npr--2019-05-08--Sanders Campaign Workers Ratify Union Contract

Sanders Campaign, Workers Ratify Union Contract

Workers on the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign have ratified a union contract with management, which says it is the first campaign union contract at the presidential level.  The campaign and the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 — with whom the workers are affiliated — both announced the agreement on Wednesday.  "We are proud of our workers and proud to uphold Bernie's commitment to collective bargaining rights and a strong labor movement," said campaign manager Faiz Shakir in a statement. "When Bernie Sanders is in the White House, he will make it easier not harder to join a union and we look forward to running a campaign powered by union workers."  The agreement has provisions ensuring that the campaign will pay the entire health insurance premiums of any worker paid under $36,000, according to Jonathan Williams, communications director at UFCW Local 400. There's also a pay limit for top campaign officials — no one in campaign management can make more than three times the highest-paid worker in the bargaining unit. (However, outside consultants wouldn't fall under this provision, Williams said.)  "One of the challenges of negotiating this contract was that you have traditionally very long hours on a campaign, but also very motivated employees who often choose to work long hours," Williams said.  That means that instead of setting strict limits on hours worked, the contract sets out time off provisions, like giving employees four "blackout days" per month, when they're not working.  There are forerunners at the congressional, state and local levels. The Campaign Workers Guild, which formed in 2017 to organize campaign workers, counts 25 campaigns it has helped reach collective bargaining agreements since its launch. The guild is not representing Sanders' campaign workers.  The campaign will have to adapt the intense operational needs of a national campaign to meet the working conditions set forth in the agreement, as well as the additional costs. Though, the Sanders campaign led the Democratic field in terms of cash on hand when the latest campaign finance figures were reported in April.  One other component Williams mentioned: provisions regarding discrimination and pay equity, as well as dealing with harassment. Aides from the Sanders 2016 presidential campaign have been accused of sexism and sexual harassment — accusations that hang over the senator's 2020 run. The ratification of the contract also comes just a day after the campaign put out new guidelines around sexual misconduct.  While it's only one presidential campaign, the new contract signals new energy in the union movement, according to one expert.  "I think it's really new," said Janice Fine, research and strategy director at the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization at Rutgers University. "I think it's very much a sort of a sign of the times in terms of increased activism in general and increased union activism, increased interest in unionism, particularly on the part of millennials."  Of course, no campaign does anything without considering what voters will think. And Sanders, already firmly established in the populist lane, may find himself further endeared to those voters because of his campaign's unionization.  It's not supported by everyone in the party. Former Democratic campaign official Steve Hildebrand, who served as deputy national campaign manager for Barack Obama in 2008, said to NPR last year, "Political campaigns are short-term gigs. They're not long-term operations, so this idea of unionization for an eight-month job, it just doesn't make a lot of sense."  Fine says that the contract sends a message to the Democratic Party.  "It's also in part kind of calling the Democratic Party out a little bit saying, 'If you really support the labor movement, you've gotta take the next step and be able to tangibly support the labor movement,' " she said.


shadowproof--2019-04-04--Anti-Union University Administrations Fight Surge In Graduate Student Worker Organizing

Since the National Labor Relations Board ruled in August 2016 that graduate student workers at private universities have the right to unionize, graduate student unions in the United States have surged. Yet, currently, nearly all of these unions face resistance and union-busting efforts from their university administrations.  At Boston College, graduate student workers voted to unionize in September 2017. The university has refused to recognize the union despite the vote.  The United Auto Workers (UAW) withdrew their petition with the National Labor Relations Board as an affiliate to the graduate student workers union at Boston College in anticipation of an unfavorable ruling against them by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).  The NLRB is now dominated by appointees from President Donald Trump’s administration, who are hostile toward union efforts and protections.  Sixteen students were targeted with academic disciplinary proceedings for handing out flyers outside a fundraising concert at Boston College in September 2018.  “I wound up receiving an administrative warning which is the highest level of discipline the university gives out before they put you on academic probation,” Sam Levinson, a graduate worker in the Chemistry Department at Boston College, recalled. “It was a really stressful distraction from what I want to get done, which is my work. The reason we want to have a union contract is to alleviate some stress and get our work done.”  “Four universities, Harvard, Georgetown, Brown, and Columbia, have all agreed to bargain with graduate workers, and completely outside the NLRB process for recognition with Georgetown and Brown,” said Ben Cain, an organizer with UAW. “It’s another way that Boston College is out of line with the direction that universities are going.”  In December 2018, Massachusetts State Senator Jamie Eldridge and several community labor and faith leaders had the door shut in their face while attempting to deliver a petition signed by 3,000 community members and 700 graduate student workers asking Boston College to bargain with the union.  A Boston College spokesperson said in an email, “Boston College is opposed to graduate student unionization on the grounds that it undermines the longstanding collegial mentoring relationship between student and faculty that is a cornerstone of the academic experience.”  Labor conditions in higher education have increasingly shifted toward using graduate student employees and contingent faculty over tenured and tenure-track faculty because they provide a cheaper labor source for universities.  The average graduate teaching assistant makes less than one-third the salary of the average professor, according to a 2018 study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute.  Part-time faculty in the U.S. have increased from 30 percent in 1975 to more than 50 percent of all faculty appointments, according to the American Association of University Professors. A 2015 report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center found 25 percent of part-time college faculty in the United States rely on at least one public assistance program.  “The upsurge in graduate student organizing is primarily a reflection of the changing conditions in higher education,” said Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon and former senior labor policy advisor for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor. “While in graduate school, PhD students are the cheap labor force that enables universities to decimate the ranks of tenure-track faculty, thus ruining the career prospects of PhD students once they earn their degrees.”  “This both has made economic conditions more important while in grad school, and has made the grad student union movement into a vehicle for expression of the anxiety, resentment, and pushback against this restructuring of higher education,” Lafer added.  At Harvard University, graduate student workers managed to successfully bring school administrators to the bargaining table in October 2018 after voting to form a union in April of that year  The NLRB recommended a new election after ruling that Harvard denied a proper union election in November 2016. Graduate student workers claim the school is still working to undermine the union, as they have throughout the process of forming a union.  “Before the election, we saw more active tactics. At this stage, it’s a little bit darker by denying us the democratic representation we want in these very long sessions, blocking requests for more bargaining time, and still not giving us lists of our members, though we are legally entitled to it,” said Rachel Sandalow-Ash, a graduate worker at Harvard Law School and union bargaining committee member. “They are moving as slowly as possible.”  “We’ve reached only a few tentative agreements. They are basically saying they won’t negotiate on things they know to be our core issues,” Sandalow-Ash asserted.  Sandalow-Ash noted the union remains focused on organizing and mobilizing graduate student workers to beat back Harvard’s anti-union tactics. They plan to secure a contract that will make Harvard a better place for graduate student workers to live and work by ensuring all graduate student workers have adequate healthcare and dental coverage.  Ege Yumusak, a graduate worker in the philosophy department at Harvard and union bargaining committee member, added, “They are trying to isolate us from other unions, indicating they don’t see us as workers. We see this at every step. Even though other campus unions have won incredible protections, we’re always pushed aside.”  A Harvard University spokesperson said in an email, “From the outset of these negotiations, the university has welcomed the opportunity to engage with HGSU-UAW. Our commitment is clear: we will work in good faith to reach an agreement that is good for student workers, all students and our entire university community.”  Graduate student workers at Columbia University recently began bargaining with the school after a second strike was planned in December 2018. Workers first went on strike in April 2018 after the school refused to bargain with the union for more than a year after graduate student workers voted to unionize.  Before the strike, the university openly expressed concerns with unionization efforts and the possibility of a strike. “Students may want to consider how their laboratory research and academic progress will be affected by a strike,” suggested a ‘fact check’ leaflet on unions distributed by Columbia University’s Office of the Provost before the April strike.  “Columbia, despite all the outwardly seeming liberal-leaning, want[s] to seem like the good guys criticizing Trump, but that does not correspond with how they treat their employees,” said Trevor Hull, a graduate student worker in the chemistry department at Columbia University.  “We had to fight very hard to win our union and fight legal battles to get to the point where they would bargain with us, and it wound up being our strike that tipped the balance.”  The union is fighting for improvement in healthcare offered to graduate student workers, the establishment of a grievance procedure for sexual harassment, and a third-party arbitrator to resolve labor disputes on campus.  “Arriving at a first collective bargaining agreement is complicated and time-consuming, but the University’s bargaining committees are prepared to do the work necessary to accomplish that as expeditiously as possible given the number of people involved and the scheduling issues that result,” claimed a Columbia University spokesperson.  The University of Pittsburgh has retained the law firm Ballard Spahr, which specializes in union avoidance, as their graduate student workers wait on the NLRB to schedule a union election date. The process of filing for a union election has dragged on since December 2017.  “Every step of the way they find a way to delay the process further and so a big part of their anti-union strategy has been to delay,” said Jeff Cech, an organizing coordinator with United Steelworkers, the affiliate working to represent graduate student workers at the University of Pittsburgh.  Cech mentioned this tactic is employed by administrators because “organizing graduate student employees are on a five to six-year cycle. So we have a high turnover rate every academic year.”  A University of Pittsburgh spokesperson stated, “On March 7, we received the decision of the hearing examiner appointed by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) directing an election for certain graduate students. We are evaluating our options going forward and will continue to follow the PLRB process.”  The union election at the University of Pittsburgh is scheduled for the week of April 15.


