HAWAII HOSPITAL LOCKS OUT NURSES AFTER ONE-DAY STRIKE

In a brazen move to pressure nurses to accept a management offer, the management at Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women and Children in Hawaii locked out 600 nurses indefinitely beginning Sept. 14. The lockout began a day after the nurses held a one-day strike to protest the ongoing bullying tactics of the medical center in retaliation for nurses reporting unsafe staffing conditions and expressing their concern for the safety of patients.

The nurses, members of the Hawaii Nurses Association OPEIU Local 50, have been working without a contract since December 1st, 2023 and they refuse to give up on winning a contract that will hold the hospital accountable for unsafe staffing incidents.

Hawaii Nurses Assn bulletin. 9/14

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SEPTEMBER BITS & PIECES

AT&T WORKERS STRIKE, CITING COMPANY’S STALLING TACTICS

Accusing AT&T of deliberately delaying bargaining on a new contract, over 17,000 workers in nine southeastern states hit the bricks August 16 in a strike that has resulted in a tentative agreement. But the company has continued to stall on a final agreement. The strike involves technicians, customer service representatives, and workers who install and maintain the AT&T network. The union, Communication Workers of America, is seeking improvements in wages that take into account increases in the cost of living, keeping affordable health care, and protections for a younger tier of workers who are subject to forced overtime without notification. This practice by the company make it impossible for them to plan time with their families. The union has filed charges of unfair labor practices with the National Labor  Relations Board on AT&T’s delaying tactics.

 AT&T strike, 9.10

 

HOTEL WORKERS STRIKE OVER STAFFING CUTS

Communication Workers of America

About 10,000 hotel workers went out on strike over the Labor Day weekend, disrupting services at 25 Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott hotels across the country. The strike by members of Unite Here was set to last for several days during the busy holiday week. It affects hotels in Boston, Seattle, San Diego, Honolulu and San Jose, California and could spread to Oakland, California, Providence, Rhode Island, and New Haven, Connecticut, among other cities. The strikers are demanding reversal of the cuts in staffing that hotels put into place during the Covid pandemic when travel was reduced. But after the pandemic when hotel business recovered, the hotels maintained the cuts to save money, causing an overwhelming work load for current workers. The union is also demanding increases in pay in an industry that is severely underpaid.

Hotel Workers,9/2

 

EV BATTERY PLANT WORKERS JOIN UAW

After a majority of the 1,000 workers at the Ultium Cells battery plant in Spring Hills, Tennessee, signed union cards to join the United Auto Workers, the company agreed to recognize the union. Ultium manufactures battery cells for GM electric vehicles. The union victory is part of UAW’s plan to insure that it will keep representing workers in places that make auto parts during the transition to electric vehicles. The union finalized a contract with another Ultium plant in June that included a wage increase for workers from $15 to $35 an hour over three years plus a signing bonus and health and safety improvements.

The Tennessean, 9/4

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PROJECT 2025: WHAT’S IN STORE FOR LABOR IF TRUMP WINS

Anyone who cares about bettering the lives of working people, including their right to form and build unions, should read the section on labor in Project 2025, the blueprint for the Trump administration, should they win the White House again. It was drawn up by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think-tank with close ties to Trump Republicans. And although Trump claims he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025, its authors and those connected to it are people who will most likely occupy prominent places in any Trump administration.

That’s why we highly recommend the excellent analysis of its labor section in Workbites, a website dealing with labor and other current issues. You can easily access he article by clicking in this link.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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‘DON’T  GET PLAYED BY THIS SCAB BILLIONAIRE’: UAW PREZ WARNING TO WORKERS

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In response to attempts by Donald Trump and Republicans to pose as friends of working people, UAW President Sean Fain had some harsh warnings to workers about what a future Trump presidency would hold.

The warnings came after Trump, in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention last week, called upon UAW members to fire Fain, its popular president, who had won for them the best auto workers contract in decades. During the strike earlier this year that produced the contract and saw President Biden join workers on the picket line, Trump appeared at a non-union auto plant and denounced the strike.

