Labor News – Spotlight On Labor

‘TRUMP IS A SCAB’ PROCLAIM UNION LEADERS AT DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONVENTION

The Independent (UK), 8/20

Labor unions were very visible on the first night of the Democratic convention Aug. 19 with the leaders of over a half-dozen unions representing millions of workers took the floor to express their support for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in this year’s elections.

United Auto Workers union president Shaw Fain speaks to the Democratic National Convention on August 19. AFP via Getty Images)

Particularly notable was the speech by United Auto Workers president Sean Fain who recalled President Biden’s support of the auto worker’s recent strike and his appearance on their picket line. Auto workers remember that during their strike, Trump was addressing a rally called by a non-union auto shop on company time where workers were mandated to attend, and condemned the strike and the UAW. The strike meanwhile gained for workers at the Big Three automakers a record contract with gains they haven’t seen in decades.

Fain also pointed to the time when Harris, as a U.S. Senator, joined a UAW pocket line in a previous strike. “For us in the labor movement, it’s real simple.” he said. “Kamala Harris is one of us, she’s a fighter for the working class, and Trump is a scab.” While they pose as friends of workers, he and his VP nominee JD Vance are “lap dogs for the billionaire class who only serve themselves.”

And then, in an act of showmanship that drew a roar and enthusiastic applause from the crowd, he said “It’s getting hot in here,” and took off his jacket revealing a red t-shirt with the large inscription, “Trump is a scab.”

“The American working class,” he declared, “is in a fight for our lives.”

“We are going to build a younger, darker, hipper, fresher, sneaker-wearing labor movement,” said Service Employees International Union president April Verrett, whose union represents nearly two million workers. “A movement that is going to be more inclusive and built for the middle class, and we are going to end poverty-wage work once and for all,” she said, to loud approval from theDemocratic Party delegates.

In her speech to the delegates on the same night, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed the former president as a “two-bit union buster.”

AMAZON PRIME DAYS TAKE MAJOR TOLL ON COMPANY’S WORKERS

United States Senate; Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions, Committee; Bernard Sanders, Chair: Amazon Investigation Interim Report, 7/15

Every year Amazon stages a Prime Day season, featuring big bargains for Amazon Prime members and big profits for Amazon. But what’s left unsaid is how much the speedup during those sale days takes its toll on the company’s workers.

A new report from the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions condemns the “outrageous injury levels during the Prime Day season. Amazon has a notorious record in violation of safety rules and worker injuries on the job. Normally, the ratio for the company in any given year is 10 for every hundred workers, more than twice the average for the industry. But during the Prime Days,. It jumps to 45 for every hundred, or almost half ofthe company’s warehouse workers.

“The incredibly dangerous working conditions at Amazon revealed in this investigation are a perfect example of the type of corporate greed that the American people are sick and tired of,” said Senator Sanders, chair of the Senate committee issuing the report.

“Despite making $36 billion in profits last year and providing its CEO with over $275 million in compensation over the past years,”said Christy Hoffman, General Secretary of UNI Global Union,“this report confirms what we have heard from workers for years. Amazon drives its workers to the brink of physical collapse, causing unbearable wear and tear on their bodies, resulting in injuries and long-term damage. It is well known that to work at Amazon is to work in a meat grinder. It doesn’t have to be this way, The call for change is even more urgent as the planet overheats and record-breaking temperatures become the norm. Instead of resisting its workers’ call for a union, Amazon should sit down and negotiate fair – and safe- conditions, which includes an end to unreasonable production demands and comprehensive measures to protect their employees from the consequences of heat.”

Sanders emphasized the issue of chronic understaffing at Amazon warehouses, particularly during peak periods like Prime Day. He argued that understaffing leads to longer hours and increased workloads that puts workers at a higher risk of injuries.

This is not the first time that Amazon has been criticized for putting workers at risk. Last month, UNI Global Union unveiled a new survey which states that Amazon warehouse and delivery workers in India are enduring intense pressure and unsafe conditions while struggling to support themselves with insufficient pay. The report last month published by UNI Global Union in partnership with the Amazon India Workers Association (AIWA), examining the working conditions of Amazon employees in India comes in the wake of widespread reports of dangerous conditions at Amazon during the summer heatwave in and around New Delhi.

UNIONS ARE LINING UP TO SUPPORT HARRIS

As the Harris presidential campaign heats up, labor is an important part of the coalition that is emphasizing the stakes in this election. In the words of United Auto Workers President Sean Fain, “The path forward is clear. We will defeat Donald Trump and his billionaire agenda and elect a champion for the working class to the highest office in this country. We will speak truth to power about the issues that matter to the working class: a living wage, decent healthcare, a dignified retirement, and taking our lives and our time back.”