shadowproof--2019-06-11--Facebook Bikeshare Workers Organize Against Anti-Union Campaign

At Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, workers for a bikeshare company, Bikes Make Life Better, face an anti-union campaign from their employers as they try to form a union with the Transport Workers Union (TWU).  “We have serious concerns about how a union such as the TWU could affect the work environment we have all worked hard to build and are continuing to build with your help,” declared a company flyer sent to workers.  The flyer addressed a direct relationship with management over a union and suggested workers would have to pay union dues throughout negotiations.  In interviews with Bikes Make Life Better employees, they said management has conducted captive audience meetings with the nearly 50 mechanics, bike ambassadors, and rebalancers who work for the contractor at Facebook. (These are meetings during union campaigns that employers typically require workers to attend so management can share their views on unionization.)  All workers who were interviewed for the purpose of this report were granted anonymity to help them avoid workplace retaliation.  According to the workers, around 90 percent of the contractor’s business is the Facebook headquarters contract. A California law enacted in 2015 established shared liability between labor contractors and employers for certain state labor law violations.  “They started holding captive audience meetings with every department individually, and those were mandatory. They are fighting us fairly openly,” said one Bikes Make Life Better employee. “They directly said if it comes to the vote and you’re undecided, we suggest you vote no.”  Workers confirmed the meetings with each department were mandatory and included misinformation about unions.  According to the workers, a union election date was set for June 20, 2019, by the National Labor Relations Board after the board declined a hearing on the eligibility of a few workers, who Bikes Make Life Better tried to argue were supervisors and ineligible to vote.  “They tried to create uncertainty, ‘we don’t know what’s going to happen,’ specific misinformation about shop stewards and that unions will make it impossible to talk to managers and managers won’t have anything to do because they will have their hands tied and won’t be able to do their jobs,” the same employee added “There was a lot of misinformation and miscommunicating with trying to create doubt and fear based on that doubt.”  The employees said they are seeking to unionize to improve wages, benefits, and fight back against understaffing issues that force workers to perform duties beyond their job scope.  “They would have us do the work of mechanics while they were overworking mechanics. We were hoping with their next budget cycle things would get better, but we found out through hearsay the budget was worse this year and a lot of us who were promised raises this year are not going to get them,” said a Bikes Make Life Better rebalancer. (Rebalancers distribute bikes around the Facebook campus.)  The rebalancer claimed about 70 percent of the workers signed union authorization cards, but rather than recognize the union, management pushed to hold a union election and launched an internal campaign to push back against workers.  “They’ve told us a lot of misinformation that we could lose our benefits and contract. But other contractors who have unionized at Facebook haven’t lost their benefits,” added the worker.  Workers are also trying to improve their healthcare benefits, especially as injuries riding bikes in a high traffic area such as the Facebook headquarters campus are common.  “I’m still paying $200 to $500 for a doctor visit for knee injuries. Injuries are pretty common just because some of the work conditions we work around, especially when it’s raining. Sometimes it gets pretty dangerous,” added another worker, who was also granted anonymity for fear of retaliation.  Workers often have to perform a task called “ghosting” in which rebalancers must hold onto one or two bikes in addition to the one they’re riding to reload bike pads on the Facebook campus.  Bikes Make Life Better denied the allegations of intimidation toward union organizing.  “We respect our employees’ rights under the law to organize, if they so choose. We have encouraged our employees to learn about the union so they can come to their own decisions. We held lawful meetings to share information on the process and to answer questions,” said Bikes Make Life Better director Amy Harcourt in an email.  “We are cooperating with the National Labor Relations Board process, including the proper scope of the bargaining unit. If the NLRB decides an election is warranted, we will respect the decision made by our employees whether or not to unionize,” Harcourt added.


shareblue--2019-10-16--Union wins 'major gains' for workers in tentative deal with GM to end strike

Bargainers for General Motors and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative contract deal on Wednesday that could end a monthlong strike that brought the company's U.S. factories to a standstill.  The deal, which the union says offers "major gains" for workers, was hammered out after months of bargaining but won't bring an immediate end to the strike by 49,000 hourly workers. They will likely stay on the picket lines for at least two more days as two union committees vote on the deal, after which the members will have to approve.  Terms of the tentative four-year contract were not released, but it's likely to include some pay raises, lump sum payments to workers and requirements that GM build new vehicles in U.S. factories.  Analysts say the strike probably cost GM $2 billion in lost production, while workers lost on average more than $3,000 in wages and had to live on $250 per week in strike pay.  "Everybody lost out on this. We did, they did," said Mark Nichols, who works at GM's transmission plant in Toledo, Ohio.  Nichols, who thought the strike would last only a week or two, said he's ready to get back to work because his savings are running low. "I just hope it gets done," he said.  The deal now will be used as a template for talks with GM's crosstown rivals, Ford and Fiat Chrysler. Normally the major provisions carry over to the other two companies and cover about 140,000 auto workers nationwide. It wasn't clear which company the union would bargain with next, or whether there would be another strike.  Art Schwartz, a former GM negotiator who now runs a labor consulting business, said depending on the contents, the contract could influence wages and benefits at other manufacturers. But he said foreign automakers with U.S. factories, mainly in the South, always give pay raises and shouldn't be affected much.  "They're located in low-wage areas and they pay well," he said. "The people who work there are kings of the locality."  The strike did show that the union still has power in the auto industry. "I think economically the UAW will do just fine in this agreement," Schwartz said.   Early on, GM offered new products in Detroit and Lordstown, Ohio, two of the four U.S. cities where it planned to close factories.  The company said it would build a new electric pickup truck to keep the Detroit-Hamtramck plant open and to build an electric vehicle battery factory in or near Lordstown, Ohio, where GM is closing an assembly plant. The battery factory would employ far fewer workers and pay less money than the assembly plant.  Clarence Trinity, a worker at GM's engine and transmission plant in the Detroit suburb of Romulus, Michigan, said the deal sounds good, "But I have to see it in writing or hear from the leaders."  Trinity said he can't figure out why it took 31 days for the strike to end. "I don't understand what General Motors was expecting to get out of us. Maybe they didn't expect us to strike. Maybe they didn't expect us to strike this long."  It's unclear if GM will be able to make up some of the production lost to the strike by increasing assembly line speeds or paying workers overtime. Many GM dealers reported still healthy inventories of vehicles even with the strike.  If all of the committees bless the deal, it's likely to take several days for GM to get its factories restarted.   Matt Himes, a worker at the GM plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, heard news of the deal in Ohio, where he's trying to help his wife sell their house after the Lordstown GM plant where he used to work was shuttered.  He hopes good news keeps coming. If they can sell their house, his wife can finally move down to Tennessee with him.  "I'm proud that we stuck our ground and everybody stuck together," Himes said of the union workers during a phone interview. "And I'm relieved that hopefully it worked out, got us a good contract and we can move on and get back to work making cars like we should be."  Wall Street investors liked news that the strike could end. GM shares jumped 2.6% just after the news broke, but they eased back by early afternoon with the stock up 1.2% to $36.68.  GM and the union have been negotiating at a time of troubling uncertainty for the U.S. auto industry. Driven up by the longest economic expansion in American history, auto sales appear to have peaked and are now heading in the other direction. GM and other carmakers are also struggling to make the transition to electric and autonomous vehicles.  Meanwhile, Donald Trump's trade war with China and his tariffs on imported steel and aluminum have raised costs for auto companies. A revamped North American free trade deal is stalled in Congress, raising doubts about the future of America's trade in autos and auto parts with Canada and Mexico, which last year came to $257 billion.  Amid that uncertainty, GM workers have wanted to lock in as much as they can before things get ugly. They argue that they had given up pay raises and made other concessions to keep GM afloat during its 2009 trip through bankruptcy protection. Now that GM has been nursed back to health — earning $2.42 billion in its latest quarter — they want a bigger share.  The union's bargainers have voted to recommend the deal to the UAW International Executive Board, which will vote on the agreement. Union leaders from factories nationwide will travel to Detroit for a vote on Thursday. The earliest workers could return would be after that.  In past years, it's taken a minimum of three or four days and as long as several weeks for the national ratification vote. Workers took almost two weeks to finish voting on their last GM agreement, in October 2015. Then skilled-trades workers rejected it, causing further delays.  "The No. 1 priority of the national negotiation team has been to secure a strong and fair contract that our members deserve," union Vice President Terry Dittes, the chief bargainer with GM, said in a statement Wednesday. The agreement, he said, has "major gains" for UAW workers.  The strike had shut down 33 GM manufacturing plants in nine states across the U.S., and also took down factories in Canada and Mexico. It was the first national strike by the union since a two-day walkout in 2007, and the longest since a 54-day strike in Flint, Michigan, in 1998 that also halted most of GM's production.


