JOINING TOGETHER
Bismarck Bobcat workers vote to unionize, plant employs 700
KFGO
By Tasha Carvell
Sept. 29, 2022
Workers at Bobcat’s Bismarck manufacturing facility voted in favor of union representation in a secret ballot election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Wednesday. Bobcat employee Jacob Klein was one of the organizers. He said approximately 56% of the plant’s workers voted to unionize after a six-month organizing effort. United Steelworkers District 11 Director Emil Ramirez said the 700 Bobcat employees became closer as a group while organizing.
SFO Airport restaurant workers strike ends after tentative deal reached
KRON4
By Bay City News
Sept. 29, 2022
A strike involving San Francisco International Airport restaurant employees has ended after the workers’ union reached an agreement with the airport’s consortium of restaurants, union officials announced Thursday. The three-day strike that started Monday with about 1,000 workers with the union Unite Here Local 2 caused many of the restaurants to close this week, but an agreement was reached late Wednesday between the union and the restaurants and the union’s bargaining committee unanimously approved it. Details of the agreement will be released after all of the workers have a chance to vote on it Sunday, according to the union, whose workers said they hadn’t had a raise in three years and had been in negotiations with the consortium of airports for the past nine months.
Animation Guild Expands New York Organizing Push With ‘Tooning Out the News’ Effort
The Hollywood Reporter
By Katie Kilkenny
Sept. 29, 2022
The Animation Guild is attempting to further expand the union’s footprint in New York with a new effort to organize Paramount+’s Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News, the Guild revealed on Thursday. Tooning Out the News workers will be presenting management with a request for voluntary recognition on Thursday and additionally filing a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board. TAG is hoping to include 38 workers, in roles including character designers, graphic artists and riggers, in the union. The Guild maintains that it has supermajority support within this workforce for the union. The effort at the animated news satire series, co-created and executive produced by Stephen Colbert, is only the second organizing attempt by the Burbank-based IATSE Local in New York in recent history. Earlier this year, TAG won voluntary recognition for a union at studio Titmouse New York (Harriet the Spy), marking its first union outside of Los Angeles County since the signing of the Local’s charter in 1952.
Minor League Baseball hits homerun for workers’ rights with new union representation (Opinion)
Pitt News
By Grant Van Robays
Sept. 29, 2022
Players for every minor league team, including fan favorites like the Hartford Yard Goats and Lansing Lugnuts, unfortunately don’t live the lavish pro athlete lifestyle romanticized on TV. In reality, minor league baseball players are some of the most exploited and underpaid workers in the country. That may soon change thanks to a landmark victory for organized labor. Minor leaguers officially joined the Major League Baseball Players Association, also known as the MLBPA, on Sept. 14, after decades of fruitless organizing efforts. This recent success is thanks to the tireless efforts of groups like Advocates for Minor Leaguers and veteran minor league players such as Trevor Hildenberger and Joe Hudson. Hildenberger and Hudson spent the summer sharing stories of cockroach-infested apartments and sleeping on air mattresses with fellow players, advocates and lawyers. The MLBPA capitalized on the reinvigorated union talks and sent union authorization cards to about 5,500 minor leaguers in late August. The rest, as they say, is history.
SFO Restaurant Workers Strike Ends With Tentative Deal
NBC Bay Area
By NBC Bay Area staff
Sept. 29, 2022
A restaurant workers strike at San Francisco International Airport ended at 12:01 a.m. Thursday with the union claiming victory after reaching a tentative deal. In a news release, the union said workers at SFO restaurants, bars, coffee shops and lounges won significant raises and free family health care in a tentative deal for a new contract reached late Wednesday night. The strike lasted three days, and workers were back on the job Thursday morning, the union said. The deal, unanimously approved by Unite Here Local 2's bargaining committee, still needs ratification through a workers vote to be held Oct. 2. Details of the agreement will be released if and when it's ratified, the union said.
“You Can’t Eat Prestige:” Brooklyn Museum Workers Demand Better Wages
Hyperallergic
By Elaine Velie
Sept. 29, 2022
On the evening of Thursday, September 28, dozens of Brooklyn Museum union workers lined the institution’s grand entrance, chanting “overworked and underpaid” and “ancient art, not ancient wages.” Visitors to the museum’s Open House, an event celebrating the revamped Asian and Islamic art galleries, streamed in through different entrances in an attempt to circumvent the protestors. Employees at the Brooklyn Museum officially unionized in August 2021 and began contract negotiations with museum leadership in January of this year. While the two parties have reached tentative agreements on some non-economic issues, they have yet to come to terms on healthcare and wages. The day before their protest, the union announced that they had filed an Unfair Labor Practices charge against the museum with the National Board of Labor Relations, which oversaw their 2021 election into United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2110.
WORKPLACE SAFETY AND HEALTH
Activision QA worker warns OSHA about the devastating impact of crunch
Polygon
By Nicole Carpenter
Sept. 28, 2022
The practice of crunch — a word that games industry workers use to describe brutal overtime — is well-documented across multiple video game studios. You’d be hard-pressed to find a developer who hasn’t encountered it at least once. La Macchia, a senior QA tester at Activision, is one of those workers. This week, she’s at the Department of Labor’s Workers’ Voice Summit in Washington, D.C., where she’s acting as a representative for the video game industry and, in particular, for Communications Workers of America’s efforts to make the industry more equitable for workers. La Macchia is addressing government officials during the three-day conference, educating them about the health and safety risks associated with crunch. “The video game industry is brand new, at least compared to many of the other industries in the United States,” La Macchia told Polygon. “OSHA is not very present when it comes to health and safety [in the video game industry]. One of the big things that I would like to see done is proper investigation, training for health and safety concerns, and regulations.”
U.S. DOL launches black lung regulations awareness initiative
WV News
By Staff Reports
Sept. 29, 2022
The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday announced an effort to raise awareness of regulations that give coal miners with development of pneumoconiosis, or black lung, the right to work at a section of a mine with lower levels of dust without having their pay reduced or fearing discrimination or termination. Part 90 of the Title 30 Code of Federal Regulations protects miners diagnosed with pneumoconiosis, a disease caused by inhaling dust, officials said. The regulation applies to all miners at the nation’s surface and underground coal mines, including loadout facilities and preparation plants.
IN THE STATES
Ohio veterans to Majewski: Prove military service or suspend campaign
NBC4
By The Associated Press
Sept. 29, 2022
The Ohio Union Veterans Council said in a release Thursday that it is “demanding that GOP House candidate J.R. Majewski publicly provide valid documents supporting his combat veteran claims or suspend his campaign altogether.”