MUST READ
CFPB and AFL-CIO Offer Help to Avoid Evictions
UCOMM Blog
By Kris LaGrange
August 2, 2021
With action from Washington unlikely and some states refusing to issue state orders to stop evictions many people are at risk of losing their housing, but there is help out there. To help union members who might have fallen behind on their rent, the AFL-CIO sent a text out to their list to inform union members of a CFPB program to provide emergency rental assistance. The money that is being used was allotted to states during previous spending bills, but accessing it has been tricky in some states. Both tenants and landlords can apply for help. You can find out more information by clicking here. The federal assistance can be used to help cover costs including reasonable late fees on rent, internet service to your home, moving expenses, and other rental-related fees like help with security deposits, as well as rent, utilities, and home energy costs. The federal program allows people to get as much as 18 months of help with rent and utilities, going back to March 13, 2020.
AMAZON
Amazon violated labor law in Alabama union election, labor official finds
NBC News
By April Glaser and Ezra Kaplan
August 2, 2021
The National Labor Relations Board has determined that Amazon violated labor law after workers at its Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse tried to join a union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Workers Union said Monday. Workers at the Alabama warehouse voted against forming a union in April. Representatives of the union immediately challenged the outcome on the grounds that Amazon engaged in illegal interference with employees’ votes to discourage them from unionizing.
Labor Board Official Backs Union Challenge on Amazon Vote
The New York Times
By Noam Scheiber
August 2, 2021
A hearing officer of the National Labor Relations Board has recommended that the board throw out a union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., where results announced in early April showed workers rejecting a union by a more than two-to-one ratio. The union announced the recommendation on Monday, and Amazon quickly said it would take steps to ensure that the original election result prevailed. The hearing officer’s recommendation, which includes holding a new election, will be reviewed by the acting regional director of the agency, who will issue a ruling on the case in the coming weeks. If the regional director rules against Amazon, the company can appeal to the labor board in Washington.
JOINING TOGETHER
Workers at New York’s Whitney Museum Vote to Join Union
ART News
By Alex Greenberger
August 2, 2021
Workers at the Whitney Museum in New York voted on Monday to join Local 2110, a division of the United Auto Workers union, carrying on the momentum of a wave of organizing that has swept art institutions across the United States. The 96-1 vote was the culmination of a two-month campaign. The union drive followed two rounds of layoffs at the Whitney since the start of the pandemic in the U.S. “We are looking forward to sitting down with Whitney Museum leadership to start the bargaining process,” the Whitney union wrote on Instagram. “Celebrations ahead!”
Auto Mechanics On Strike At 56 Chicago Area Car Dealerships
CBS Chicago
August 2, 2021
Auto mechanics are on strike at more than 50 car dealerships in Chicago and the suburbs. More than 800 mechanics represented by Automobile Mechanics’ Local 701 walked off the job on Monday, a day after authorizing a strike. They work at 56 dealerships in the Chicago area.
Canary in the Mine: Striking Miners in Alabama
The American Prospect
By Luis Feliz Leon
August 2, 2021
Miners at Warrior Met Coal in Alabama have been on strike for almost five months, struggling to reverse concessions in pay, health care, and safety. Strikers brought their picket lines from the piney woods of the South to the tony Manhattan offices of three hedge fund shareholders on June 22, and more than 1,000 mine workers and union allies return today to demonstrate outside the offices of the company’s largest shareholder, asset manager BlackRock.
WYO File
By Nick Reynolds
August 2, 2021
Wyoming Democratic Party leadership voted Saturday to recognize its staff’s labor union, joining a surge of Democratic campaigns and state parties to unionize employees in recent years. The unanimous vote came on the heels of an accelerated unionization effort by the party’s four-person staff. The party’s executive committee voted unanimously on a resolution recognizing the union prior to the State Central Committee meeting in Saratoga. When Joe Barbuto became chair of the WDP in 2017, he said in a statement, he made supporting and working with organized labor a priority for the party. “To have our staff take this additional step and unionize is really terrific,” Barbuto said. “So, I’m not only voluntarily recognizing the union, I’m proudly recognizing it, too.” The union will be represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents nine state Democratic party staffs nationwide. It is not anticipated that contracts will change substantially during collective bargaining, communications director Nina Hebert told WyoFile.
Industry leader calls for unionization
Axios
By Stephen Tolito
August 2, 2021
The call for game developers to unionize is now coming from a voice close to the top. On Friday, former Blizzard senior programmer and three-time studio founder Jeff Strain released a letter encouraging his own developers to unionize. Why it matters: Unionization is often mentioned by industry pundits and workers themselves as a crucial maneuver to empower the people who make games, but it’s been a non-starter at most studios. The details: "I welcome my employees to unionize, and I'm giving my full endorsement and support to an industry-wide adoption of unions," Strain wrote in the letter, which was published by IGN.
IN THE STATES
How unions are racking up new wins in Democratic-controlled Washington state
The Seattle Times
By Joseph O’Sullivan
August 2, 2021
If the American labor movement is dead, nobody told Washington’s unions. While workers struggle amid a gig economy and union membership remains near a nationwide low, state legislators in recent years have passed more than 20 new labor-backed laws. Those laws strengthen workplace protections, expand collective bargaining to new employees, strengthen unions’ ability to collect dues and hamper efforts by a conservative group to chip away at union membership. This year, organized labor went well beyond workplace issues. Unions helped Democratic lawmakers muscle through an ambitious expansion of child-care subsidies and a new capital-gains tax. Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Jay Inslee have long been generally allied with the labor movement, especially the public-sector unions, which are some of their top political donors. After election season, as lawmakers return to Olympia, they’re greeted by well-financed union lobbying efforts.
EQUAL PAY
Black Women's Equal Pay Day: Black women work 579 days to earn what white men do in 365
NBC News
By Minda Harts
August 2, 2021
Over the last year, women have left the workforce in unprecedented numbers as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. And if you are a Black or brown woman, chances are you fared even worse. This year, Black Women’s Equal Pay Day falls on Tuesday, and it means Black women must work an extra 214 days to catch up with what white, non-Hispanic men made in 2020 alone. Across industries, Black women are paid only 63 cents for every dollar made by white men, according to the National Women’s Law Center. But let’s remember that the workforce wasn’t equitable in many industries for women of color, even prior to the pandemic. And the groups that are often hit the hardest during a crisis, tend to take the longest to recover.
UNION BUSTING
Washingtonian Magazine Runs Anti-Union Campaign Ahead Of Staff Election
HuffPost
By Dave Jamieson
August 2, 2021
The chief executive of Washingtonian magazine is throwing everything she’s got at her staff’s effort to form a union. Catherine Merrill, the longtime head of the regional glossy magazine, personally called individual staffers last week and urged them to vote “no” when they received ballots for their union election. Those calls came in addition to a series of four group meetings in which Merrill or her brother Doug, a member of the magazine’s board of directors, tried to pressure staff not to unionize, according to three employees.