slate--2019-09-15--Autoworkers Union Calls for First Nationwide Strike Against GM Since 2007

The United Auto Workers union said Sunday that its approximately 49,000 members at General Motors plants across the United States will go on strike at midnight. It would mark the first national UAW strike since a two-day walkout in 2007 and comes as contract negotiations with GM have stalled. “We are standing up for our members and for the fundamental rights of working-class people of this nation,” said Terry Dittes, the union’s GM department vice president. “Going into the bargaining season, our members have been very clear of what they will and will not accept in this contract.”  There is a chance the strike could be called off if negotiators manage to come up with an agreement before midnight but union officials characterized that as highly unlikely considering there are still significant differences on a number of issues, including jobs, wages, and benefits. On Sunday morning, talks between the union and the automaker were suspended. GM rejected criticism from the union, saying it had made several concessions. “It is disappointing that the UAW leadership has chosen to strike at midnight tonight. We have negotiated in good faith and with a sense of urgency. Our goal remains to build a strong future for our employees and our business,” the company said.  A strike will quickly paralyze the company’s operations and could even reverberate into the U.S. economy as a whole. Any strike will be painful for both the company and workers. Halting production would cost GM around $400 million per day while workers get only $250 a week in strike wages. But the union is standing firm in its demands in part because any agreement with GM would set a precedent for negotiations with other companies.


slate--2019-09-17--Unionizing Workers Just Accused Kickstarter of Retaliatory Firings in a Federal Complaint

On Monday night, the labor union working with employees at Kickstarter filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the crowdfunding company of wrongfully terminating two workers, Clarissa Redwine and Taylor Moore. As Slate first reported, Moore was fired last Thursday, just eight days after Redwine’s dismissal. Both had been key organizers of the unionization effort, which went public this March. Kickstarter told Slate last week that it has never fired anyone for union activity.  Workers at the company told me last week that they believed Moore and Redwine were fired because of their union organizing. A third employee at Kickstarter, who was also a core organizer since the beginning of the union drive, was told by senior managers to find employment elsewhere last Thursday, according to five sources within the company.  The charges, filed by the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153, allege that Kickstarter singled out Moore and Redwine because of their union activity and that the firings were retaliatory. The charges further allege that Kickstarter interfered with employees’ right to organize, since such firings could have a chilling effect on union efforts. Moore and Redwine are asking for back pay and to be reinstated to their positions. Next, the NLRB will ask the union to file an affidavit describing the charges, and the employer will have to respond.  Slate asked Kickstarter to comment on the NLRB charge Tuesday morning, and this post will be updated when the company responds.  In May, Kickstarter CEO Aziz Hasan told staff that the company would not voluntarily recognize the union if asked, but would respect employees’ decision if they voted to form one through a secret ballot. Five sources have told Slate that the majority of nonmanagers at the company have pledged to join the union. If the drive is successful, Kickstarter will be the first well-known tech company with a white-collar union.  Kickstarter has been known as one of the more progressive workplaces in tech for several years. It became a “public benefit corporation” in 2015, meaning the company vowed to never take Kickstarter public and to measure the company’s success by how well it adheres to its values rather than how much money it makes. But multiple current and former employees I interviewed feel that their employer hasn’t been reflecting its outward values internally—a tension that became heightened during a controversy last summer over a Kickstarter drive for a satirical “Nazi-punching” comic book that senior leaders wanted to take down. The sources say that in companywide meetings this spring and early summer, Kickstarter leaders explained why it thought Kickstarter should not have a union, saying that it would be costly, make the company less agile, and would distract employees from other work at the company.  Redwine, who had worked on the outreach team at Kickstarter since 2016, regularly signed emails from the union’s organizing committee that were shared with staff. When she was fired earlier this month, Kickstarter leadership told her colleagues that Redwine’s termination was a result of long-standing issues related to her performance. Typically at Kickstarter, when employees have issues related to their work, the company puts them through a “performance improvement plan,” a process in which managers help workers get back on track, according to five current and former employees at the company. But Redwine wasn’t put on one, despite being told that she would, and instead was fired, according to five former and current employees at Kickstarter. Several workers told me that Redwine had been under increased scrutiny from senior managers for months. Last Monday, Redwine and the Office and Professional Employees International Union filed an unfair labor charge with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the severance agreement offered to her by Kickstarter contained an illegally phrased nondisparagement clause. Kickstarter told Slate that it had sent an email to Redwine with an offer to narrow the clause, but she never replied. Redwine told Slate that she feels “strongly that any agreement that treats severance as repayment for silence is an unethical one.”  Moore, an employee at Kickstarter for six years, was also a core union organizer who regularly signed emails from Kickstarter United, the name of the effort. He worked on the same team as Redwine. Unlike Redwine, Moore had completed a performance improvement plan, which he was put on after the union drive went public. The union effort said in a statement last week that the firings were “unexpected” and “retaliatory.”  The Kickstarter employee and union organizer who was told to find employment elsewhere did not respond to requests for comment. Slate also asked the company about this worker and will update this post with its response.  Since the news broke last Thursday about the firing of two union organizers, some project creators and backers on Kickstarter have launched petitions in support of the union drive. A petition started by Current Affairs—a magazine that fundraised to publish its first issue on Kickstarter in 2015—now has more than 100 signatories of project creators who, as of Sunday, represent around $3 million in total fundraising collected on the site, according to one of the petition’s organizers, Nathan Robinson. Artist and author Molly Crabapple tweeted on Sunday that she, too, had signed the petition. “I owe my fine art career to Kickstarter,” Crabapple tweeted. “It is a site I love, and a site that changed my life. They need to recognize the union.” While many creators shared that they would halt their fundraising if management fails to recognize the union, organizers of the union drive clarified that “we are not calling on creators who rely on Kickstarter to abandon live or planned projects.”  Update, Sept. 17, 2019, 9:36 p.m.: Kickstarter responded to Slate’s questions about the NLRB charge as well as the third union organizer who sources say was told to find new employment last week: “We’d like to reiterate that these employees were not singled out because of their organizing activities,” a company spokesman wrote. “We’ve terminated three other people who were not union organizers since March, when the organizers announced their effort. We’ve also given raises to 14 people who were public about their support for the union, and promoted three of those people. We can’t suspend the routine operations of the company while the staff considers whether a union is right for them.”  Read the full report on the unionization effort and tensions at Kickstarter here.


slate--2019-09-25--The Google Workers Who Voted to Unionize in Pittsburgh Are Part of Techs Huge Contractor Workforce

The Google Workers Who Voted to Unionize in Pittsburgh Are Part of Tech’s Huge Contractor Workforce

