The Weekly Download

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by two labor journalists to discuss some of the most important stories that affect workers, worker power, collective action, and unions in our country.”

“A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday tossed out a judge's order that required Amazon.com (AMZN.O) to refrain from firing union supporters amid a nationwide organizing campaign at its warehouses. A three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the judge who issued the order last year at the request of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) failed to explain why such a sweeping mandate was necessary. The labor board sought the order after Amazon in 2020 fired Gerald Bryson, a union organizer at a warehouse in Staten Island, for making profane comments to a coworker during a protest over an alleged lack of safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“The U.S. economy is kind of a strange beast. It’s a mix of free market, government regulation, individual entrepreneurship, and corporate governance that has evolved and grown over the last 240 years. And while there are plenty of benefits to that system, it hasn’t worked for everyone. In his latest book, ‘What Went Wrong with Capitalism,’ author Ruchir Sharma, who is also the chairman of Rockefeller International, attempts to look at who’s getting left out of American capitalism and why. The following is an excerpt from Sharma’s book, looking at how the government’s relationship to corporate bailouts has evolved over the last century.”

“Anti-worker bills were moving fast in the Louisiana State Legislature, but AFSCME Council 17 members moved faster. Throughout Louisiana’s legislative session that ended on Monday, public service workers stood strong against bills that would have gutted their freedoms at work. Workers defeated the following anti-worker bills that Louisiana lawmakers introduced in the state House and Senate during the 2024 session:”

“This morning, it was announced that Virginia Education Unions, a joint coalition of Virginia-based AFT and NEA locals, had won a historic union election to represent over 27,000 teachers and school staff in Fairfax County, Virginia. 97% of all teachers voted to unionize and 81% of all support staff voted to unionize. ‘Today marks the culmination of a 47-year-long fight to win collective bargaining at Fairfax County Public Schools. The reason our campaign was successful was because we all took agency over our own lives,’ says David Walrod in a statement. The union victory in the 9th largest school district is one of the largest teachers union elections in decades. It also has the potential to dramatically reshape the politics of Northern Virginia.” 

“More than 15,000 Amazon contract drivers filed arbitration claims against the e-commerce giant on Tuesday, alleging Amazon classified them as independent contractors instead of employees with minimum wage and overtime rights. Millions of Americans participate in the ‘gig economy,’ freelancing work through delivery and ride apps like Lyft, Uber, Doordash and Instacart. But as gig work has gotten more popular, many of those workers say they are in fact employees, not just contractors, and therefore deserve more benefits and protections. The definition and rights of a contract worker versus an employee, for example, has been fiercely debated in laws such as California’s Prop 22, which allows ride-hailing and delivery drivers to be treated as independent contractors with some added benefits, including a minimum earnings guarantee.”

“Ana Espino, an advocate with the Farmworker Association of Florida, has gotten an influx of calls from people over the last year who say they weren’t paid for their work. Or, if they work a service job, that their boss stole or mismanaged their tips. She hears mostly from construction workers in Central Florida who do building, roofing or repair services, but also from landscaping workers, restaurant workers and agricultural workers. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, construction is one of the most common industries in which violations of wage and hour laws occur, along with food service, healthcare and retail. The federal Wage and Hour division, which enforces these laws, says they received nearly a million calls last year alleging violations.”

“A state judge has ordered graduate student workers at the University of California to temporarily stop their strike at six campuses across the system, delivering a win to UC regents in their legal effort to force strikers back to work. Both the university system and the academic workers’ union, United Auto Workers Local 4811, said late Friday that the judge in Orange County had granted a temporary restraining order against the work stoppage. UC had argued that the strike would cause “irreparable harm” by disrupting classes and research as finals loom. The strike began last month in response to the administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests at the Los Angeles and Irvine campuses, part of a wave of college demonstrations across the country against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The union accused the university system of authorizing brutal arrests and violating workers’ right to peaceful protest.”

“U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday led 31 Senate Democrats in a letter calling on the agency that facilitates labor and management relations within the country's railroad and airline industries to allow flight attendants to strike if necessary. Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and his colleagues—including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—wrote to the three-member National Mediation Board (NMB), established by 1934 amendments to the Railway Labor Act of 1926. ‘Unlike workers covered by the National Labor Relations Act, workers covered by the Railway Labor Act do not possess the right to strike or engage in any other form of 'self-help' without a formal vote by the board," notes the letter. "We are concerned about the increasing number of contract negotiations before the NMB that are being unnecessarily drawn out at the expense of workers.’”

