MUST READ
Shuler, Levin: Pro Act would have stopped Amazon’s tactics at Bessemer
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
May 21, 2021
In a stark illustration of how current U.S. labor law is tilted against workers, two experts on changing it—AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich., a former top union organizer—say the Protect The Right To Organize (Pro) Act would have basically outlawed Amazon’s high-pressure tactics that defeated the union organizing drive at its big warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. And they also added, in a Zoom press conference on May 20, that one defeat won’t stop organized labor’s campaign to both organize the behemoth and to increase union density in the deep-red, union-hostile South. “In the deep South, there’s a racist streak of dividing Black and white workers, and it’s called ‘right to work,’” Shuler declared. So-called RTW laws, a favorite of union haters in the corporate class and the radical right, first arose in the South in the 1940s for just that purpose.
CORONAVIRUS
Unions: CDC Moved Prematurely In Lifting Mask, Distancing Rules
The Chief-Leader
By Bob Hennelly
May 21, 2021
The state's largest registered nurses' union and a leading occupational-health nonprofit are blasting the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's decision to lift the mask mandate and the social-distancing guidance for members of the public who have been vaccinated at a time when less than half of American adults have gotten the shots. And in a May 17 tweet, the New York State Nurses Association, which represents 40,000 Registered Nurses, warned "the rushed CDC mask guidance is a rollback on patients' & workers' protections across the country. The path to stop the virus is more than the vaccine alone. This guidance will push communities to remove their masks sooner than recommended—risking lives." "We are calling on all those businesses who employ Local 338 members to continue to encourage mask-wearing in their stores and following safe practices in their establishments," texted Nikki Kateman, the political and communications director of Local 338 Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. "Out of respect to the health, safety and sacrifices of our members, we strongly encourage everyone to mask up at places like the grocery store and pharmacy. Local 338's national union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents 1.3 million food and retail workers, also blasted the CDC's new guidance, saying it would force retail workers to play "vaccination police" to sort out which customers needed to wear masks.
AMAZON
The Amazon union case has come down to a mailbox
The Verge
By Zoe Schiffer
May 21 2021
For months during the union drive, Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, felt like they were being watched. There were cameras around BHM1, the 855,000-square-foot warehouse where workers sorted, scanned, and packed boxes. A uniformed police officer patrolled the parking lot all hours of the day and night. Managers came up to peoples’ workstations to ask how they felt about the organizing campaign. So when Amazon had a new USPS mailbox installed — ostensibly to increase voter turnout — many felt they couldn’t trust it. “Amazon said only the post office had access to it, but that’s not how it felt,” said Serena Wallace, an employee BHM1 who testified on behalf of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). “I avoided the mailbox.”
IMMIGRATION
Biden Will Allow Haitian Immigrants In The US To Obtain Temporary Protected Status
BuzzFeed News
By Hamed Aleaziz
May 22, 2021
The Biden administration will grant more than 100,000 Haitians in the US the opportunity to gain temporary protected status, shielding them from deportation and allowing them to obtain work permits, according to a Department of Homeland Security document provided to BuzzFeed News. The decision, which immigrant advocates have been pushing for several months, comes as Haiti suffers from a growing political crisis after the opposition party’s calls for the president to step down failed. Reports of increased gang violence and kidnappings have roiled parts of the country, which is already struggling to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
JOINING TOGETHER
American Federation Of Musicians Files Unfair Labor Charge Against HBO’s ‘The Gilded Age’
Deadline
By David Robb
May 21, 2021
The American Federation of Musicians has filed an unfair labor practices charge against HBO, claiming that musicians on The Gilded Age, its 10-part miniseries filming in New York, were fired after they asked to be represented by the union. The charge was filed with the National Labor Relations Board. After a meeting this morning with the show’s producers, “The musicians were told that HBO would not be contracting with the AFM and then were informed they were no longer employed for the production,” the union said in a statement. “The orchestra musicians had asked to be accorded the same respect as their colleagues working in other crafts on the set and to be represented by their union.”
NLRB
Lush Cosmetics Illegally Interrogated Worker About Union Activity, NLRB Says
Vice
By Lauren Kaori Gurley
May 20, 2021
Following a three month investigation, the National Labor Relations Board has issued a complaint against Lush Cosmetics for violating U.S. labor law by allegedly interrogating and threatening workers at a San Francisco store for engaging in union activity, Motherboard has confirmed. "[Lush] threatened employees with unspecified reprisals by instructing them that making 'unsubstantiated allegations' about the company [on the company's internal forum] would constitute misconduct," the complaint, which was obtained by Motherboard, states.
IN THE STATES
Ron Bieber: Mean-spirited GOP attacks on unemployed workers must stop
Michigan Advance
By Ron Bieber
May 21, 2021
Over the last several weeks, the dated, racist myth of the “welfare queen” has taken on a new form as corporations and Republican politicians have worked together to advance a false narrative that unemployment benefits are incentivizing people not to work. Let’s get a couple things straight: First, the last president oversaw four years of middling job and income growth that culminated with a disastrously mishandled pandemic that the country is still fighting back to recover from.
Unionization amendment that would prohibit ‘right to work laws’ in IL clears Senate
Belleville News-Democrat
By Peter Hancock
May 22, 2021
The Illinois Senate on Friday, May 21, passed and sent to the House a proposed constitutional amendment that would establish a fundamental right of employees to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. Sen. Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, lead sponsor of the measure in the Senate, said the amendment is a response to the relatively stagnant wages most workers have seen since the 1970s when union membership nationally began to decline. “The falling rate of unionization has lowered wages, not only because some workers no longer received the higher union wage, but also because there is less pressure on nonunion employers to raise wages,” he said. “The ability of unions to set labor standards has declined.”
Labor groups file lawsuit against W.Va. law on union dues, claim law is retaliation
WCHS ABC 8
By Bob Aaron
May 21, 2021
More than a dozen West Virginia labor groups are going to court to challenge a new state law that blocks the process of withholding union dues from public employee paychecks. The law effectively bans the deductions for most public workers, including teachers. Some have been routine for more than 50 years. A lawsuit filed in court Thursday claims the law violates equal protection and contracts clauses of the state constitution, as well as free speech provisions. “This is still America, and we should not have our freedom attacked and we think this is an attack on our freedoms to spend our money how we want to spend it,” American Federation of Teachers-WV President Fred Albert said.
AFL-CIO Quad-City Federation of Labor has new leadership
Quad City Times
By Sarah Hayden
May 21, 2021
Quad-City Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO members have chosen new leadership. Dan Gosa was elected president, replacing longtime labor and political activist Dino Leone, who stepped down. Leone was elected president in January 2013. Gosa is the midwest regional organizer for the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers, Local 81 and also serves as Davenport school board president.