On Tuesday afternoon, a group of tech professionals in Pittsburgh who work at Google—but not for Google—voted to form a union. It’s likely the first time that white-collar workers in the technology industry have done so. The workers are employed by the India-owned firm HCL America. Forty-four of them voted yes in the election, which they’ve asked the National Labor Relations Board to certify. Twenty-two voted against it.  The contractors work on the Google Shopping platform, in the same Pittsburgh offices as full-time Googlers directly employed by the company. They’re colleagues, eating lunch together and working on the same projects, and like the Google employees, the contractors are skilled workers with college degrees. But unlike Google staff, they don’t have the company’s generous benefits, are paid less, and say they have little to no job security. The precariousness of their employment isn’t hypothetical: In March, Google swiftly cut the jobs of about 34 temp workers on its voice assistant. Google workers employed by HCL feared they could be let go at any moment too. “We have at-will employment, so there’s really not much protecting us, and that is one of the main things that we’re hoping to gain in bargaining, more security,” said Ben Gwin, one of the HCL workers. Currently, the subcontractor’s employees aren’t given any paid sick days either, Gwin said.  Every day, tens of thousands of TVCs—company lingo for temporary staffers, independent vendors, and contractors—show up for work at Google. As with many organizations, Google’s workforce is composed of both full-time employees with benefits and workers with different arrangements, many of whom come by way of firms like HCL. But the nonemployee staff at Google is notable for its large size: The approximately 135,000 TVCs at Google make up more than half of the company’s headcount, according to a report from the Guardian.  While relying on such a high percentage of contractors is unusual in tech, it’s easy see why a company with so many products and projects, which it often scales up quickly, would do it. Beyond the fact that they’re cheaper, keeping these workers off the employee rolls helps the company move fast, change directions, and nix things that aren’t working without having to worry about the personnel involved with the tasks. Often, contract work at tech companies includes the least pleasant, most draining work, like reviewing violent content on YouTube, a role filled by thousands of contractors at Google. Since they’re not on staff, the company doesn’t have to directly tend to their mental health care or field worker complaints. That’s the job of their direct employer. The Pittsburgh contractors worked in data analysis and other technical roles.  Though the HCL team is small, its unionization effort will likely be closely watched from Silicon Valley. Tech worker activism has been steadily growing over the past two years, but union organizing has largely not been part of it. The tech industry has traditionally prided itself on workplace flexibility and generous salaries—and at Google in particular, executives have long emphasized that workers should have a voice and communicate any concerns directly to company leaders. Along the way, though, the company hired more and more contractors. Now, the very mechanism that allowed Google and other tech companies to get around giving every worker those famous perks has led some of them to organize.  The HCL union drive happened relatively quickly. Workers began their efforts only in February, after Gwin contacted United Steelworkers to see if forming a union could help them address job security, pay, and time-off issues. Along the way, union organizers say they’ve met resistance from their direct employer. HCL has reportedly asked managers to hold mandatory meetings with workers in an attempt to discourage the union organizing. But when the company hired a consultant to try to quash the union effort, Google wouldn’t let that person meet with workers at the company building, according to a report in Vox. Google said in a statement that “whether HCL’s employees unionize or not is between them and their employer.” Considering that the company already has been criticized for having a large contractor workforce, it makes sense that it wouldn’t risk the embarrassment of being seen trying to stop some of them from organizing. And this union isn’t directly Google’s problem. It’s HCL’s. The contract employees will be able to collectively bargain for better conditions, but whatever happens won’t necessarily affect Google’s bottom line.  HCL’s staff are not the first workers in tech to have union representation. Some blue-collar workers at tech companies—like security guards, janitors, and food service workers—have organized and even unionized in recent years. Security guards started organizing across Silicon Valley in 2010 and just got their contract with major tech companies, including Google, ratified in 2018. But several unionization efforts in the industry have seen serious opposition from executives. Amazon has aggressively attempted to dissuade workers in its warehouses and at Whole Foods from forming unions, and even made a 45-minute animated video about why a union would be bad for the company, which was sent to team leaders last year. Tesla factory workers have described a “culture of fear” that surrounds discussions of potential unionization.  It’s worth distinguishing between the different strains of activism in tech right now. A lot of workers are trying to hold their employers to ethical standards, like the Googlers who successfully demanded that the company nix a drone-related artificial intelligence contract with the U.S. Department of Defense. Others want their employers to improve the purportedly utopian workplaces they’ve boasted about for years, like the Googlers who walked out over how the company has dealt with sexual harassment allegations. The HCL workers belong to a third category, one more familiar to union drives: They want better protections and bigger paychecks.  But these aren’t entirely separate currents. Gwin said he and his fellow contractors had the support of their co-workers who are full-time employees from the jump. Last December, the Google employees who organized the walkout shared a list of demands to executives from contractors at the company, who argued that they deserved a larger share of the company’s profits. “Even when we’re doing the same work as full-time employees, these jobs routinely fail to provide living wages and often offer minimal benefits. This affects not only us, but also our families and communities,” the letter read.  For its part, the HCL workforce has noticed the other white-collar tech union drive going on right now. “We would like to support our friends at Kickstarter in their organizing efforts and hopefully they will be next,” Gwin said after I asked if he wanted to add anything else. Workers began organizing earlier this year at the crowdfunding company, which opposes their efforts, as I reported earlier this month. That’s why the industry will likely be watching how things play out in Pittsburgh. The last thing that tech executives want is for these isolated union drives to start looking like a movement.


sputnik--2019-09-17--US Auto Union Strikes Against Tiered GM Pay System that Split Workers in Two

US Auto Union Strikes Against Tiered GM Pay System that ‘Split Workers in Two’

Following the 2008 US recession, the US government paid $50 billion to bail out GM in 2009, saving around 1.5 million jobs, according to Good. As a result of the government bailout, the UAW agreed to pay new employees less money than veteran workers, establishing a two-tier pay scale. However, the union is now demanding that GM reopen idled plants, add jobs at other factories and narrow or close the difference between pay rates for new hires and veteran workers. The union is also seeking permanent employment for temporary workers.  “Just to kind of recap what has happened over the last 10 years, 2007, [200]8 and [200]9, there was a huge bailout of the auto companies. At the time, the union did accept major concessions, which were very controversial at the time … which [included] tiered salaries and … much higher levels of temporary workers who don’t have the same kind of job security and wages as the regular UAW GM workers. One of the big pushes since then [has been] to equalize the benefits for all the workers, so everyone has equal pay for equal work and there isn’t this two tier system,” Sweeney told hosts John Kiriakou and Brian Becker.  GM, however, is insisting that its employees cover a larger share of their healthcare costs and increase their work productivity and flexibility in factories, despite the fact that the company made about $12 billion in profit last year, according to Sweeney. The union has also been urging GM not to shut down car assembly plants in Ohio and Michigan.  “Employers try to split the workers into at least two, sometimes three, four different tiers. Even through the workers try to stick together, there are material forces that kind of [pit] them against each other … GM is making massive, massive profits. Just last year, they [made] $12 billion in profit. And their CEO Mary Barra was paid $20.87 million,” Sweeney explained.  The strike comes as UAW’s four-year contract with GM expired Saturday. It is the largest strike by any union in the US since the last GM strike in 2007, which involved 73,000 workers.  Sweeney told Sputnik that workers from 55 facilities had walked out on strike, “not just the Midwest but also Missouri, Texas. There’s facilities out here in California and Nevada.” He also noted that although the number of UAW workers is not as high as it was in the 1960s and 70s, the strike could “cause major impacts on the economy.”  “The strike is back. We saw it with teachers. We saw it with service workers, airport workers, hotel workers. To turn the rights for workers around, to stop the growing spread of income inequality, to move toward a more progressive future … to get [US President Donald] Trump out of the White House, unions have to be at the forefront of that; and for unions to make massive gains, that means massive strikes. We should do everything we can to support these workers,” Sweeney noted.  In a statement Sunday, GM said that it presented the union with a “strong offer that improves wages, benefits and grows US jobs in substantive ways and it is disappointing that the UAW leadership has chosen to strike at midnight tonight. We have negotiated in good faith and with a sense of urgency. Our goal remains to build a strong future for our employees and our business,” the statement says, the Washington Post reported. GM’s offer included the promise of building a new all-electric pickup truck at a Michigan factory, as well as an electric vehicle battery plant in Ohio.  However, GM spokesperson Brian Rothenberg said Monday that the two sides have only agreed on 2% of the contract.  “We’ve got 98% to go,” he noted.  The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.


sputnik--2019-11-14--Trade Union Laws are Rigged Against the Workers – CWU Must Fight Back

In a matter of minutes a single unelected judge, Lord Swift, granted an injunction sought by the Royal Mail Group (RMG) to nullify a massive industrial strike action ballot conducted by the postal service union, the Communication Workers Union (CWU). Over 110,000 CWU members were consulted in the ballot.  The highest turnout ever recorded in an industrial action ballot was witnessed. An amazing 75.9% of the workers returned their ballot papers and incredibly over 97% voted to strike in support of their union leadership’s recommendation. Yet one single man, representing the British Establishment, overturned the democratically expressed wishes of over 80,000 workers. No wonder the elected CWU leader, Dave Ward, called the decision “outrageous”. The ruling class don’t like to talk about the class war. They are too busy practicing it. The judge represented the boss class as usual.  Obscene Salary for the Boss - Broken Promises for the Posties  After several months of negotiations between the union and Royal Mail management, it became clear that several promises in relation to pensions, job security and other important employment conditions were being reneged on by a management team more intent on retaining and expanding their grotesque pay and bonus packages than looking after the hard grafting posties who do the work and make the profits for the RMG.  The new boss of RMG, Rico Back, was paid an obscene £5.8 million compensation package to move from a subsidiary company of RMG to become their new boss. The Financial Times reported his new salary would be substantial:  RMG were able to offer a massive salary, pension deal and bonus scheme to the new incoming Chief Executive but nothing but smoke and mirrors promises for their ordinary workforce. The union felt utterly betrayed by management’s broken promises, and reluctantly concluded the only way they could persuade the bosses to respond to their member’s job and pension concerns was to ballot for industrial action.  Therein lays the difference between trade unions and employers and employer organisations. Trade unions are open and democratic organisations. Disgraced since the Thatcher years of union-bashing and economic vandalism which decimated industry across the UK, trade unions have found themselves severely restricted in their ability to fight against job losses and bad bullying bosses by anti-trade union laws designed to effectively outlaw strikes.  It is an indictment of Thatcher that her industrial relations Acts left the UK the most restricted of the advanced nations in Europe in relation to trade union rights and freedoms. Thatcher hated trade unions because they organise working-class people and give them collective power. She wanted them stripped of their ability to organise so ordinary workers were left isolated and powerless.  Thatcher took on the health trade unions, the steelworkers, the printers and then the NUM during her tenure. Despite having the panoply of the state on her side, including the police, the courts, the media, the social security system and weak Labour leaders, the miners came agonisingly close to defeating her under Scargill’s leadership. The March 1984 to March 1985 strike she precipitated and planned for was accurately described as ‘a civil war without bullets’ but sadly she won and every coal mine across the UK was eventually closed and the NUM destroyed.  The anti-trade union laws she used against the miners were beefed up by successive Tory governments and the latest set of measures which introduced ridiculously difficult thresholds for successful strike ballots was enacted in 2016. How shameful it was that the Blair/Brown governments of 1997-2010 lifted not a finger to repeal anti-trade union laws that have been condemned by human rights organisations and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as severe infringements on the freedoms of trade unions.  Thankfully Corbyn’s Labour party has committed itself to repeal those anti-trade union laws. That’s another reason why the rich bosses of Britain despise him and his policies. The thought of ordinary workers becoming empowered in the fight for better employment conditions scares them in their comfortable boardrooms as they devise more schemes to further enhance their already bloated salaries and pensions.  The words of CWU leader, Dave Ward, deserve to be publicised widely and paid heed by ordinary workers across the UK. This judgement should alert every worker to the rigged class nature of the courts and legal system as it exists first and foremost to defend the status quo, the British elites, the rich and the powerful: • "We balloted over 110,000 members and they voted by over 97% in favour of strike action in a massive 76% turnout. • Not one single person out of 110,000 who were balloted complained to Royal Mail that their right to vote was interfered with. • Not one single person out of 110,000 who were balloted complained to the independent scrutineers that their right to vote was interfered with. • This injunction is not only a massive injustice to our members, it's also an injustice to every worker in the country. • We all need to wake up and recognise that this Tory government has deliberately stacked the rules against workers in favour of the constituency they were born to serve - which is big business and the establishment".  If this decision took place in Cuba, Venezuela, Russia or any other country considered undemocratic by the Western billionaire media it would be condemned with relish as evidence of restricted freedom. Yet it took place in London and got hardly a comment on the broadcast media, Channel 4 accorded it less than 10 seconds.  This strike ballot was held between September 24th and October 15th. The Electoral Reform Services who conducted the ballot confirmed it was run in full accordance with the law, and after over seven weeks since the ballot commenced, not one single person has complained to the certification officer who is appointed by the Government to regulate trade unions.  United, bold and widespread solidarity action across all trade unions is necessary to force the scrapping of the anti-union laws. I’m on the side of the posties and the trade union movement in this class war.