Fain lost no time in responding. “America’s autoworkers aren’t the problem,” he declared. “Our union isn’t the problem. The working class isn’t the problem. Corporate greed and the billionaires’ hero, mascot, and lap dog Donald Trump, are the problem. Don’t get played by this scab billionaire.”

Others reminded people that anti-labor actions were part and parcel of the Republican agenda, no matter what they may be saying in public now. One example cited was the action of former Wisconsin Republican governor Scott Walker, who withdrew the right of public sector unions to collective bargaining and outlawed dues checkoff at unionized shops statewide. Another was the actions of Trump while president in stacking the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union lawyers and backing a series of court cases to weaken collective bargaining.

Jonathan Weisman in NY Times, 7/19

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SOME HARD FIGURES ON CORPORATE GREED

According to the AFL-CIO, the following facts emerge regarding America’s largest corporations and their top executives:

  • At least 55 of the largest corporations in America paid no federal corporate income taxes in 2021 despite enjoying substantial pretax profits in the United States. This continues a decades-long trend of corporate tax avoidance by the biggest U.S. corporations, and it appears to be the product of long-standing tax breaks preserved or expanded by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) as well as the CARES Act tax breaks enacted in the spring of 2020.
  • In 2022, CEOs of S&P 500 companies received, on average, $16.7 million in total compensation. This was the second-highest level of CEO pay in history for S&P 500 Index companies. It was 324 times more than then median pay of the average employee.

The AFL-CIO notes that the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay is important. A higher pay ratio could be a sign that companies suffer from a winner-take-all philosophy, where executives reap the lion’s share of compensation. A lower pay ratio could indicate the companies that are dedicated to creating high-wage jobs and investing in their employees for the company’s long-term health.

For full details, see AFL-CIO website items: Corporate Greed and Executive Pay Watch

 

 

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LATEST TOLL OF ON-THE-JOB DEATHS

According to figures released by the AFL-CIO, in 2021 343 workers died on the job each day due to hazardous working conditions, a total for the year of 5,190. In addition, an estimated 120,000 workers died from diseases related to their work like exposure to hazardous materials, toxic chemicals and the like and violence at the workplace claimed the lives of 120,000.

AFL-CIO Website, 7/14,https://aflcio.org

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HUNDREDS OF BUILDING WORKERS IN MANHATTAN RALLY AFTER WAGE CUTS AND FIRINGS

Photo: 32BJ SEIU

Hundreds of unionists, members of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, took to the streets June 26 in New York to rally against a new landlord’s action against building workers. The landlord, Fifth City Realty, an affiliate of Empire Capital, had recently purchased the building at 529 5th Avenue at 44th Street in Manhattan.

The new management has proceeded to cut wages of the buildings cleaners nearly in half to the city’s minimum wage of $16 an hour. cancelling worker benefits like family medical insurance and terminating long term employees, including full-time and part-time security officers and a fire safety director.

The rally was joined by building workers throughout the neighborhood in support. “This company is bad on many levels,” said Denis Johnston, executive vice-president of 32BJ. “They’ve been referred to as billionaire bottom feeders. They don’t care about workers’ rights, they don’t care about tenant services, and they have a reputation of not investing in their properties.”

“My wages have been cut almost in half to $16 an hour. They have cut our benefits. How will we survive? They want to take away everything we have fought for. But we are fighting back,” said an 18-year 32BJ member who works at the Fifth Avenue building. Another worker at the building, a security officer, defiantly  declared, “We can’t let greed win.”

amNY, 6/27

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AFL-CIO PRESIDENT LIZ SHULER: 2nd TRUMP TERM – A CORPORATE CEO’s DREAM AND A WORKER’S NIGHTMARE

“Donald Trump’s legacy is chaos and division—and his greatest accomplishment in office was a bloated tax giveaway for the wealthy at the expense of working people who make our country run. He oversaw the largest increase in outsourcing in a decade, put a union-busting lawyer in charge of the Department of Labor and blocked workers from receiving the pay we earned. Trump… would escalate his anti-worker crusade with the radical far-right’s Project 2025 agenda by eviscerating unions and hard-won contracts; slashing millions of union jobs; blocking workers from organizing; and drastically cutting wages, health care and retirement benefits.…

“Unions in our country are on the line in this election—and so are union members’ hard-won contracts. It’s simple: A second Trump term is a corporate CEO’s dream and a worker’s nightmare.”