Although UAW has not as yet formally endorsed Harris, no one doubts that an enthusiastic endorsement will soon be forthcoming. Fain has contrasted the behavior of President Biden, who joined striking auto workers on their picket line, with Trump who answered an invitation from the head of a non-union auto-parts company to address a meeting of its workers and denounce the strike. “Vice President Kamala Harris walked the picket line with us in 2019,” said a union statement “and along with President Biden has brought work and jobs back to communities like Lordstown, Ohio, and Belvidere, Illinois.”

As of this writing, among the unions who have endorsed Harris are:
The national AFL-CIO
Service Employees International Union
American Federation of Teachers
National Union of Healthcare Workers
United Farm Workers
Communication Workers of America
United Auto Workers

Given the stakes for labor in this election and the fact that many labor leaders have also praised the Biden-Harris administration as the most pro-labor administration in our history, there is no doubt that a flood of union endorsements are on the way.

Real News Network, 7/22; CWA, 7/25

STEEL UNION WINS NLRB COMPLAINT AGAINST UNFAIR FIRINGS OF UNION WORKWERS

Hello Neighbor, a nonprofit in Pittsburgh, agreed July 5 to a settlement in which they paid more than $198,000 for unfair labor practices involving five employees unlawfully terminated for union activities and a supervisor terminated for refusing to commit unfair labor practices. The settlement includes remediating the denial of wage increases to 22 workers plus backpay and interest.

Hello Neighbor agreed to the terms after the United Steelworkers brought a complaint before the Region 6-Pittsburgh office of the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB upheld the complaint and oversaw the settlement.

In addition to the terms above, the company agreed to post and email a notice of the settlement to all their workers hired since January 2023, for one year post an explanation of their rights to organize under the National Labor Relations Act, and rescind the company policy of requiring employees to sign confidentially agreements and agreements not to publicly criticize the company. They must also notify workers who had already signed these agreements that they were no longer in effect.

Union Track, 7/16

STRIKE BY BUILDING CLEANERS PROMPTS MANAGEMENT FEELERS TO BARGAIN

In June it was a big demonstration in front of the office building at 529 Fifth Avenue, called by the Service Employees International Union. Hundreds of their members who work in the area, picketed in front of the building at 44^th Street in Manhattan’s diamond district in support of their union brothers and sisters. We reported on this demonstration in an earlier post.

Now, just a few weeks later, a strike by the building employees beginning July 10 seems to have stirred the management to reach out feelers about bargaining with the union. At issue was the fact that management, Fifth City Realty, an affiliate of Empire Capital, had recently acquired the building and brought in a new contractor, L&J Janitorial, to manage its janitorial services, L&J then unilaterally tore up the contract that had been negotiated between the old management and SEIU. The new janitorial service, then proceeded to cut the 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 action prompted a mass demonstration of hundreds of SEIU members and supporters on the streets around the building and a walkout by the buildings employees on July 10.

It didn’t take long for the owners and the janitorial contractor, which had adamantly refused to bargain with the union, to reach out to the union, potentially the first step in the negotiating process.

In response, then union agreed to temporarily suspend the strike but said that it’s still possible for the strike to continue if L&J Janitorial delays negotiations or does not bargain in good faith with the union.

Labor Press, 7/13

WE’RE BACK

Many of you have been wondering why we haven’t posted any new items for several months, particularly since so much has been happening on the labor front. We’ve had some medical problems that prevented us from working on the website for a while.

But all is well now and we’re back and in good health. Below you’ll find some initial items that broke recently. Many more will follows. And thanks for staying with us.

HEALTH CARE A MAJOR ISSUE AS UFT RETIREES OUST LEADERSHIP BY A WHOPPING TWO-THIRDS VOTE

By Paul Becker

With health care for retirees the big issue, a major step forward in the fight for democratic unionism was registered last week when a rank-and-file slate swept the elections for officers and delegates of the retirees chapter of the United Federation of Teachers. The chapter vote has implications of trouble for the leadership of the UFT, which through its Unity caucus has been running the union since its founding nearly 65 years ago. The current UFT president, Michael Mulgrew, has held office for the past 15 years. He and the officers of the entire union are up for election next year.