sputnik--2019-12-01--United Auto Workers Union Says It Signed Preliminary Agreement With Fiat Chrysler

Fiat Chrysler and the United Auto Workers union have negotiated a tentative agreement which is to provide billions of dollars in investments and thousands of jobs, the United Auto Workers union declared on Saturday.  The full details of the agreement remain unknown, but, according to the union, it is similar to those concluded with GM and Ford.  She added that FCA is ready to invest $4.5 billion dollars, which is expected to create about 7,900 new jobs.  The agreement reportedly provides employees with a $9,000 bonus and a three percent increase in salary in the second and fourth years of the contract.  The chief executives of UAW's local branches will meet on Wednesday to decide whether to recommend the deal to members. If they decide to do so, employees will have about two weeks, starting Friday, to approve the deal in their turn.


talkingpointsmemo--2019-01-10--Federal Workers Union Sues Over Forced Work Without Pay During Shutdown

Federal Workers’ Union Sues Over Forced Work Without Pay During Shutdown

A union representing 150,000 government employees — including workers at the IRS, Customs and Border Protection, EPA, FDA and other agencies — sued the government Wednesday, saying the Trump administration had too broadly interpreted a law that requires certain federal employees to work without pay during shutdowns.  “If employees are working, they must be paid—and if there is not money to pay them, then they should not be working,” Tony Reardon, the national president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), said in a press release accompanying the suit.  Thousands of employees across several agencies have been working without pay as the partial government shutdown drags on.  The law in question, the Antideficiency Act, says the government may require employees to work during shutdowns in “emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.” It was later amended to clarify that “the term ‘emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property’ does not include ongoing, regular functions of government the suspension of which would not imminently threaten the safety of human life or the protection of property.”  That latter category of work, the NTEU said in a complaint filed Wednesday, is exactly what the Trump administration — and specifically acting chief of staff and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who approved agencies’ shutdown contingency plans — has allowed to take place.  “Many of the employees designated as excepted, in accordance with the OMB directive, including many members of Plaintiff NTEU, are persons whose services involve only ‘the ongoing, regular functions of government, the suspension of which would not imminently threaten the safety of human life or the protection of property,’” the complaint reads in part. “Their excepted status is thus inconsistent with the plain text of the Antideficiency Act.”  As an example, the union said the administration will likely force some IRS workers to help process Americans’ tax refunds.  “These employees would not be paid for the work that they perform during the lapse in appropriations,” the complaint reads.  The union asked the court to declare the Antideficiency Act unconstitutional, for bypassing Congress’ power of the purse, or, alternatively, to declare the Trump administration in violation of the plain text of the law because of its over-broad interpretation of who is considered an excepted employee.  The suit followed a separate legal effort from members of the union alleging that the administration has violated the Fair Labor Standards Act during the shutdown. The union held rallies across the country Thursday to highlight the impact of federal workers losing pay during the shutdown.


theatlantic--2019-08-24--Why 2020 Campaign Workers Are Suddenly Unionizing

The notion that unionization doesn’t jibe with the boom-and-bust nature of presidential-campaign work began to change earlier this year, at least on the Democratic side. (It’s an entirely different situation in the GOP: Though President Donald Trump has shaken up the GOP’s associations with union voters, his party has traditionally expressed hostility to labor.) The most prominent campaigns to organize so far are those of the two lefty heavyweights in the race: Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. But they’re not the only ones. So have staffers for former Housing Secretary Julián Castro and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. (Eric Swalwell’s team also unionized before the congressman grounded his long-shot 2020 bid in July.) When workers make a move to collectively bargain, it’s not uncommon for employers to try to thwart their efforts: Unionizing can mean heftier compensation for their employees and added bureaucracy within the workplace. But in this case, all of the campaigns have voluntarily recognized their staffers’ push to unionize.  Unionizing doesn’t turn an onerous campaign job into any sort of cushy gig. The hours are still long and tiring. No one is making a killing. (Well, except maybe the campaign’s consultants.) And so far, the effort hasn’t been without growing pains.  Of the campaigns that have organized, only Sanders’s team has ratified a union contract codifying the wages and benefits to which workers are entitled. (The rest are still in the negotiation process.) The initial terms guaranteed a $36,000 base salary for field organizers, a common entry-level job on campaigns; doubled the amount of paid time off, from two to four weeks; and capped the salaries of the campaign’s top brass. Even so, earlier this year a labor spat rocked Sanders’s campaign, when field organizers demanded that they be paid $15 an hour instead of a set salary. (For the many staffers working around the clock, hourly pay would likely add up to more than $36,000.) Instead, the campaign and its staffers hammered out an agreement for a pay raise in late July—but an anonymous staffer still claimed to have been illegally fired for union activities.  That allegation is “patently absurd,” said a Sanders staffer who is part of the union and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about the campaign’s collective bargaining. “I don’t think you really hear union folks typically saying, ‘Management’s fucking awesome,’ but our management’s been really great with this. They voluntarily acknowledged the union. They did it right away—there was no hesitation.”  Staffers’ push to unionize is a reflection of the changing landscape for workers in this country. But their bosses’ consent may also reflect a reality for the campaigns themselves: They need all the help they can get—from union allies and from their own staff—to win the crowded Democratic primary.


theblaze--2019-07-19--Bernie Sanders campaign is battling its own unionized workers who are demanding the 15 minimum wag

Bernie Sanders' campaign is battling its own unionized workers who are demanding the $15 minimum wage he wants to impose on the country


theblaze--2019-08-02--Union boss warns 2020 Dems You cant count on workers votes

Union boss warns 2020 Dems: You can't count on workers' votes  'Let's be honest about the Democratic Party's record'


theconservativetreehouse--2019-08-08--Wow AFL-CIO Union Comes Out in Support of Illegal Alien Workers Taking US Jobs

Wow, AFL-CIO Union Comes Out in Support of Illegal Alien Workers Taking U.S. Jobs…

In a remarkable admission today on Twitter AFL-CIO Labor Union President Richard Trumka supports the principle of illegal alien workers taking the jobs of American workers.  This is quite a bucket of sunlight upon a previously hidden agenda.  It is quite remarkable to see a large U.S. labor union now standing in support of illegal workers in the U.S.  There was a time, throughout the history of labor unions, when some of the strongest immigration voices were against American worker displacement.  Apparently that time is passed.  The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union was recently impacted by a federal immigration authority raid in Mississippi; which resulted in almost 700 illegal alien workers being identified and removed. In addition to the unlawful border entry, most of the illegal workers used fake documents, fake identifications and stolen social security numbers to falsify employment eligibility.  In the past several years there has been a considerable disconnect between labor union leadership and the best interest of the workers they represent.  As the Democrat party has moved to direct support of open-borders, apparently the labor union leadership is following.  In 2007 labor unions aligned strongly with candidate Obama over the promise of removing the liability of healthcare from their finances, in exchange for union support.  The union need for Obamacare was big part of the back-room discussions between labor and the Obama team. Ultimately it was Obama’s promises to the SEIU, AFSCME, AFL-CIO and UFCW that sealed his nomination over Hillary Clinton.  As a result, SEIU President Andy Stern was the number one visitor to the White House following Obama’s successful election win in 2008.   Andy Stern’s job was to get healthcare removed from the union ledgers by any means necessary.  This was the cornerstone of what became known as Obamacare.  Fast foward to 2019 and perhaps this radically shifted labor union outlook toward illegal aliens is a repeat of 2007.  Another backroom deal would explain why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are now pushing for a $15/hr federal minimum wage.  Most labor union wage contracts are pegged to the federal minimum wage rate.  If the minimum wage jumps $8/hr, the union worker earning $45/hr would see a corresponding jump to $53/hr.  In essence the Democrats would be paying-off the labor union leadership for open-border immigration support by promising a much higher wage increase for union workers. In exchange for the promise of a higher wage rate, the labor unions will activate again in 2020 to the scale they did in 2008 (ballot harvesting etc); and simultaneously start supporting illegal alien workers.  Another deal between two devils….