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, as quoted by Labor Start, 6/29

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JANUARY BITS AND PIECES

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UAW STEPS UP DRIVE TO UNIONIZE NON-UNION AUTO PLANTS

After gaining the best contract in decades for auto workers from the US Big Three a few months ago, UAW President Sean Fain announced that the union would be begin an organizing drive among the non-union auto plants in the country.

A second early result this month came in the form of an announcement by the union that more than 30% of the workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama, have signed UAW authorization cards to be represented by the union in collective bargaining. The Tuscaloosa workers join workers at the Volkswagen facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in reaching the 30% goal, the first step in their union organizing efforts. If 50% sign up, the union will publicly rally and at 70% the UAW will demand recognition or call on the National Labor Relations Board to organize a vote.

Guadian,1/10

 

IS THERE A LESSON HERE?

Most national unions elect their presidents at their conventions held every few years. They are chosen by the delegates the locals send to the conventions. This indirect election of its top leaders has produced an undemocratic structure in most unions in which the leadership has only a remote connection to he rank-and-file members.

But developments in two unions may serve to be a harbinger of things to come. In both the Teamsters  and Auto Workers unions, the government intervened after a lengthy legal process and compelled an election by direct mail ballot of the entire membership. In the case of the UAW, the old guard leadership was sent to jail for corruption.

The result was leadership closer to workers directly on the production line. UAW President Sean Fain went around the country, holding meetings and sounding out workers on what they wanted in their new contracts. The process produced the best contracts for workers in decades.  The Teamsters contract with UPS, signed this past summer, made great gains for UPS drivers without a strike. UAW workers in factories of the Big Three US automakers are enjoying a contract not seen since the early organizing days of the union.

A valuable lesson that greater union democracy often brings greater gains for workers.

Labor Notes, 1/5

 

ON-THE-JOB INJURIES NOW HIT 10-YEAR HIGH

Almost 5,500 workers in the U.S. died from on-the-job injuries in 2022, the highest number in the past 10 years, according to a report released Dec. 19 by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

More than 70% of the victims worked in blue-collar jobs such as construction, driving trucks, and maintenance, and more than 90% were men.”These deaths could be prevented,” said Jessica E. Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health “if employers listen to workers and adopt preventive and comprehensive safety measures.”

“Transportation incidents” accounted for more than 2,000 fatalities, about two-thirds of them in vehicle crashes. Falls, most commonly to a lower level of a structure, accounted for 865 deaths, and 839 came from exposure to poisons, electricity, or extreme heat. Older workers were most vulnerable, with 35% of those killed 55 or older.

Work Bites, 12/20

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SEPTEMBER BITS AND PIECES

3 UNIONS COOPERATING TO UNIONIZE DELTA AIRLINES

In what is a novel partnership, three unions are collaborating to organize workers at Delta Airlines, the company that, until now, has been the least unionized of all the air carriers. At Delta, only 20 percent of its work force is unionized (mostly the pilots) compared with about 80 percent at other airlines.

The unions, the Association of Flight Attendants – CWA, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, were former competitors over the right to organize flight attendants and other employees. The collaboration is a sign, not only of growing union militancy but also a sign of union solidarity and cooperation in the mutual interest of all workers. If successful, it could usher in cross union efforts to organize Amazon and other giant corporations spread out around the country.

Capital & Main, 8/30, courtesy Locker Associates, New York

 

LATEST NLRB RULING ‘A SEA CHANGE’ FOR WORKERS

In perhaps its most momentous decision in decades, the National Labor Relations Board on Aug. 25 restored to labor the rights for workers that had been stripped down piece by piece over the years. It ruled in a party-line vote that when a majority of a company’s employees file union affiliation cards, the employer can either voluntarily recognize their union or, if not, ask the Board to run a union recognition election. If, in the run-up to or during that election, the employer commits an unfair labor practice, such as illegally firing pro-union workers (which has become routine in nearly every such election over the past 40 years, as the penalties have been negligible), the Board will order the employer to recognize the union and enter forthwith into bargaining.