NYC municipal retirees march down Broadway protesting the city’s ongoing campaign to push them into a for-profit, privatized Medicare Advantage plan. Photo by Joe Maniscalco, Workbites

The Retiree Advocate slate, ran up an impressive victory, scoring nearly two-thirds of the more than 27,000 votes and ousting the Unity caucus leadership of the retirees chapter. The UFT is New York’s Local 2 of the American Federation of Teachers.

Resentment against the UFT leadership has been building slowly during the past few years over the union’s acceptance of substandard contracts for teachers, paraprofessionals, and other New York City school employees. A growing number of union members also resent Unity caucus’ cling to power through a well-oiled political machine, abandoning principles of democratic unionism and playing ball with local and state politicians rather than fighting for its members. Unlike many unions, retired members can vote in union-wide elections and, until recently, have provided an important base of support for Unity caucus.

The key issue in this campaign was the attempt by UFT leaders, acting with the heads of other large municipal unions to force their members out of traditional Medicare and into a so-called Medicare Advantage plan. (The insurer for city workers would be the health insurance mega corporation, Aetna.) The move would affect hundreds of thousands of retired city workers. Over the years, these workers, including teachers, made concessions on other benefits over the promise that, upon retirement, they would have fully paid health care with the gap between Medicare payments and costs of medical treatments covered by the city. As such, teachers are covered by Medicare with GHI as the secondary insurer. The premiums for this secondary insurance were reimbursed. Under the new proposal, if teachers elected to stay with traditional Medicare, this reimbursement would be dropped, costing them a substantial amount of money that retirees with their limited income could ill afford.

The so-called Medicare Advantage plans, despite being sold under the label “advantage” and putting forth some enticements like free gym memberships, have some very important disadvantages. It is run by private corporations whose principal goal is bottom-line profits rather than making patients healthy. While some 85 to 90 percent of American doctors accept Medicare payments, under corporate Medicare Advantage, you have to choose from their panel of doctors. Thus, many teachers would have to abandon the doctors they have had over the years whom they have trusted and who know them to switch to a doctor they do not know.

Cartoon by Fred Wright. Courtesy United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers (UE)

Even more important, Medicare Advantage plans require pre-approval for many medical procedures. If pre-approval is denied, they won’t pay for it. The patient can appeal but it can still be denied, or even if it’s approved, it often takes time when a speedy treatment is necessary. During the campaign of teachers and other city workers against the planned switch, a number of people have come forward to tell of their experiences when the delay has resulted in severe damage including death to a family member or friend. Medicare, on the other hand, usually accepts the judgment of the doctors, except in cases of outright fraud. My own doctor, an outstanding physician who is recognized as one of New York City’s best cardiologists, complained to me that he now has to spend nearly half his time on the phone arguing with private insurance companies about the necessity of a medical treatment for patients who have been denied coverage.

These private insurance plans have been reaping fat rewards since Congress, about 30 years ago, allowed them to collect subsidies from Medicare that should have gone to health care for people on the government program. And recently, some of them have been caught defrauding Medicare by billing for services that were never delivered. Little wonder that giant insurance companies now crowd the field as they discover “there’s gold in them thar hills.”

Several months ago, a state court ruled that the city could not change the health care plan promised to retirees. The ruling was upheld by the New York State Appellate Court but New York Mayor Eric Adams has said he would appeal to the state Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state.

The win for the Retiree Advocate slate pledged to fight against forcing retired school employers into these private plans could have important implications not only for next year’s elections for union-wide UFT officers but for other unions of city workers which have endorsed the plan despite the growing objections of their retirees.

SOME LATE-BREAKING ITEMS

FLORIDA JURY HOLDS CHIQUITA RESPONSIBLE FOR COLOMBIAN DEATH SQUAD

In an unprecedented legal development, a jury in he United Staes has held an American corporation legally liable for human rights atrocities abroad. A Florida jury on June 3, in a civil lawsuit brought by EarthRights InternationaL found Chiquita Brands guilty and liable for having knowingly financed a terrorist death squad in Colombia that murdered, tortured, and terrorized workers that picked their fruit to prevent them from forming unions in the 1990’a and 2000’s.

Chiquita, like many U.S. corporations, reaps super profits abroad where it pays workers miserable wages. The jury found that Chiquita illegally funded a designated terrorist death squad to the tune of $1.7 million from 1997 to 2004, inflicting untold suffering, including brutal murders of innocent people in the Colombian regions of Uraba and Magdalena. Until recently, Colombia’s right-wing governments, have been loyal supporters of U.S. policies in Latin America.

