Entries by Paul Becker

APPLE WORKERS REGISTER UNION BREAKTHROUGH AT MARYLAND STORE

In another breakthrough on the labor front, 100 workers at an Apple store in Towson, Maryland, voted by a two-to-one margin to unionize. The victory represents a big step for union activists who have been trying for years to make inroads into the retail outlets of the computer corporate behemoth. The union, the Coalition of […]

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Museum Workers Choosing Unions

In an earlier post, we described how workers in various museums around the country – scientists, educators, administrative staff, art handlers, gift shop clerks, ushers, and others – are organizing into unions. Here are some of the latest union wins in this field: Carnegie Museum Workers in Pittsburgh, representing the city’s Museum of Natural History, […]

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DEATH ON THE JOB

Latest figures compiled by the AFL-CIO continue to provide evidence that the American workplace, in many instances, is an unsafe place. Particularly significant is the fact that, in a very large number of cases, workplace fatalities are the result of company neglect, particularly in non-union shops where there is no one to push for needed safety […]

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NEW UNIONS PRESENT CHALLENGE TO THE ESTABLISHED ONES

“For decades, the labor movement’s efforts to halt its long slide have been – to speak plainly – an utter failure” writes Steven Greenhouse in The American Prospect (6/13). “The U.S. has gone from having 35 percent of its workforce unionized in the 1950s to 20 percent in the 1980s to just 10 percent today. […]

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MID-JUNE Bits and Pieces

The Denver Post reports (6/2) that Colorado state regulators has found Southwest Airlines in systemic violation of dozens of state labor laws including paid sick leave for workers with Covid. Under Colorado’s Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, employers are required to provide paid leave for workers with Covid-19 illnesses and quarantines, or other injuries or […]

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Brief  Updates

According to a Gallup poll taken last August, 68 percent of Americans approve of labor unions, the highest number in more than 50 years.   As of late May, the latest count in the drive to unionize Starbucks is 79 stores where the union won the election and only nine where they lost it. Now, […]

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Starbucks Organizing Drive Gaining Steam

Efforts to unionize the giant Starbucks chain that began with two stores in Buffalo a few months ago is picking up momentum even though there is still a long way to go. As of mid-May, 78 Starbucks stores around the country have voted to unionize. And Starbucks is not the only one. The drive of […]

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More Pieces of a Big Picture

In the space of a few weeks in May, two Verizon stores in Washington state have voted “yes” to unionizing. Responding in typical fashion, Verizon is spending big on a campaign to break the [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–v7HhV2wp8[/embedyt]union drive rather than negotiate with the union. Central to its strategy is the firing of union activists to intimidate […]

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