MUST READ
With roads and bridges covered, it's time to address human capital (Opinion)
The Hill
By Fredrick D. Redmond
December 13, 2021
For decades, the United States has neglected its roads, bridges, ports, rail and transit — the infrastructure associated with men in hard hats. For far longer, our nation has ignored the infrastructure that is more associated with women and families, like paid leave. President Biden signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law to make transformational investments in the former – and now the Senate must follow the House’s lead in passing the Build Back Better Act to implement the latter.
POLITICS
President Biden follows through with pro-union message
MSNBC
By Steve Benen
December 13, 2021
"...I am deeply troubled by reports of Kellogg's plans to permanently replace striking workers from the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International during their ongoing collective bargaining negotiations," Biden said in a written statement. "Permanently replacing striking workers is an existential attack on the union and its members' jobs and livelihoods. I have long opposed permanent striker replacements and I strongly support legislation that would ban that practice. "And such action undermines the critical role collective bargaining plays in providing workers a voice and the opportunity to improve their lives while contributing fully to their employer's success. Unions built the middle class of this country. My unyielding support for unions includes support for collective bargaining, and I will aggressively defend both."
INFRASTRUCTURE
US Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh promotes infrastructure law during Springfield visit
WAMC
By Paul Tuthill
December 13, 2021
A member of President Joe Biden’s cabinet was in western Massachusetts Monday to highlight the bipartisan infrastructure law. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh traveled to Springfield’s Union Station, which was rehabilitated from a crumbling eyesore to a modern transportation center, where he talked about how the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law will spur economic growth. “Right here where we are standing is what infrastructure means – good jobs and strong communities,” Walsh said.
JOINING TOGETHER
Citizen App Workers Vote to Unionize, Fearing Outsourcing Moves
Bloomberg
By Brody Ford and Josh Eidelson
December 13, 2021
Employees of the crime-watch app Citizen voted to unionize, a rare instance of successful labor organizing at a venture-backed technology startup. The Communications Workers of America won majority support in a National Labor Relations Board election, union spokesperson Beth Allen said. If the results are certified by the agency, the company will be legally required to negotiate with the union. The new bargaining unit would cover central operations workers tasked with sending news alerts and listening to police scanners.
PR Newswire
December 13, 2021
Staff at Big Cartel, an e-commerce platform for creative businesses, are the latest tech workers who have chosen to be represented by the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Tech Workers Union Local 1010. Today, Big Cartel's co-founders voluntarily recognized Big Cartel Workers Union through a card-check process. Contract negotiations between management and Big Cartel Workers Union will begin in January 2022. "Tech workers are becoming increasingly aware of the power a union brings them at work," said Brandon Nessen, OPEIU's organizing director. "Unionizing gives working people agency to advance not only their own interests, but the mutual interests shared by both staff and management."
Why a union victory at a single Starbucks is a good sign for the labor movement (Opinion)
Los Angeles Times
By Steven Greenhouse
December 13, 2021
Last week’s union victory at a single Starbucks in Buffalo, N.Y., may seem small, but it has huge symbolic importance. It is the only one of Starbucks’ more than 8,900 company-owned cafés in the United States to unionize, but it probably won’t be the last. Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at UC Santa Barbara, predicts that emboldened baristas at many more Starbucks across the U.S. — including perhaps in union-friendly cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco — could be inspired to rush to petition for union elections. The tiny acorn of a union victory in Buffalo could soon become a fast-growing oak in which workers across America’s service sector move toward union membership. And this, some labor experts say, could help reverse organized labor’s decline to just 1 in 10 U.S. workers.