“The verdict does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed,” said one attorney, “but it sets the record straight and places accountability for funding terrorism where it belongs: at Chiquita’s doorstep.” EarthRights declared that the verdict also “means some of the victims and families who suffered as a direct result of Chiquita’s actions will finally be compensated.”

Earth Rights, 7/3; Courtesy of Locker Associates, New York

AMAZON & TEAMSTERS AGREE TO AFFILIATE

In what Chris Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, hailed as “an historic day for labor in America” his union has negotiated an agreement with the Teamsters Union to have the teamsters charter a new local known as Amazon Labor Union No. 1, International Brotherhood of Teamsters (ALU-IBT, Local 1). The union will represent or try to organize all AMAZON & TEAMSTERS AGREE TO AFFILIATE workers in New York City. The agreement still has to be ratified by ALU’s membership.

Two years ago, the ALU surprised everyone when it won a landmark election to organize 8,000 workers at the Amazon facility JFK8 on Staten Island, New York.

Labor Notes, 6/15

UNIONS REGISTER BIG GAINS IN RECENT MONTHS

NY Times, 10/31, 11/8; The Guardian, 10/24; Jacobin, 11/1

Some big wins for labor over the past couple of months have signaled the rising power of the union movement. It may well be the opening shot across the bow against corporate attacks on unions over the last four decades that has resulted in a steady decline in the standard of living of working people.

UAW President Shawn Fain, shown with striking workers, has pledged an agressive organizing campaign at non-union auto facilities., Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press

The biggest wins for workers were in the highly successful strike by the United Auto Workers against the Big Three car manufacturers – GM, Ford, and Stellantis. Instead of the usual strike against the entire company at once, it adopted the rolling strike tactic, hitting a limited number of auto factories at each carmaker at a time. The companies never knew which would be next and the strikes at plants that played a vital part in car production affected production as a whole in other places.

And by framing the strike, not only as one conducted by a union against management, but as a fight for working people against the greed that has resulted in huge growth in corporate profits at the expense of declining standards for America’s working people, UAW President Sean Fain ignited the fighting working class spirit that built the union movement in decades past.

When the Big Three finally caved after about six weeks, the resulting contract the union won was the best in the union’s history, unmatched since the contracts won in 1937 after the Flint, Michigan, sitdown strike that built the union. The principal terms of the contract have been reported widely. Outstanding among them are a 25 percent wage increase over the four-and-a-half year contract and an end to the two-tier wage system that saw younger workers never able to earn what workers hired earlier could earn. An end to their second class status and their elevation to the pay scale enjoyed by older workers will give them extraordinary pay raises, in some cases up to 150 percent. The union also won a restoration of the cost-of-living (COLA) adjustment that had been a feature of UAW contracts from 1948 to 2008 when the union gave in to industry’s demand to end it.

And in an important union first, the contract guarantees that workers at battery production plants for its new electric cars will be included in the new master agreement, setting the stage for the union’ s announced goal of organizing non-union electric car manufacturers.

As of this writing, the contract was in the process of being voted on by the UAW membership.

Two other big wins this summer and fall were the contract won by Teamsters Union drivers at UPS without a strike but just the threat of one. In a contract agreed to just 24 hours before a strike was scheduled, 340,000 Teamster members at UPS won raises of $7.50 an hour over five years, with drivers’ pay climbing to $49 an hour and part-time workers receiving a pay increase of 48% on average. The agreement also ends a two-tiered classification for drivers, provides part-timers with longevity raises, adds Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday off, and ends forced overtime on off days.

And the months long strike by the two unions representing TV and motion picture screen writers and actors has produced contracts with substantial gains. The Writers Guild of America, which represents 11,500 screenwriters, reached a tentative agreement with studios on Sept. 24 and ended its 148-day strike on Sept. 27. In the coming days, SAG-AFTRA members will vote on whether to accept their union’s deal, which includes hefty gains, like increases in compensation for streaming shows and films, better health care funding, concessions from studios on self-taped auditions, and guarantees that studios will not use artificial intelligence to create digital replicas of their likenesses without payment or approval.

And in just a few other recent labor actions:

In August, 15,000 American Airlines pilots won pay increases of 46% over four years. After a three-day strike earlier this month, 85,000 Kaiser Permanente workers won raises of 21%, as well as a $25 minimum wage for Kaiser’s workers in California. In March, 30,000 Los Angeles school district workers – bus drivers, cafeteria workers and teachers’ aides – won a 30% wage hike over four years. In Oregon, 1,400 nurses at Providence Portland hospitalsecured raises between 17% and 27% over two years.

And all indications are that it’s just the beginning.