COLORADO SUPERMARKET CHAIN WINS MAJOR GAINS AFTER TWO-WEEK STRIKE

Eight thousand workers at the King Scoopers supermarket chain in the Denver metropolitan area ended a two-week strike January 24 with a three-year contract that sees many gains in their pay and working conditions.

They Can’t Run Without Workers

The strike showed “the company they can’t run without workers,” triumphantly declared Kim Cordova, president of Local 7 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, the union representing King Scoopers employees. “The real power is with the people. We hope to set the bar so other workers will follow suit, and so that when enough is enough, they take a stand.”

King Scoopers stores is a subsidiary of the Kroger and Albertson chains which also owns Safeway stores.

Under the new contract, workers at King Scoopers will get raises of $2 to nearly $6 an hour, depending upon their positions. The company will contribute a larger share of health care costs and better guarantees on pension plans. Agreeing to a union demand, the company will implement better health measures in the current pandemic and better safety members to protect workers from violence in the stores. Workers had complained about undersized staffing that was putting an undue burden on them and jeopardizing their safety. In the new contract, King Scoopers agreed to hire 500 additional full-time workers within 90 days.

On the issue of safety, workers cited violent incidents in the current atmosphere of tensions raised by the pandemic. “I have had a guy with a machete run through my department threatening people,” recalled Liz Wesley, a worker in the floral department. “There was the Boulder store shooting. It is a real threat, a real worry for people in these stores.”

Strike Got Wide Support

 The terms of the agreement is a far cry from the company’s initial demand for concessions that would have resulted in higher health care premiums for workers, caps on sick leave of six days a year and a lifetime cap of  only 12 days. The company had also demanded a reduction in overtime pay. Their demands, the union pointed out, comes at a time when it is recording record profits and could well afford the union’s gains.

A key element in the union win was the wide support it received, noted Local 7 President Cordova. “This would not have been possible without the support of our allies throughout Colorado and across the country. To those who stood alongside our members, honored the picket line, and showed up in solidarity, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts,” she said.

Denver Post, 1/25

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COLUMBIA GRAD SCHOOL WORKERS WIN STRONG GAINS AFTER10-WEEK STRIKE

Striking students march in Harlem on Dec. 1, 2021. Credit: Erica Andrade

Striking graduate school student workers at Columbia University ended their labor action Jan. 7 with an agreement that includes a 7 to 11 percent raise for workers with annual contracts based upon the length of their appointments and an hourly wage boost from the previous $15/hour to $21/hour. The annual salaries of doctoral candidates on a 12-month appointment will rise to from $41,080 to $44.500 retroactive to last August. Those on nine-month appointments will go from the present $35,140 to $39,000 and an increase to $42,425 in the contract’s fourth year.

The 3,000 strikers are are represented by the Student Workers of Columbia, United Auto Workers Local 2110. The 10-week strike had developed into tense hostility at times when the university issued a directive firing the strikers if they did not report back to work and the union urging faculty members to join them to shut down the university. Some classes were cancelled when a number of faculty members did join the union picket line.

In addition to the wage increases, the new four-year contract provides for Columbia to cover 75 percent of student workers’ dental insurance, higher stipends for child care and an emergency fund of $300,000 that the workers can access for out-of-pocket medical expenses. It also provides for third-party arbitration in cases alleging discrimination or harassmanet.

“Solidarity Forever”

The Columbia strike, with spirited pickets  occasionally singing the old labor song “Solidarity Forever,” came as workers around the country are organizing in record numbers. On Dec. 15, the University of California, Berkeley, agreed to recognize Student Researchers United, a union that plans to affiliate with the United Auto Workers, as the bargaining agent for 17,000 grad student researchers across the UC state university system.

The UC recognition came after nearly 11,000 researchers across the state authorized a strike with 97.5 % voting in favor, according to the UAW. The 17,000 SRU members may constitute the largest bloc of new workers with collective bargaining rights in recent years.

In a series of other actions, grad school workers are demanding collective bargaining rights in record numbers. At Indiana University, the Grad Workers Coalition, part of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union (UE) presented 1,500 union cards, 60% of the 2,500 graduate workers, to formally request a union election. Three days later, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Graduate Student Union, also affiliated with UE, announced that an overwhelming majority of MIT graduate employees have signed union authorization cards. They have asked the university for voluntary recognition of their union. And at the University of New Mexico, the state Employee Labor Relations Board announced that 887 graduate student workers, or more than 57% of the total employed, had signed cards designating the United Graduate Workers (UE) as their bargaining agent.

The Columbia strike, which began Dec. 6,, was the second one this year by the student workers at the school. It was, at the time of the settlement, the largest one in the country. The graduate school workers teach classes, serve as teaching and research assistants, and perform duties, at much reduced pay and benefits, that many of the professors would ordinarily do.

Taking on the perception that the strikers are just students and not workers, Paul Brown, a Local 2110 organizer at Columbia, called on he university to “respect the labor that we put into this institution.”