The ruling followed a previous day’s decision that required NLRB supervised elections to be held promptly. It sharply limited the frequent stalling tactic that companies use to indefinitely delay elections while they employ all sorts of union-busting tactics to prevent collective bargaining to take place. As one labor attorney put it, “This is a sea change, a home run for workers.”

Since the Biden administration appointed two new members of the board and a new chair, it is restoring its proper role in defending labor’s rights instead its practice for decades of siding with employers and undermining the rights guaranteed to workers by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

The American Prospect, 8/28; The New Republic, 8/25

 

NY ENACTS LAW BANNING MANDATORY ‘CAPTIVE AUDIENCE’ MEETINGS

Earlier this month, NY Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law a bill banning employers from forcing workers to attend closed-door meetings, under threat of dismissal, to hear anti-union harangues. The meetings, usually called when workers are trying to organize a union in the workplace, are filled with misinformation  about unions, designed to scare workers without allowing the union access to the workplace to counter the deceptions.

Today in New York, “Workers can no longer be forced to listen to anti-union rhetoric in the workplace,” declared Tom Quackenbush, President of Teamsters Joint Council 46 in Buffalo. The New York law follows similar ones enacted in Oregon, Minnesota, Maine, and Connecticut.

Teamsters Union website, 9/6

 

MISSOURI AMAZON WORKERS CHARGE UNSAFE WAREHOUSE CONDITIONS

Amazon workers at a warehouse in St. Peters, Missouri,  have filed a complaint with OSHA that their workplace, STL8, is filled with health and safety violations. In addition to the unsafe conditions, the complaints also charge that workers injured on the job are deliberately discouraged from receiving medical care from a doctor when they are injured.

Typical of the problem, they say, is the case of a worker who tripped and fell face-down over a piece of equipment that should not have been in her path. She fell on the concrete floor, nose bleeding, with head and leg injuries. She requested seeing a doctor many times but was denied. Instead, she was given an ice pack and was sent back to work after 30 minutes. The next day, when she was able to see a doctor on her own, her leg was very badly swollen. She has suffered long term effects of the injury.

Subsequent journalist interviews with on-site Amazon medical representatives have found that management pushed them to keep injured Amazon workers on the job and away from doctors. One former medical representative said that they were told by management that high injury rates made the company look bad.

Labor Notes, 9/8

POWELL BOOK CHAIN WORKERS STAGE ONE-DAY STRIKE

Charging its employer with unfair labor practice before the National Labor Relations Board, workers at all Powell Books locations staged a one-day strike Sept. 4. The book store chain operates several stores in the Portland, Oregon, area. The biggest complaint is the wage structure which starts at $15.45 an hour, the area’s minimum wage, not enough for the cost of living there, which is $21.85.

The previous union contract expired on June 7 and the union, in its filed complaint, charges that the company has been stalling in negotiations. The workers have been represented since 2000 by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Publishers Weekly,9/5

 

UNION MEMBERS AT BARNES & NOBLE STORE STAGE 3 HOUR WALKOUT

Union workers at Barnes & Noble in Hadley, Mass., walked out last Friday protest staffing issues. The union says the store is understaffed. The walkout lasted from 2 PM to 5 PM. Staff members at the Hadley store voted to unionize with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1459 last May.

Publishers Lunch, 8/28

 

APPROVAL OF UNIONS REMAINS AT ALL-TIME HIGH

Public approval of labor unions continues to remain at the highest level in the past 60 years, according to the latest Gallup poll. Even though the large number of recent strikes have inconvenienced some, the public today looks to unions as a a means of leveling the playing field with powerful corporations who have registered record profits over the past two decades. Below is a chart released by Gallup illustrating the point.

Courtesy Locker Associates, New York

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