The Weekly Download

“For decades, union membership has been strongest among public employees. In 2023, union membership among public sector workers was more than five times that of private sector workers, 32.5% to 6% respectively.   Public employee union membership increased dramatically as states extended collective bargaining rights to public sector professions, starting with Wisconsin in 1959.  In recent years, state legislatures have taken action to retrench collective bargaining rights.  While unions have generally supported the Democratic Party and vice versa, the politics of public sector collective bargaining rights are complex.  In my book, From Collective Bargaining to Collective Begging: How Public Employees Win and Lose the Right to Bargain, I analyze the expansion and retrenchment of collective bargaining rights for public employees to make the complicated politics of public sector unions clearer.”

“Custodians, grounds keepers, and distribution workers at St. Louis University (SLU) who keep the university clean and safe ratified a strong new contract after months of negotiations and member-led actions. The four-year contract includes increased wages, job protection language, additional sick leave, and more. This historic victory for the working people who keep SLU up to the standards students, faculty, and visitors expect comes after months of negotiations and actions that included rallies and marches on campus, delegation letters personally delivered to trustees, and continuous efforts by SEIU Local 1 members to fight until a fair contract was negotiated. This campaign was a collaborative effort with community allies who recognize the essential role Local 1 members play both for the campus and the St. Louis Community in maintaining a desirable staple of the city.”

“Members of UFCW Local 152 who work at the MPX/iAnthus cannabis grow facility in Pleasantville, N.J., recently ratified their first union contract. Members at the facility grow and process cannabis and oversee the entire production process. The three-year agreement includes salary increases and reductions in health care costs for the workers at the cultivation site.”

“IUE-CWA Local 83700 members at New Flyer's Anniston, Ala., facility overwhelmingly ratified their first union contract last week, with an astounding 99.39% of members voting in favor. New Flyer is the largest transit bus manufacturer in North America. The new contract includes pay raises ranging from 15% to 38% by 2026, restrictions on forced overtime, expanded vacation and paid time off, improved parental leave, the addition of Juneteenth as a holiday, guaranteed cost-of-living adjustments, and enhanced retirement benefits.”

“TSA has reached a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which will take effect on May 24. The new agreement will provide benefits for all TSA bargaining unit employees comprised of non-supervisory screening officers. AFGE approved the agreement through the ratification process followed by Agency Head Approval and reflects the expanded scope of bargaining permitted under the 2022 Determination on Transportation Security Officers and Collective Bargaining.”

“Over 200 Webasto workers at the Pilot Road plant in Plymouth, Michigan have voted to ratify their first contract by an overwhelming 96% yes vote, winning raises of up to 51% over three years, among other gains. The workers, who make convertible soft tops for GM, Ford, and Stellantis for the German auto supplier, organized in 2023 with UAW Local 3000, Region 1A.  They are the first Webasto workers in the United States to secure a collective bargaining agreement.”

“Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab and a union representing about 125 of its firefighters said Wednesday they had reached a tentative contract deal, the planemaker and union said in a joint statement. Boeing in early May locked out members of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local I-66 after they rejected two contract offers - a move that drew the concern of President Joe Biden. Boeing and IAFF Local I-66 said they expected results of a vote Thursday on the deal ‘that would end the lockout and months of negotiations. This tentative agreement addresses the needs of our firefighters and the company.’ If the deal is approved, firefighters are expected to return to work Saturday.”

“It’s the biggest organizing wave the U.S. labor movement has seen in decades. Graduate workers are unionizing in huge numbers, winning drive after drive with 90 percent support or more. What’s more, the workers are in the driver’s seat of these campaigns, with little help from union staff. Most union organizing these days relies on a staff-heavy approach that’s tough to scale up. But the grad worker upsurge offers a sketch of a worker-led model that could help reverse labor’s decline. The United Electrical Workers (UE) alone has organized close to 30,000 graduate workers over the past year and a half. We’ve won elections at eight major universities, including MIT and the University of Minnesota. Workers at other universities have voted to unionize with UNITE HERE, the United Auto Workers, and other unions.”

“On April 5, workers at the Nothing Bundt Cakes pastry shop in Whitestown, Ind., joined UFCW Local 700 for a better life. This organizing win marks the first Nothing Bundt Cakes shop to join UFCW Local 700. Nothing Bundt Cakes is a national chain specializing in bundt cakes, with over 500 bakery locations in over 40 states and Canada.”

“Mercedes-Benz USA hired a large team of anti-union consultants to help the company defeat an organizing effort by the United Auto Workers union earlier this month, according to new disclosures with the Labor Department. The filings show the automaker contracted with three consulting firms to bring on at least 11 ‘persuaders’ to hold meetings with workers about the union ahead of an election. Employees at the Vance, Alabama, plant ultimately voted 2,045 to 2,642 against forming a union, a setback for the UAW as it tries to organize Southern auto facilities. Employers often spend big bucks to hire persuaders to hold what are known as ‘captive audience’ meetings — mandatory gatherings where workers tend to hear anti-union talking points. The going rate these days is around $3,200 per day for each consultant.”

“Hollywood labor groups are seeking answers amid an apparent crackdown by the state of California on the use of so-called loan-out corporations — a long-standing industry practice that helps actors, screenwriters and other entertainment workers organize their employment records and qualify for tax benefits. Over the weekend, Hollywood payroll company Cast & Crew sent a memo to workers alerting them that the California Employment Development Department had said it was reviewing loan-out company activity, spurring swift responses from various organizations advocating for entertainment workers.”