thedailybeast--2019-01-09--TSA Workers Forced to Work Without Pay During Shutdown Are Already Quitting Union Says

TSA Workers Forced to Work Without Pay During Shutdown Are Already Quitting, Union Says

Airport security screeners, forced to work without pay during the government shutdown, have been calling out sick. But now the mad-as-hell workers are actually quitting their jobs.  That’s according to union officials representing Transportation Security Administration officers, who will miss their first paycheck since the government ground to a halt Dec. 22 over a budget and border wall impasse.  “Some of them have already quit and many are considering quitting the federal workforce because of this shutdown,” Hydrick Thomas, head of the American Federation of Government Employees' TSA Council, said in a statement Tuesday.  “The loss of officers, while we're already shorthanded, will create a massive security risk for American travelers since we don't have enough trainees in the pipeline or the ability to process new hires. Our TSOs already do an amazing job without the proper staffing levels, but if this keeps up there are problems that will arise—least of which would be increased wait times for travelers.”  Because the security officers are considered essential employees, they have to work regardless of whether they get paid. Some have called out sick, whether in protest or to work another job.  One TSA worker at JFK International Airport in New York told The Daily Beast that at least 15 of his coworkers have called out since the shutdown began on Dec. 22—and he might be next.  “Listen, I love my job and I have been willing to work for free as people in Washington sort everything out,” said the worker, who has been on the job for about a year and asked to remain anonymous.  “But how long is this going to take? I have a newborn,” he said. “I can barely afford to miss this pay period. I don’t want to lose my job but I also don’t want to lose my apartment, you know?”  The sickout was blamed for nightmarish lines at some airports last weekend. Administration officials downplayed the impact, with Homeland Security spokesman Tyler Houlton tweeting that reports of absent workers were “fake news”—earning praise from President Trump.  But two groups representing the aviation industry say the threat to safety and sanity from the shutdown is all too real. A pilots’ union and an organization representing hundreds of airports called on Washington this week to get the government back to work.  “The significant reduction in federal operations under the shutdown is already causing numerous problems at our nation’s airports,” Airports Council International-North America wrote in a letter Tuesday to President Trump and congressional leaders.  The group, the lobby arm of commercial airports across the country, cited longer wait times at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints and Customs and Border Protection ports of entry, and overburdened Federal Aviation Administration employees.  “Both passengers and cargo are likely to face increased processing times during the shutdown due to staffing shortages,” the letter said, adding that FAA furloughs mean “no one will be there to develop and approve enhanced flight procedures, install and maintain navigational aids and air-traffic control support systems, coordinate the review of applications for new or expanded airport facilities, or hire and train new air traffic controllers.”  And the Air Line Pilots Association International said in a letter to Trump that the shutdown is “adversely affecting the safety, security and efficiency of our national airspace system.” The union said fewer inspections because of the staffing crunch will “potentially allow for the introduction of safety issues that put passengers and airline crews at risk.”  An increase in recreational drones with fewer workers to crack down on them could cause problems and delays, the association said. And the shutdown has also snarled implementation of a new communications system and may force substantial retraining.  Long lines at some major airports over the weekend had dissipated by the start of the work week. Wait times appeared to be about average at JFK and LaGuardia in New York and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Monday and Tuesday.  But passengers still girded for chaos, adding a new element of uncertainty and anxiety to their travels.  Stanley Anderson, 52, heading for LaGuardia’s Terminal B security checkpoint on Tuesday, said the short lines are just the “calm before the storm.”  “This problem can’t get better under the shutdown, right? So while everything may be working smoothly this morning, it’s only a matter of time before disaster strikes,” Anderson, an insurance agent traveling to Cincinnati, Ohio, told The Daily Beast.  “All I can say if I don’t want to be traveling when it happens.”  Another passenger got to JFK for a flight six hours early.  “My daughter missed her flight over the weekend because of a long security line and I refused to be screwed over because politicians can’t get their act together to pay TSA agents and end this shutdown,” said the traveler, a 65-year-old man who said his name was Brian.  “People in Washington don’t realize that their actions affect others. People at this airport are not getting paid to do their job, which leaves people like me having to spend their vacation waiting around the airport,” he said.  Paul Hudson, president of Flyers Rights, a passengers’ rights organization, who said that while delays from the shutdown “have been isolated to negligible” so far, the problems will only get worse if the shutdown continues past Friday’s payday—at which point some workers may have to call out sick or quit to take other jobs.  And, Hudson added, “when weather events or computer outages occur the DOT aviation consumer protection, investigation, and enforcement offices are on furlough and not reporting to work.  “So there is no real current real-time enforcement going on.”  With the government shutdown dragging into its third week, and no immediate end in sight, overworked TSA agents were finding it difficult to be motivated.  Asked how she feels about the shutdown, one TSA agent at Reagan smiled and flashed a side-eye glance. “That’s my answer.”  “How would you feel if you had to work and you didn’t know when you were going to get paid?” she added.  “I’m not optimistic,” a male TSA agent at Reagan added. “Just get something done. I’m here regardless, either way. There’s a lot of people riding on it.”  A LaGuardia TSA agent said the problem isn’t that the existing agents are being overworked; it’s that they don’t have enough bodies in the event of an emergency.  “We are trained to handle working multiple jobs if we are understaffed, but what if there is another major holiday or a storm that knocks out flights? We are unprepared for any situation other than a normal work day,” said the agent, a mother of two.  The TSA has insisted no one is at risk.  “Security effectiveness will not be compromised and performance standards will not change,” the agency tweeted on Friday. “Wait times may be affected depending on the number of call outs.”  “We understand that the current lapse in funding may be causing added stress for our workforce and want to continue to express that we are grateful to the more than 51,000 officers across the country who remain focused on the mission,” Michael Bilello, the agency’s spokesperson, added on Tuesday.  The Federal Aviation Administration told CBS on Monday that security inspectors at some airports are being called back to work on a “case-by-case basis.”  “We’re going to continue to prioritize with the resources that we have,” FAA spokesman Gregory Martin. “Our focus is on the commercial air carriers and volumes of people they carry.”  Union officials with the AFGE have not said how many TSA workers have called out sick or quit—but it’s pushing for its members to get paid to stay on the job.  “TSA Officers already have the least amount of rights of any federal officer, some of the lowest pay and highest attrition rates in government, and among the lowest morale of any federal agency. Working for weeks on end without being compensated—while already being short-staffed—only makes their situation worse,” union president J. David Cox Sr., said in a statement.  "It's very disheartening when I get calls from workers who are afraid they can't pay their bills or rent, and it kills me to tell them there may not be an end in sight. These public servants joined the federal workforce so they could serve their country, and they do an admirable job.”  The Daily Beast contacted the TSA for comment for this story and received in return an email from spokesperson Lisa Fabstein that explained that due to the “lapse in federal funding,” she will not respond to inquiries “until after budget appropriations are enacted.”


thedailyblog--2019-05-07--Unite Union accuses Immigration Minister of breaking promise to Chinese construction workers

Unite Union has accused Immigration New Zealand of doing nothing to help a group of 50 Chinese workers brought to New Zealand by National Personnel Limited and their agent Peter Li.  Despite promises to help by Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway in January no worker has received a variation to their visa to allow them to work for another employer or to renew their existing visas to make up the lost income from when they had little work for five months.  The workers also paid around $40,000 in agents fees in China to get these jobs and were told that it would be full-time work with decent wages. Many were only given a one-year visa but were told that they could renew it easily. No-one would have paid these high fees otherwise.  For their first five months in New Zealand work was intermittent or non-existent. Only after Unite Union filed a legal case for lost wages against NPL and Peter Li did NPL begin paying most workers regularly. This was to avoid the additional liability they would incur if they lose the case in the Employment Relations Authority.  But Immigration NZ did not help a single worker change employer. They have forced these workers to continue working for NPL even while there is an immigration fraud investigation being conducted involving the company and the agent.  Half the visas are expiring in the next few months and it seems Immigration NZ is blocking any extension of these except for six or seven who have been asked to give evidence in a possible fraud case and offered a limited purposes visa for this case.  For other workers, documentation and evidence of experience that was acceptable for the first visas issued is no longer acceptable. New demands are being made for additional information not required earlier that is difficult to provide.  These workers face the probability of going back to China completely destitute.  In this case, forcing workers out will also prevent them from being able to be here for the legal case against NPL and Pete Li. NPL has also been able to use the fact these workers are still employed to “persuade” 10 workers to pull out of the legal case for back wages with a false promise that NPL may be able to help get new visas for them.  The humanitarian thing to do would be to issue a “Special Direction” for a visa waiver so that they don’t have the climb all the hurdles being demanded of them.  This power exists for the Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway or senior officials to use when it is obviously inhumane to apply the rules without any discretion. This is clearly one of those cases. The minister could understand that fact in January and now seems to have been recaptured by his officials.  The previous National Party Minister of Immigration was also able to do something like that for his Dairy farmer mates in Southland to keep their migrant workers from the Philippines when they were faced with being sent back home after their visas began expiring.  Immigration NZ seems infected with a culture that treats the victims of migrant exploitation as somehow co-conspirators in their own exploitation who should be thrown out at the earliest opportunity.  Why do we bother electing a government if the bureaucrats continue to carry on in the old ways?  Radio New Zealand report on January 11, 2019, Headed: “Move to help stranded Chinese workers with visa variation”  Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said Immigration New Zealand was working with the men and the Unite union to see what help it could offer. He said Unite union has handed over a list of 57 workers who need help with their visas. “The sorts of things that they’ll be looking into is, can there be a variation to their visas that allows them to pick up work [with other employers]. “I believe that a number of employers have come forward and offered the opportunity to work, and that’s what these workers are looking for. They just want to be able to work, earn some money, and take care of themselves whilst they’re in New Zealand.” Mr Lees-Galloway said the workers’ welfare was a priority.  See also Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway promises alternative visas for Chinese workers


