APPRENTICESHIPS
Apprentice tells her story at the Capitol
Northwest Labor Press
By Don Mcintosh
April 6, 2023
North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) was looking for panelists for a March 8 presentation to members of Congress and their staff, and asked the Oregon Building Trades Council to find someone to take part. United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 290 nominated Kasey Finegan as someone who sets an example of participation in her union. The panel would be a chance to tell her story. The event took place in a Capitol conference room during Women in Construction Week. NABTU president Sean Garvey introduced the panel, followed by national AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler. Women have doubled in the construction workforce in the last decade, Garvey said, but that means going from 2% to 4%. There’s a lot of room for growth, and Finegan told members of Congress that she feels like she’s part of a culture change.
JOINING TOGETHER
Barnes & Noble Education Workers Seek to Unionize, Extending Organizing Wave
Bloomberg
By Josh Eidelson
April 6, 2023
Barnes & Noble Education Inc. employees at a New Jersey store are petitioning to make theirs the company’s first unionized location, extending a wave of organizing in the US retail sector. Workers say they’ve signed up most of the roughly 70 employees at the store on Rutgers University’s campus. After announcing their organizing campaign to local management, they plan to submit a filing Thursday asking the US National Labor Relations Board to conduct a unionization election. Employees are petitioning to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which currently represents retail workers at Macy’s Inc., H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB and, most recently, Recreational Equipment Inc., where it first secured a foothold last year in New York City.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Susan Snyder and Lizzy McLellan Ravitch
April 9, 2023
For the first time in Rutgers University’s 257-year history, the unions representing its 9,000 faculty and graduate student workers — virtually its entire teaching force — have called a strike, beginning 9 a.m. Monday. The decision, which affects all three Rutgers campuses in Newark, Camden and New Brunswick, follows a meeting of union leaders Sunday evening and 10 months of unsuccessful negotiations, including more than two weeks of full-day sessions. “We intend for this new contract to be transformative, especially for our lowest-paid and most vulnerable members,” Rutgers AAUP-AFT President Rebecca Givan said. “But our proposals to raise graduate workers and adjunct faculty up to a living wage and establish meaningful job security for adjuncts are exactly the ones that the administration has resisted most.”
Austin Ascension Seton nurses picket amid union contract negotiation
KVUE
By KVUE Staff
April 6, 2023
The nurses have reported regular disruptions to patient care, saying that chronic short staffing has made it challenging to provide the highest quality of care in a timely fashion. The nurses say the conditions have led to a "revolving door of new graduates being hired, receiving their hands on-training at ASMCA and then leaving the hospital and even the bedside due to moral distress," according to a press release from the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU).
Apple Store Workers Say The Company Is Stalling On Its First Union Contract
HuffPost
By Dave Jamieson
April 7, 2023
Apple Store workers from Towson, Maryland, have been meeting with the company at a hotel in downtown Baltimore this week to negotiate what they hope will be a groundbreaking union contract at the tech giant. But after four two-day bargaining sessions since January, those workers say they aren’t convinced Apple ever wants to reach a deal with its first unionized shop in the U.S. Gallagher and his pro-union co-workers emerged victorious in their election last June, voting 65 to 33 in favor of joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, or IAM — one in a string of recent high-profile victories for organized labor at previously non-union companies, including Amazon, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and REI.
With possible Rutgers strike looming, unions plan to continue negotiations over weekend
NJ.com
By Jackie Roman
April 8, 2023
Unions at Rutgers University plan to keep negotiating new contracts this weekend to try to avoid a possible strike at the state’s largest public university. Should talks fail, more than 9,000 Rutgers University workers have voted to authorize union leaders to call a strike at any time. The strike would include members of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and the Rutgers AAUP-Biomedical and Health Sciences of New Jersey. The unions have been working under the terms of an expired contract since last spring.
Strike averted: Cub Foods, union workers reach tentative contract agreement
KARE 11
By David Griswold
April 7, 2023
The union representing roughly 3,000 grocery store employees says a work stoppage set for Friday and Saturday is off after a tentative contract deal was reached with Cub Foods. According to a press release from an official with UFCW Local 663, the proposed two-year agreement would give employees at 33 corporately-owned Cub Foods stores a significant bump in pay by spring of 2024.
125 workers now under union contract at Blue Lake Rancheria businesses
Times Standard
By Sage Alexander
April 7, 2023
The Blue Lake Rancheria announced Thursday a union contract was reached for their hospitality workers. This means a better deal for approximately 125 employees. “Having a voice on the job where you can speak up without fear, or having to curry favor, is a very big deal for workers in any workplace,” said David Glaser, casino organizing director of UNITE HERE, the union that represents rancheria workers. Glaser was a negotiator in the bargaining committee. He said this is the 10th tribal casino the union represents. Hospitality workers at Blue Lake Casino, Blue Lake Hotel, several restaurants, and the gas station/convenience store are now under this contract.