“Today, Center for Labor and a Just Economy (CLJE), Governing for Impact (GFI), and LaborLab issued a report encouraging the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to strengthen protections for union organizing from employers’ use of union-avoidance consultants. Anti-union persuasion tactics pose a significant challenge to worker organizing. Employers often hire outside firms – or what the DOL terms “persuader” firms – to design aggressive campaigns to dissuade workers from voting in favor of a union. These firms often encourage employers to adopt highly coercive behavior…CLJE, GFI and Labor Lab’s new report, “Spotlight on Union-Busters: Recommendations to the Department of Labor and Federal Trade Commission,” outlines strategic actions the agencies can take to protect workers’ right to organize and make informed decisions about unionization, free from unduly coercive anti-union behavior.”  

“Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year hiring professional union-busters to campaign against and defeat union organizing drives. However, only a fraction of this spending is publicly reported because of loopholes and other weaknesses in the law and its enforcement. A new report by the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) found that the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS)—which oversees and enforces the union-buster (persuader) reporting requirements—“did not effectively enforce persuader activity requirements to protect workers’ rights to unionize.” While the report rightfully explains that more work must be done, there are many reasons the current OLMS should be commended for taking meaningful steps toward meeting its responsibility, and the report should be viewed as a roadmap for the agency moving forward.”

“In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed a temporary law that allowed employees, who are disproportionately Black and Latino, to claim up to two weeks of paid sick leave for pandemic-related illness. For the first time, low-wage workers had access to sick leave for themselves or to care for loved ones. Eight years earlier, several states and the District of Columbia had enacted laws requiring employers to allow workers to earn paid sick time. However, the pandemic revealed how much the lack of paid sick days still affected thousands of hourly workers and many states and localities began offering some type of paid time off for illness. But an economic analysis — coupled with the demographics of states that haven’t expanded sick leave to hourly workers — found that swaths of Black workers have to come to work even if they are sick.”

"Public worker and teachers unions argued Tuesday that their lawsuit seeking to strike down a Wisconsin law that drew massive protests and made the state the center of a national fight over union rights should be allowed to proceed, even as the Republican-controlled Legislature sought to have it dismissed. It is the first challenge to the law known as Act 10 since Wisconsin’s Supreme Court flipped to liberal control last year.”

“Care work is the work that makes all other work possible. Whether caring for children, disabled people or the elderly, care workers provide vital services that allow people to enter the labor force while knowing their loved ones are being taken care of. This benefits not only individual families, but our country overall by growing our economy. But we’re based in a paradigm where care is largely treated as an individual responsibility, expecting families or individuals to figure out how to acquire and pay for care on their own.”

“We examine union-non-union differentials in wages and hours in the United States over the last 50 years using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS). The regression-adjusted difference between union members’ and non-members’ hourly earnings has been falling since the Great Recession. The union differential in weekly wages has been more stable. Although it fell by around 5 log points during COVID it remains 15 log points. This weekly earnings differential arises from both a higher hourly wage of around 10 log points and longer working hours (5 log points). The working hours differential partly reflects unions’ ability to tackle under-employment, such that union workers work closer to the hours they desire than their non-union counterparts. The traditional focus on hourly wage differentials underplays the important role trade unions play in maintaining members’ weekly earnings by ensuring workers receive the paid hours they desire.”

“Twelve thousand academic workers at UCLA and UC Davis are poised to walk off the job Tuesday morning as part of an historic strike in solidarity with Palestine.  The workers — 6,400 at the University of California, Los Angeles and 5,700 at the University of California, Davis — are members of United Auto Workers Local 4811, which represents 48,000 academic workers across the University of California (UC) system. ‘We’re taking this … unprecedented action because of the university’s serious, unfair labor practices (ULP), which really go to the heart of our rights for freedom of speech and protest, and the ability to take collective action,’ Local 4811 President Rafael Jaime told In These Times ahead of Tuesday’s walkout. The surge in the number of UC academic workers going on strike comes amid international outcry over an Israeli military attack this weekend targeting a refugee camp made up of tents housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza.”

“From June 17 to 21, officers, staff and members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) will meet in Vancouver, Canada, for their biennial convention. Delegates to the convention will undoubtedly be preoccupied with the immediate business of the union, which represents workers in industries ranging from bookstores to breweries, though it’s best known for unionizing dockworkers up and down the West Coast.”

“This Thursday, May 23rd, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International staff represented by their internal staff union, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild (WBNG) Local 32035, will hold a one day strike and picket outside of UFCW headquarters for 12 hours in response to unfair labor practice charges filed by the Guild against UFCW.”

“In this edition of The Power Hour, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Lilly Irani,  Associate Professor of Computer Science and Faculty Director of the Labor Center at U.C. San Diego; and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Labor; to discuss the transformative potential of generative AI in building worker power, how technology can facilitating worker organizing, and how workers are resisting the exploitative nature of online platforms like Uber and Lyft.”

“The labor movement has played a key role in fighting for democracy all around the world. The fight for greater democracy is especially important in the United States right now, as the US government continues to support Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza over the opposition of a majority of Americans. But congressional and White House support for the war on Gaza is just one particularly dramatic illustration of how our political system fails to represent the popular will, and in particular the interests of working-class voters.”