The Weekly Download

“In this very special blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Julie Su, the United States Secretary of Labor. Watch now to hear about Su's role as the acting secretary along with her accomplishments in the position. Also learn about Su’s opinions on the current state of labor and her views on the future of worker activism.”

“On September 28, domestic workers in California secured a long-fought victory with the signing of SB 1350, a bill that grants the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) the authority to enforce health and safety regulations in private homes that employ domestic workers.”

“When Vice President Kamala Harris met with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16, she was hoping to walk away with a major union endorsement. The Democratic nominee offered plenty of reasons why she was better for labor than Donald Trump, but she returned to one issue more than once….In 2021, Democrats attached an expensive pension bailout to the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion stimulus package they muscled through the Senate on a party-line vote at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The inclusion of an estimated $74 to $91 billion to shore up troubled multiemployer pension funds was a small legislative miracle for the Teamsters and other unions – and it never would have happened without Harris.”

“We are in a record-breaking moment for clean energy: Companies are investing in clean energy at levels never seen, as well as building more wind and solar projects in the United States than ever before….These are unprecedented opportunities that can lift up workers, families and entire communities, and we need to make sure they reach everyone — especially Black communities and communities of color that have faced a legacy of disinvestment and have been most harmed by polluting industries. While everyone has a role to play in this moment, mayors and community leaders are in a critical position to bring these communities to the forefront of new clean economic opportunities.”

“The Biden-Harris administration’s industrial investments mark a turning point for economic policy that can help the United States regain competitiveness in several emerging sectors and create jobs across the economy. These investments include creating hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs that, at their best, provide routes to the middle class and offer a new generation of American workers decent wages and benefits and the freedom to unionize. Unlike in federally supported construction work, however, the government had little experience in supporting job quality incentives in the manufacturing sector prior to the enactment of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS), and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Awarding agencies have had to learn how to incentivize job quality in the three years since the enactment of the first of these laws. While the government has made significant progress in encouraging a job quality race to the top in the sector, federal agencies and pro-worker lawmakers can do more to ensure manufacturing jobs created with government support offer good wages and the chance to join a union and are accessible to workers from all walks of life.”

“When Boston University graduate students went on strike in April, Stan Sclaroff, the university’s dean of arts and sciences, sent faculty an email with suggestions for keeping their classes on track. As Inside Higher Ed reported, the dean’s “creative” solutions included combining discussion sections, alternative assignments, and using ‘generative AI tools like ChatGPT.’ Professors, the dean wrote, could use the technology to ‘give feedback or facilitate ‘discussion’ on readings or assignments.’”

“For decades, the narrative surrounding organized labor in the United States has been one of decline. Union membership has plummeted by over 60% since 1970, and worker participation in strikes saw an even more dramatic 90% drop. The watershed moment came in 1981 when President Reagan's decision to fire striking air traffic controllers set a precedent for harsh responses to labor actions. This decline led many to declare American unions "basically dead."”

“The lead negotiator for a Boeing union representing about 33,000 workers who have been on strike for nearly a month said on Wednesday that members were prepared to wait out the planemaker, after pay talks collapsed a day earlier. ‘We're in this for the long haul and our members understand that,’ Jon Holden said in an interview with Reuters. He said Boeing offered only minor improvements before breaking off talks on Tuesday and the union had a strong fund to support paying members $250 a week during the stoppage.”

“WASHINGTON — The campaign to Keep The Promise at Stellantis is coming to Washington. UAW members, lawmakers and allies are rallying on Thursday to demand that Stellantis keep its promise to invest in good American jobs. UAW members at Stellantis won $19 billion in product and investment commitments from the company during last year’s Stand Up Strike. Those commitments include the reopening of an idled assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois. Now, the company is trying to backtrack on that and other contractually required investments.”

“NEW YORK – The New Yorker Union has unanimously voted to authorize a strike less than a month ahead of the magazine’s most star-studded and high-profile event. The New Yorker Union represents about a hundred editorial workers at the legendary magazine, owned by publisher Condé Nast, and is a bargaining unit of The NewsGuild of New York. The strike-authorization vote concluded Wednesday: 100 out of 101 members voted; all 100 voted yes.”

“Boston, Mass. – Around 600 Boston hotel workers walked off the job today in the latest strikes to affect the U.S. hotel industry.  A total of over 4,700 hotel workers are currently on strike at Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott hotels in Boston, Honolulu, San Diego, and San Francisco. Workers in all four cities say they will strike until they win new contracts, and more strikes could begin at any time.”