thedailycaller--2019-09-16--Auto Workers Strike Against GM Comes As Union Leaders Face Corruption Investigation

About 49,000 United Auto Workers members walked out against General Motors factories across the country Monday as the union’s leadership battles corruption allegations.  UAW’s contract of four years with GM expired Saturday night, and its members from all over the country are demanding fair wages, job security, affordable health care and other benefits, according to a Sunday statement from the labor union.  Pay for entry-level assembly workers starts at around $20 an hour, but union members want that number to increase to $30 in three or four years, TIME magazine reported.  GM said it offered members 5,400 new jobs, $7 billion in investments and wage benefits including better profit-sharing and health care plans, according to a Sunday statement.  “We presented a strong offer that improves wages, benefits and grows U.S. jobs in substantive ways and it is disappointing that the UAW leadership has chosen to strike at midnight tonight,” the car manufacturer said in a statement. “We have negotiated in good faith and with a sense of urgency. Our goal remains to build a strong future for our employees and our business.”  The strike comes as the Justice Department investigates UAW’s leadership for corruption after the FBI raided the home of UAW President Gary Jones on Aug. 28 and discovered more than $30,000 in cash and an expensive set of golf clubs purchases with union money, according to the Detroit Free Press citing an affidavit written by a Labor Department official.  UAW said in an Aug. 28 statement that the union and Jones “have always fully cooperated with the government investigators in this matter. As the leader of the UAW, President Jones is determined to uncover and address any and all wrongdoing, wherever it might lead.” (RELATED: Scantily Clad Women Lit The Cigars Of High-Level UAW Officials, Paid For By Car Companies)  “There was absolutely no need for search warrants to be used by the government today — the UAW has voluntarily responded to every request the government has made throughout the course of its investigation, produced literally hundreds of thousands of documents and other materials to the government, and most importantly, when wrongdoing has been discovered, we have taken strong action to address it,” the statement continued.  Federal authorities on Sept. 12 accused Jones, as well as former UAW President Dennis Williams and UAW Region 5 Director Vance Pearson, of organizing a scheme to embezzle member dues and spend that money on personal items, The Detroit News reported citing three sources familiar with the criminal case.  The criminal case also details how UAW leaders allegedly spent more than $1 million intended for a UAW worker training center with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles “on Palm Springs villas, steakhouse dinners, 107 rounds of golf, golf gear, cigars and $400 bottles of Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne,” The Detroit News reported.  Pearson has been attending negotiation meetings to help come up with a deal between the union and GM, The Detroit News reported Monday.  Pearson also allegedly lied to a Detroit News reporter who asked, “Are you Vance Pearson?” He replied, “No, ma’am,” according to the report.  UAW said in a Sept. 13 statement, “While these allegations are very concerning, we strongly believe that the government has misconstrued any number of facts and emphasize that these are merely allegations, not proof of wrongdoing. Our highest priority is maintaining the trust and confidence of United Auto Workers members.”  The strike could cost GM nearly $50 million per day in earnings, and pre-market trading shares fell 3.2% Monday, TIME reported citing Credit Suisse analyst Dan Levy.  President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday night, “Here we go again with General Motors and the United Auto Workers. Get together and make a deal!”  2020 Democratic presidential candidates including Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont; former Vice President Joe Biden; New York entrepreneur Andrew Yang; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro expressed support for union.  Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.


thedailycaller--2019-11-22--VA Secretary Says Workers Need Labor Protection From Union Officials

• Thirteen employees have said J. David Cox, longtime president of the federal union AFGE, sexually harassed them. • Union members say various complaints were ignored by the union headquarters, and one said sex was expected to get ahead. • Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie turned the tables on the union on Thursday, writing that he had concerns about whether they were respecting workers’ rights.  A cabinet secretary sent a letter to a major union saying he’s concerned about workers’ safety after “a culture of sexual harassment” was allegedly rampant at the American Federation of Government Employees’ national headquarters.  Robert Wilkie, the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, wrote Thursday in the letter: “In light of recent events at your organization and the lack of information about how deep this problem goes, I am writing to get your personal and public assurance that you will protect VA employees who are members of your union from any form of harassment by union officials, while thoroughly investigation all allegations of impropert behavior. VA spends considerable time and resources making sure its working environment is fair, inclusive, and psycohologically safe for all, and it is important to us that the valued members of our team who complain about sexual harassment are not frustrated, neglected, or ignored by AFGE leadership.”  AFGE National President J. David Cox has taken a leave of absence after 10 different employees alleged misconduct to a Bloomberg journalist.  Those including his 31-year old male former communications director, Brett Copeland, who said during a business meeting in Palm Springs, California in 2017, Cox stuck his tongue in Copeland’s ear and attempted to lure him to a jacuzzi.  After he went on leave, three more people told Bloomberg he pressured them to arrange prostitutes for him, and one said Cox suggested they watch porn together in his hotel room.  Cox denied the allegations in a letter Oct. 27, saying “I am truly sorry if I ever made anyone feel uncomfortable [but] I cannot abide lies and scurrilous, politically-motivated attacks. I am a lifelong defender of due process and trust the investigation will sort the fact from fiction.” (RELATED: With Help Of Union, VA Worker Gets Job Back Despite Armed Robbery Charge)  Bloomberg reported on Nov. 14: “People in positions of power at AFGE have failed for years to deal with complaints about inappropriate behavior, bullying or bias, leaving workers and union members frustrated and anxious, dozens of current and former staff and members say.”  “The alleged misconduct by Cox was just the highest-profile example of the yawning gap between the organization’s public persona as a champion of worker rights and the way it treated its own people, says Caniesha Washington,” Bloomberg reported. Washington was an official with an internal union that represented AFGE employees against union management.  Suzanne Sapp-Snurpus, a former AFGE employee, told Bloomberg it was well-known that the AFGE general counsel’s office shrugged off complaints about workplace harassment.  Amber Westbrook, a former union member, said her local union president told her sex was the way to get ahead in the union, and demanded adjoining hotel rooms at a conference, Bloomberg reported. She said she reported it to the general counsel, to no effect.  Rocky Kabir, Cox’s former secretary, said he repeatedly reported incidents such as Cox encouraging him to be open to having sex with men, asking him to shower with him, and touching his face.  He said AFGE’s public policy director, Jacque Simon, did nothing when he reported it.  He resigned and complained again, and Cox then tried to have Kabir investigated for age discrimination, after complining about the 68-year old Cox.  Wilkie, whose agency houses the largest AFGE section, said “AFGE represents 260,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and VA takes very seriously the problem of sexual harassment as well as other actions that create a hostile work environment. Our efforts should be bolstered by AFGE, which has long claimed to have an interest in protecting the rights of workers.”  Cox has led the union since 2012. In 2016, Cox threatened to “whoop” then-VA Secretary Robert McDonald’s “ass” and called then-House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican, “a fool,” in part for pushing for legislation to make it easier to fire VA workers for misconduct.  On Nov. 15, Wilkie cracked down on union officials using taxpayer money to do labor organizing, telling AFGE that it “will be required to vacate or pay rent for the use of VA office space and equipment that they previously used for free. Further, VA employees who serve as union representatives are now expected to spend at least 75 percent of their paid time performing VA business.”  In January, during a budget crisis-induced partial government shutdown that kept some nonessential workers at home, an AFGE official said politicians must restore their salaries or else veterans who worked in the federal government would kill themselves.  That triggered a furious letter from Wilkie to Cox, who said AFGE was promoting false stereotypes and exploiting “the real tragedy of Veteran suicide to make political arguments about the partial Government shutdown.”  Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.


thedenverpost--2019-03-13--King Soopers union workers to hold strike vote this week

