“HISTORIC” NURSES STRIKE ENDS IN MASSACHUSETTS WITH SIGNIFICANT STAFF IMPROVEMENTS

After more than nine months of a historic strike, nurses at Massachusetts St. Vincent Hospital, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, reached agreement on a contract calling for important improvements in staffing that will provide safer, high-quality nursing care for their patients. The strike was sparked by the impossibly overworked conditions of nurses at the hospital that cried out for additional staffing. The nurses had long complained about the need to add more staff to relieve their overload, a condition that was sharply exacerbated by the COVID-19 epidemic that was working them to exhaustion.

It was the longest nurses strike in the history of the state, marked by community support, rallies and marches as well as support from around the country. It was finally settled with the aid of federal mediators and a final session mediated by US Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh. Hailing the tenacity and militant spirit of the nurses, Marlena Pellegrino, RN, co-chair if the hospital’s local bargaining unit called it “a true victory, not only for the nurses, but more importantly, for our patients and our community, who will have access to better nursing care.”

The agreement also commits the hospital to a guarantee to take no retaliation against strikers and that all the nurses will return to the same position they worked before the strike.

Massachusetts Nurses Association website, 12/17

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BUFFALO STARBUCKS STORE BECOMES FIRST IN CHAIN TO UNIONIZE

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Despite the very small number of workers involved, the Starbucks store in Buffalo, NY made history Dec. 9 when it became the first one in the Starbucks chain to vote to unionize. The workers voted 19-8 to be represented by Workers United in an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.

Starbucks, the biggest coffee seller in the world, operates nearly 10,000 stores in the United States. It has waged a relentless war on union organizing attempts in Buffalo, closing some stores, and packing the others with new workers who, they hoped, would outvote the pro-union employees there. To counter the union organizing drive they sent in managers and executives to intimidate workers who have been complaining for years about the understaffing, chaotic conditions, restrictions on sick days, low pay and erratic hours.

Although the number of workers is small, the election is significant because it could mark a significant boost in the unionization of other Starbucks stores and among restaurant workers who are the least unionized workers in the country.

Robert Reich newsletter;  NY Times, 12/9;  Vox, 12/9;  AP News, 12/9

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NLRB ORDERS NEW ELECTION IN AMAZON WAREHOUSE VOTE

Citing “flagrant disregard” of fair election rules by Amazon, the National Labor Relations Board has ordered a new election at the company’s Bessemer, Ala., warehouse. The NLRB found that Amazon improperly interfered with the first election earlier this year.

NLRB Atlanta region director Lisa Y. Henderson cited the company’s flagrant disregard” of agency procedures that guarantee free and fair elections and that they had “essentially hijacked the process.” The decision was a victory for the union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union which is waging a continued campaign to unionize Amazon warehouse workers.

Portside reprint of article by Jay Greene in Washington Post, 11/29.

 

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A FEW RECENT LABOR TIDBITS:

More than 120 workers across 11 regions at the National Audubon Society voted overwhelmingly in favor of forming a union affiliated with the Communications Workers of America in a string of official National Labor Relations Board elections last year, joining their colleagues in the organization’s national headquarters as members of CWA.

CWA-Union.org

“Workers wanting to organize seem to be growing by the week,” writes Denver Post reporter Judith Kohler on the mushrooming activities of workers around the country seeking union representation. In the Denver area, she reports, 350 workers at Aurora HelloFresh are holding an NLRB mail ballot election that began Oct. 28 and will run through Nov. 22. Nine hundred HelloFresh workers in Richmond, Calif. are also balloting for union representation.

In Boulder, Colo. workers at Spruce Confections are organizing. If successful, it will be the first fast food service workers union in the Boulder area. Observed Robert Lindgren, Colorado AFL-CIO political and organizing director, it has become “a moment for workers.”

On Staten Island, New York City, four Amazon warehouses are reportedly organizing, undeterred by the defeat of a similar attempt at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. this past summer.

Denver Post, 11/2

 

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CALIFORNIA SANITATION WORKERS RATIFY “GROUNDBREAKING” UNION CONTRACT

Hundreds of workers employed at Waste Management throughout Orange County, Cal. have won significant wage and pension, and healthcare increases after ratifying a groundbreaking contract. The workers are members of  Local 396 of the Teamsters Union.

Sanitation workers have worked hard throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 14 hours a day in order to ensure that communities are kept clean and safe. The pandemic has also drastically exposed the impact that low wages have had on the transportation industry. Sanitation companies throughout the United States including Waste Management are facing a shortage of drivers and are realizing that in order to retain qualified workers, they must increase wages and benefits, noted a statement from the union. Workers are seizing on this opportunity to gain contract improvements that will allow them to provide a better life for themselves and their families.

Contract highlights include drivers receiving an immediate $2.23 raise in hourly pay, double-time pay after 12 hours of service, and full maintenance of healthcare benefits with no increased cost to workers.

Teamsters Local 396 currently represents over 3,000 sanitation workers throughout Southern California. “The courage demonstrated by this group of essential workers who organized to win this contract is admirable, declared Ron Herrera, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 396, “Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the press has written about the importance of essential workers, but Corporate America still insisted on low wages. Our members stood strong and won major raises that will continue to lift standards in an industry that has historically exploited Latino immigrant workers.” The grit and tenacity of these members, noted Herrera, is what made this victory possible.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters publication, 10/18

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Piedmont Flight Attendants Take Strike Vote

After years of failed negotiations, Flight Attendants at Piedmont Airlines, a subsidiary of American Airlines, are currently taking a strike authorization vote that would allow them to go on strike at any moment if the company continues to refuse to reach a fair contract. Piedmont Flight Attendants, members of the Communications Workers of America, helped keep the carrier flying through the COVID-19 pandemic and have been on the frontlines of dealing with difficult flying conditions. However, management’s latest proposal includes only tiny raises with significant healthcare cost increases meaning many Flight Attendants would take home less tomorrow than they do today.

https://cwa-union.org/news/e-newsletter/2021-10-14

 

 

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Shuler to Head AFL-CIO

The AFL-CIO Executive Council on September 17 chose Liz Shuler, formerly secretary-treasurer, to become president of the national federation. The first woman to head the AFL-CIO, she will fill out the remainder of the term of President Richard Trumka, who died unexpectedly in July. The labor federation will choose a permanent president at its summer 2022 national convention. Shuler has indicated that she will run for the position.

The executive council also elected United Steelworkers International Vice President Fred Redmond to succeed Shuler as secretary-treasurer. He is the first African American to hold the post. Both he and Shuler reflect the changing nature of the labor movement which increasingly consists of women and non-white workers.

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Back in 1975

Back in 1975, in a victory for farm workers, Cesar Chavez won the right for organizers of the United Farm Workers to have access to workers in the fields to speak to them about joining the union. The California law allows union representatives to speak to the vastly overworked and underpaid agricultural workers, during their lunch breaks or after working hours. The union, otherwise, has very limited access to reach the men and women who pick strawberries and other crops in the state and who often live on the land belonging to their employer.

But this victory was nullified in June when the 6-3 conservative majority on the US Supreme Court ruled the 46-year-old law unconstitutional, putting the property rights of the growers above the human rights of working people. The decision boded ill for unions trying to organize workers since employers have access to workers during the entire day and can disseminate anti-union propaganda while unions have very limited ways to counteract it. This fact was shown very clearly in the recent attempt to organize Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama when management pulled out all the stops on company time to counter the union drive while the union found it difficult to reach workers.

The court decision is illustrative of how the current court majority is likely to be unbalanced toward employers and hostile to legislation favoring working people.

 

Huffpost, 6/23/21

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