“Boeing announced it has withdrawn its contract offer to striking machinists union workers as it considers “next steps.” The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) has been on strike for 27 days now, seeking higher pay, a better savings plan and more affordable health insurance. Boeing COO Stephanie Pope said in a message to employees on Tuesday that the strike in the Pacific Northwest has deeply affected Boeing’s business, its customers and its communities.”

“More than 2,700 health care workers at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan's academic medical center, issued a formal strike notice Friday, saying they're planning a one-day strike on Oct. 15. “No one wants to go on strike, but sometimes the message must be loud and must be clear," Larry Alcoff, deputy trustee of the Service Employees International Union Health Care Michigan, said in a statement issued Friday evening.”

“On Sept. 25, cannabis workers at two Honey Sour dispensaries in uptown and downtown Butte, Mont., voted to join UFCW Local 1889. This organizing win marks the first time cannabis workers in Montana have unionized since the legalization of cannabis in the state in 2021. These workers reached out to our union via the UFCW’s “How to Start a Union” webpage because they were concerned about workplace safety issues, including mold and the lack of running water. They were also concerned about job security and the well-being of the customers and workers in the shops.”

“The Teamsters are spinning off momentum from recent organizing fights to new battle fronts across Amazon’s logistics chain. A group of 100 warehouse workers at DCK6, an Amazon delivery station in San Francisco, marched on company managers October 2 demanding voluntary recognition rather than filing for a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election. In the Teamsters’ strategy to organize the logistics behemoth by a thousand cuts, this is the first time that warehouse workers—rather than delivery drivers nominally employed by a subcontractor—have demanded recognition.”

“Turning onto Volkswagen Drive in Chattanooga, the first big shiny building you pass is actually an Amazon fulfillment center. It’s only a little up the road that you come upon the VW campus, the sleek silver buildings rising from the hills and trees, a series of windowless hulks, one of them proudly proclaiming its GoTo ZERO IMPACT FACTORY. As if a factory can have zero impact on the community, on the people who go to work there each day, let alone the environment, the climate. Factories shape towns. They always have. They shape the world. The workers at the VW plant are trying to do some shaping of their own, now that they’ve won their union. The bargaining process kicked off September 15 with a rally in Chattanooga featuring the VW workers and United Auto Workers (UAW) leaders, including union President Shawn Fain, and the workers were still riding that wave when I arrived in Chattanooga less than a week later.”

“Nearly four weeks into the Boeing worker strike, the parties are no closer to reaching a union contract. The plane manufacturer offered a 30% pay increase over four years, and union members said no. The major sticking point here? Pensions. Boeing workers stopped getting defined benefit plans a decade ago, and they want them back. Fifty years ago, most full-time workers had a pension. Once they retired, their employers sent them a check every month, until they died. But in the 1980s, pensions started to disappear.”

“After months of bargaining, 165 members of UFCW Local 3000 who work in the grocery and meat divisions of Fred Meyer #652 in Ellensburg, Wash., ratified their first contracts on Sept. 30.”

“After we won our union, in our first round of bargaining (in 1981) we had a seven-member bargaining committee representing over 1,000 workers. We relied heavily on our UAW rep. Initially they did all the talking. We were too afraid we would say something wrong. But in subsequent bargaining we made changes based on the belief that the formal bargaining process should be seen as an organizing and leadership development opportunity, not some isolated world where the experts resolved issues.”

“Members of the Graduate Employees of Northeastern University rallied on Centennial Common Oct. 2 to mark the one-year anniversary of their union election and 10 months since contract negotiations began. About 100 demonstrators were in attendance throughout the rally, organizing committee member for the union Shahinaz Geneid told The News.”

“Even though the vast majority of US labor unions have endorsed Kamala Harris, many union members support Donald Trump, and with the race so close, unions have stepped up efforts to convince those workers that Trump is no friend of unions or workers.”

“Women make up roughly half of U.S. labor union membership, but representation in top level union leadership positions has lagged, even in female-dominated industries and particularly for women of color. But Black and Latina women are starting to gain ground, landing top positions at some of the biggest unions in the U.S. That has translated into wins at the bargaining table that focus more attention on family-friendly benefits like parental leave and health care coverage, as well as protections against sexual harassment.”