How Priests Are Helping Workers Unionize
Sojourners
By Madison Muller
December 13, 2021
When employees want to form a union, there is often a grueling, lengthy battle for recognition from their bosses, culminating in a vote run by the National Labor Relations Board. But some employers are willing to forgo this process, opting to recognize a union that receives authorization from a majority of employees, often with a third party that counts the authorization cards. This year, some employers have been turning to priests. Last September, the Catholic Labor Network, a nonprofit dedicated to workers’ rights, trained six priests to perform “card checks” for workers looking to unionize. Since then, the priests have performed card checks for six local union efforts through UNITE HERE, a labor union that represents over 300,000 U.S. and Canadian workers in the hotel, food service, transportation, and other industries. “The Catholic church teaches that all people have dignity and all workers deserve just working conditions,” said Clayton Sinyai, CLN’s executive director. “Union membership is a primary way of achieving this.” Sinyai said that unlike some secular approaches that assume unions and employers would have an antagonistic relationship, the church thinks their disputes can be resolved peacefully and fairly.
U.S. Soccer, USWNT players union reach short-term deal to avoid strike
ESPN
By Caitlin Murray
December 13, 2021
The U.S. Soccer Federation and the union for the U.S. national women's soccer team have agreed to a short-term deal that will keep players from going on strike but offer them new freedom of movement in their club careers. The memorandum of understanding, or MOU, agreed to by U.S. Soccer and the USWNT Players Association, will delay the expiration of the team's current contract to March 31, extending no-strike and no-lockout clauses.
Starbucks workers push to unionize in Boston area after N.Y. win
Boston Globe
By Josh Eidelson
December 13, 2021
Starbucks Corp. employees are petitioning to unionize two Massachusetts coffee shops, just days after a landmark New York vote created the sole labor foothold among the chain’s thousands of corporate-run U.S. stores. In filings with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday, workers at locations in Boston and nearby Brookline requested votes on joining Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. The same union last week prevailed in initial vote-counting at one of three stores in the Buffalo region where it had petitioned in August for elections. The group fell short at a second, while the third result hinges on the outcome of voter-eligibility disputes. Workers United has also filed for votes at three other New York sites and one in Arizona.
WORKPLACE SAFETY AND HEALTH
Unions launch WA Safe + Healthy campaign seeking safe staffing levels
State of Reform
By Aaron Kunkler
December 13, 2021
Today, three Washington unions representing nurses announced a campaign to push state lawmakers to pass safe staffing level legislation during the 2022 session. The campaign, called WA Safe + Healthy, was created by a coalition encompassing the Washington State Nurses Association, UFCW 21 and SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, which collectively represent 71,000 health care workers in the state. Specific details of the plan have not been finalized, but organizers anticipate filing legislation before the upcoming session begins in early January.
The Hill
By Shirin Ali
December 13, 2021
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) released a statement on Saturday following the warehouse collapse and criticized Amazon for allegedly requiring its workers to continue working through a major tornado, calling it, “inexcusable.” Stuart Appelbaum, president of RWDSU, said in a statement, “this is another outrageous example of the company putting profits over the health and safety of their workers, and we cannot stand for this. Amazon cannot continue to be let off the hook for putting hard working people’s lives at risk.”
After Deadly Warehouse Collapse, Amazon Workers Say They Receive Virtually No Emergency Training
The Intercept
By Ken Klippenstein
December 13, 2021
The complaint, one of several posted to the company’s internal “Voice of Associates” message board and provided to The Intercept, reflects a concern expressed by a dozen Amazon employees who spoke about the lack of workplace safety afforded to workers across the country — not just related to extreme weather events but to hazards in general. Many workers, all of whom requested anonymity to protect their jobs, said they had never had a tornado or even a fire drill over the course of their careers at Amazon, dating back up to six years. Several expressed that they would be unsure of what to do in an emergency. In one case, an Amazon contractor, fearing Hurricane Ida, asked to go home early but was told that leaving would adversely affect their performance quota.
UNION BUSTING
Activision Blizzard exec asks workers to “consider the consequences” of unionising
Nme.com
By Matt Kamen
December 13, 2021
A high ranking executive at Activision Blizzard penned an open letter to the company’s employees that warned them of the “consequences” of joining a union. Brian Bulatao, the chief administrative officer of the embattled publisher and former Under Secretary of State for Management in the Trump administration, wrote to employees last Friday (December 10) over plans to unionise. Several staff members have already joined the Communication Workers of America union.