“On Saturday, June 8, workers at BMW’s Regional Distribution Center in Nazareth, PA, voted by 99% to authorize a strike if necessary. The contract covers warehouse workers and expires on June 30. The workers at the distribution center are facing stagnant wages and calls for concessions against a backdrop of rising cost of living and massive profits and shareholder payouts by BMW. Many of the workers have gone without a pay increase for over a decade, and the wage for most at the facility is less than $22 per hour, far lower than what economists estimate it costs for a family to live in the region.”

“Contraction. Pullback. Market correction. However you want to describe what’s going on in the Hollywood economy right now, there’s a potentially brutal long-term consequence of the entertainment industry’s ongoing recession (to call it what it is)...All that uncertainty seems to be having a psychological effect on the industry’s leaders and workers, with mounting concerns coming to the fore as Hollywood crew member unions negotiate with studios for better pay and treatment. On Monday, Teamsters Local 399 and the rest of Hollywood Basic Crafts, which collectively represent 7,600 members including animal trainers, casting directors, drivers, location managers, mechanics, cement masons and plumbers, kicked off their main contract talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. In addition to the main issues around compensation, Teamsters are concerned about AI and autonomous vehicles. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or IATSE, the largest union representing Hollywood crew members, remains in its own contract negotiations with the major studios.”

“UAW Local 1112 has reached a historic tentative agreement at Ultium Cells in Lordstown, Ohio, where workers build electric vehicle batteries for GM vehicles. The agreement marks a historic breakthrough for electric vehicle workers and a path forward that ends the race to the bottom pursued by corporate America throughout the EV transition. The local agreement builds on the successes of the national contract that Ultium workers joined as a major win of the Stand Up Strike.”

“In what some are hailing as a win for workers, the Biden administration has told a call center operator with a history of contentious labor disputes that it will have to reapply for its current $7 billion federal contract — eight years ahead of schedule. Agency officials specifically noted the addition of a “labor harmony” requirement to the contract. On May 16, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a request for proposals to rebid a 2022 call center contract with Maximus Inc. Maximus workers have struck six times since 2018 and accused the employer of various union-busting tactics. Under labor harmony — often also referred to as “labor peace” — employers negotiate with workers for a guarantee of no strikes, pickets or other labor disruptions.”

“Members of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Union and management at the famed cultural institution have settled a contract dispute over awarding veteran employees longevity pay.Philly Cultural Workers United said in an Instagram post about the PMAU win, “Every member owed longevity pay will receive bonuses equivalent to the amount they are owed, issued as two timely payments in May and July of 2024.” (Read our previous coverage of the dispute here).The settlement is yet another victory for PMAU, who first won their contract after going on strike for nearly three weeks in 2022. Since then, the longevity pay issue has stood out as the most prominent example of management obstructionism.”

“Collective bargaining systems that promote sectoral bargaining as well as workplace-level bargaining have much greater union contract coverage compared to purely workplace-level bargaining systems.  But some union allies worry that promoting sectoral bargaining could reduce union membership because it can create a free-rider problem, whereby similarly placed workers are covered by a union contract whether they are members or not.Yet, there is little evidence that sectoral bargaining hinders union membership. Rather, as I highlight in a new Center for American Progress report, sectoral bargaining can — and typically does — support high union membership.”

“Labor’s ability to improve queer workers’ lives stems from its power to raise standards for all workers.”

“In this video from Power At Work’s partners at the International Association of Machinists (IAM), two local union leaders share their experiences participating in a bargaining session for a new national agreement with UPS. IAM Local 701 Shop Steward Bernard Horbrook and IAM Local 10 Shop Steward Travis Smith traveled to Chicago to represent their membership and share local perspectives on the contract with national leaders and business representatives. We found the video compelling and appreciated how it approached an important issue in union communications and governance.”

“Unions and bosses have different outlooks on safety. Employers say illnesses and injuries are caused by worker carelessness: he didn’t look where he was going; she wasn’t using correct lifting technique. That’s the way the boss wants you to think, too. But the union realizes that it’s the hazards themselves that cause injuries, and that it’s the boss who sets up the workplace, either designing in hazards or failing to design them out. Blind corners and high shelving make it hard to avoid collisions; overloaded boxes on low shelves forces awkward bending. Emphasize these different outlooks with workers.”

“United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain is under investigation by the union’s federal corruption watchdog, posing a serious threat to a union celebrity who has taken on some of the world’s largest corporations and forged a close relationship with the Biden administration. The court-appointed monitor, Neil Barofsky of Jenner & Block LLP, said in a Monday filing he is investigating allegations that Fain retaliated against another union officer. The 36-page report describes claims of increased stonewalling and non-cooperation by the union, as well as delayed access to documents required under a sweeping consent decree that avoided a full-fledged government takeover in 2020. The monitor’s report, submitted to the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, poses a liability to Fain, who narrowly won the presidency last year by pledging to eschew top-down leadership and backroom deals that plagued his predecessors.”