet of America’s largest unions? How much money do union headquarters have to invest in strikes and organizing? I’ll try to tell the story with a collection of charts and tables, but first, let’s look at the data from a bird’s eye view.”

“In 2023, the share of US workers who were members of a union continued to hover at 10 percent. The union membership rate in the public sector (32.5 percent) was more than five times the rate in the private sector (6.0 percent). However, these summary membership statistics conceal substantial geographic variation in US union membership density. As workers around the world celebrate May Day this week, it is worth reflecting on how the labor movement is performing in different parts of the US.”

“Michael Göbel, president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, stepped down from his post today, according to a video message that workers were shown. Göbel had groused in an April captive-audience meeting about a worker’s claim that Mercedes had come for the “Alabama discount”: low wages. His departure is another win for Mercedes-Benz workers, who already scored pay bumps and an end to wage tiers—and they haven’t even voted on the union yet. The company and Alabama politicians are ramping up their anti-union campaign as an election draws near. The 5,200 Mercedes workers at a factory complex and electric battery plant outside Tuscaloosa will vote May 13-16 on whether to join the United Auto Workers, with a vote count May 17.”