Union workers at King Soopers and City Market stores will hold a vote on Thursday and Friday with two options before them in their ongoing contract negotiations with their employer.  The first option: Accept the latest contract proposal from the company, closing the book on what has become a contentious labor negotiation with the largest grocery chain in Colorado. The second: Vote to authorize a strike, a move that would not immediately result in workers walking off the job but clears the way for that outcome if the two sides cannot reach an agreement.  King Soopers, meanwhile, is hiring temporary workers to ensure “stores can continue to serve our communities,” while lobbying union workers to accept the deal on the table.  The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 announced voting plans in a news release Tuesday while continuing to blast the company’s latest contract proposal. UFCW Local 7, which represents more than 12,000 of King Soopers and City Market’s 23,000 employees, claims the contract would freeze pay for around half of all employees over the next three years, increase health care costs and reduce full-time jobs and hours for part-time workers in favor of more “gig economy” positions.  “Authorizing a strike is a difficult decision for any worker, but we are committed to making King Soopers and City Market a better place to both work and shop,” UFCW Local 7 president Kim Cordova said in a news release. “We remain hopeful that the company will come to the table with an offer that provides King Soopers and City Market workers with the benefits they have earned and deserve.”  King Soopers issued a news release of its own Tuesday highlighting benefits the company says the new contract will provide workers. They include wage increases over the next three years, with “top-rate” associates having the potential to be bumped up $2,000 over that time frame, and zero increases to employees’ health care costs. The release emphasized the company’s continued commitment to its employee pension fund, an increasingly rare perk at American companies.  King Soopers/City Market operates 152 stores, 148 of them in Colorado. It is a Denver-based subsidiary of grocery industry giant Kroger.  “We have come to this offer with each of our associates in mind,” King Soopers/City Market president Dennis Gibson said in the release. “I am confident when our associates read through the details of this offer they will see we are making significant investments in them.”  The two sides have been negotiating a new contract since late 2018. The existing contract expired in January. Union members voted to end a temporary extension in late February, setting up this month’s escalation.  The current proposal, which King Soopers officials say is their last, best offer, was put forth Thursday. The union accused company negotiators of walking out of talks that night as an intimidation tactic. The company has pushed back saying it was available to talk more on Friday but the union clearly was not interested.  Votes on the contract offer and strike authorization will be collected across six meetings later this week. Results are expected to be known by late Friday night.


theepochtimes--2019-10-17--GM, Autoworkers Union Reach Tentative Agreement That Could Put End to Month-Long Strike

GM, Autoworkers Union Reach Tentative Agreement That Could Put End to Month-Long Strike  The United Auto Workers Union has reached a tentative agreement with General Motors (GM) which could bring an end to a nationwide strike that began over a month ago.  News of the tentative deal was announced by leaders of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union on Wednesday, a month after nearly 50,000 hourly workers began their strike on Sept. 16, which brought the automaker’s U.S. factories to a standstill.  Details of the four-year agreement have not yet been released, however GM has reportedly promised increased wages of of 3 percent to 4 percent, lump-sum payments, access to premium health insurance at little cost to employees, promises of new products for many U.S. factories, and chances for temporary workers to enter full-time employment.  It comes after initial talks which sparked the strike in which GM said it planned to cut labor costs at its factories, which are about $13 per hour higher than at foreign automakers in the United States. Workers who walked out of their jobs last month said they wanted a bigger share of GM’s profits and better job security.  Workers are likely to strike for at least another few days, until union committees decide whether to proceed with the deal. If this is successful, the union workers must vote on it.  UAW Vice President Terry Dittes said in a statement: “The number one priority of the national negotiation team has been to secure a strong and fair contract that our members deserve.”  Dittes said the union’s bargaining committee recommends that the GM National Council vote favorably on putting the tentative agreement up for a ratification vote, reported the Los Angeles Times.  He added he is refraining from divulging details until union committee members vote on whether to approve the agreement during a private meeting on Oct. 17 in Detroit. Whether workers will return to work of remain on picket lines while a decision is being made will also be decided by local leaders.  Now in its fifth week, the strike has cost the company an estimated $2 billion, and could last another two weeks during a ratification vote, and a week at best if fast-tracked. This could cost the company another half a billion, reported Bloomberg, citing calculations made by Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy.  The strike immediately brought GM’s U.S. factories to a halt, and within a week started to hamper production in Mexico and Canada. Analysts at KeyBanc investment services estimated the stoppage cut GM vehicle production by 250,000 to 300,000 vehicles.  Workers, on the other hand, lost north of $3,000 each on average, the difference between their base wages and $250 per week in strike pay from the union.  “It’s nice to see there’s a deal, but without knowing the details I’m a little skeptical because we don’t know the highlights or the lowlights,” worker Nick Kuhlman told AP.  The strike had shut down 33 GM manufacturing plants in nine states across the United States, and also took down factories in Canada and Mexico. It was the first national strike by the union since a two-day walkout in 2007, and the longest since a 54-day strike in Flint, Michigan, in 1998 that also halted most of GM’s production.  The Associated Press contributed to this report.


theguardian--2019-12-08--Joe Biden: prosecute companies that stop workers forming unions

Joe Biden has proposed criminal prosecution of companies that deprive workers of their rights to organise unions as part of what he called the corporate war on labour.  The former vice-president made a vigorous defence of the labour movement at a forum of Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa organised by the giant Teamsters union in partnership with the Guardian and the Storm Lake Times on Saturday.  All six candidates at the forum emphasised the close link between stagnant wages, surging corporate profits and four decades of legislation weakening labour unions, such as so-called right to work laws curbing union activity and collective bargaining. Biden said productivity in the past 40 years was up 64%, and with it shareholder dividends, while wages have risen just 8%.  “You’re the only ones who can keep the barbarians at the gate,” he told Teamster union members. “They only understand power. Power. Countervailing power. And you guys have been getting killed, organised labour … There’s been a war on labour’s house for the last 30 years.”  Two other frontrunners, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, echoed the sentiment by saying they would pass federal laws guaranteeing the rights of union members to organise and negotiate. But Biden went further and said that as president he would consider criminal prosecution of the most egregious cases of companies denying workers their legal rights to organise.  “Employers spend a billion dollars a year trying to bust unions from trying to start up in the first place,” he said.  Biden said relatively small fines imposed for such activities were no deterrent and that he would change the law to fine individual managers who order illegal anti-union moves. In some cases, he said, he would also look to pursue criminal prosecutions to protect workers rights.  “We should think about criminalisation,” he said. “If you’re engaged in trying to prevent people from voting in a polling place in a regular election, what happens? You can be held criminally liable. What is the fundamental difference between saying that a powerful employer can intimidate workers to not get engaged and vote for a union, that you have a right to vote for?”  Unspoken but hanging over the forum was the knowledge that many Teamster members voted for Donald Trump in 2016, frequently out of a mix of dislike of Hillary Clinton and a desperation to shake up an economic system not working for them. Sanders said they had been betrayed by Trump, who promised he was “going to stand with the working class of this country” and then served the rich.  Buttigieg took on those who still back Trump because they are told the economy is doing well while they are struggling to survive.  “When that sun comes up on the United States that first day Trump is no longer president, we’re going to have some big problems on our hands and one of those problems is going to be this economy, where the numbers on the page might look good, the stock market might look good, but most Americans aren’t feeling it,” he said.  “We are actually living shorter lives … For the gross domestic product to go up and American life expectancy to go down, that shouldn’t even be possible. That tells you what’s broken in our country right now.”  Buttigieg backed the common call for a $15 an hour minimum wage but said pay across the board is too low.  “The central problem in our economy is so abundantly simple that it is almost blindingly obvious, and that is this. People don’t get paid enough in the United States of America,” he said. “The productivity of our economy grew enormously over my lifetime. Shockingly little of that has gone to the workers who are actually generating the value.  “Yeah, there’s technology and globalisation. But let’s be very clear, this is the result of policy decisions. This is the result of political decisions beginning in the Reagan era that have disempowered workers and their ability to command more of the fruits of their labour.”  The clearest division between the candidates was on healthcare, an issue that divides union members too. The Teamsters has negotiated cheap, comprehensive health insurance with some employers, particularly big ones such as the car makers. But other members of the union pay much larger premiums for more limited coverage.  As Sanders pressed his plan for a single public health insurance scheme, Medicare for All, he met with a mixed reception. Some Teamster members cheered and clapped, others shook their heads. Buttigieg found a receptive audience among the sceptics for his proposal to introduce public health insurance for those who want it without forcing union members or others happy with private insurance to give it up.  The other proponent of Medicare for All, Elizabeth Warren, was not at the forum because her campaign said there was a scheduling conflict.  The Teamsters told the candidates that a survey of members showed large numbers are worried about the future of pensions underfunded by employers and at risk of collapse following a law permitting firms to scale back pension payments to retired workers. Sanders said that was a betrayal of a pact in which workers often agreed to forgo pay rises years ago in return for increased investment in their pensions. Biden said that as president he would order the Treasury to make low cost loans available to pension funds so they can pay out as promised.  Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer also appeared. The candidates agreed that the pension crisis is further evidence of how corporate America corrupts politics to get the laws it wants at the expense of workers, and that has to change.