The strike came as many universities in recent years have increasingly relied on grad student workers rather than tenured professors to teach classes, thus reducing the cost to the university. “We are the ones who do the research that wins grant money for the university,” said Johannah King-Slutzky, one of the strikers in an interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. “I teach my own class. Many of my colleagues teach the same classes that a professor would teach. We’re the ones who have the most face-time with the undergraduates who are paying Columbia’s bills, paying tuition.”

Early on, the school responded with heavy-handed attempts to break the strike.One was an email from its Vice President of Human Resources to the strikers that if they do not return to work by Dec. 10 they will be terminated and replaced. Branding it “an illegal form of retaliation,” King-Slutzky pointed out that it is “an unfair labor practice (that) protects us from our labor being permanently replaced.”

For a reprint of the interview with Columbia strikers, see Democracy Now.orgFor further details on the Columbia strike settlement, see NY Times, 1/7; The Real News Network, 1/14; Portside, 1/17.

For news of the other grad school actions, see Portside, 12/16 12/20; The Herald-Times (Indiana), 12/18. and the Boston Globe.

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AMAZON, UNDER MOUNTING PRESSURE, AGREES TO END ANTI-LABOR PRACTICES

After repeated and determined efforts to unionize its warehouse workers in the face of stubborn intimidating tactics by the company, Amazon has finally come to a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board to keep its hands off workers attempts to freely organize into unions.

In the settlement, reached just before Christmas, Amazon agreed to a commitment to permit its employees to freely organize without retaliation. The company pledged that it will refrain from using threats of discipline against workers or to prevent workers from engaging in union activity in non-work areas of the warehouses during times when they were not at work. The agreement will affect some 750,000 American workers at sites throughout the country. It will also make it easier to sue the company for violations without the necessity of going through administrative hearings which often take years, rendering enforcement ineffective.

The agreement comes as the company has faced mounting pressure to improve worker rights amid current labor shortages and widespread discontent among its work force. Amazon has engaged in fierce anti-union measures for years, using all sorts of tactics to intimidate workers who have complained about intolerable conditions at its facilities and substandard pay that has failed to keep up with rising prices. In the aftermath of a failed vote to  unionize workers at its Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse in April, the NLRB found that the company had engaged in numerous unfair labor practices and has ordered a new vote. The Bessemer unionizing drive is being conducted by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. And on Staten Island, New York, the Amazon Labor Union, an independent group, has refiled a petition with then NLRB to hold a union election.

NPR, 12/23

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FILM, TV WORKERS REACH “LANDMARK AGREEMENT” WITH MAJOR STUDIOS

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In what the union described as a landmark agreement, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employers (IATSE) reached a three-year agreement with motion picture and television producers in October. The agreement affects 60,000 film and television workers in 36 IATSE locals across the country.

IATSE member posting a message on the car of a union member prior to the members overwhelmingly voting to authorize a strike in October. Photograph: Myung J Chun/Los Angeles Times/Rex/Shutterstock

Two weeks earlier the union members voted to authorize a nationwide strike, the first in the union’s 128 year history, with 98.6% voting in favor if an agreement with the industry wasn’t reached. In the union’s demands, in addition to pay raises, were a list of  quality of life issues that have been plaguing workers in the industry for years. Workers were often expected to work long hours at a stretch without a break, working into the weekend through Saturday and Sunday.

The settlement includes reasonable rest periods throughout the day including weekends, meal breaks, substantial raises for those at the bottom of the wage scale and retroactive raises of 3% annually. The new agreement affects film and television workers at Warner Bros. Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and others.

IATSE Special Bulletin, 10/16

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KELLOGG WORKERS OK NEW CONTRACT AFTER LONG STRIKE

After a prolonged strike that lasted 2 ½ months, workers at four Kellogg cereal plants ratified a new contract just a few days before Christmas and voted to return to work.

The contract, negotiated through the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union, will sharply limit the “unfair two-tier wage system” that had only long-term workers (called “legacy workers”) eligible for higher pay and benefits. The new contract will make second-tier workers “legacy workers” after four years on the job. This two-tier system was a key point in the union’s demands and represented a shining case of solidarity – older workers standing up for their younger fellow workers.

The new contract also provides for a starting salary increase of $4.19 an hour to $24.11 and cost of living increases. Dropped was the company’s threat to permanently replace the 1,400 strikers. They will all return to their jobs. The threat had prompted President Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders to public condemn the move.

Hailing it as ”a big win, not only for us, but for the American labor movement” the union’s international president Anthony Shelton declared, “From picket line to picket line, Kellogg’s union members stood strong and undeterred in this fight, inspiring generations of workers across the globe, who were energized by their tremendous show of bravery as they stood up to fight and never once backed down.”

Business Insider, 12/21; Portside, 12/21

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INCUMBENTS ROUTED IN TEAMSTER ELECTIONS

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In a stunning upset that reflects the growing militancy of workers and union members, a rank-and-file slate swept to victory in Teamster Union elections last month. The Teamsters United slate routed the incumbent slate that has ruled the union for years by a margin of about two-to-one. The incumbent backed slate had the backing of James P. Hoffa who is retiring. Hoffa has headed the union since 1998.

Defying Hoffa and his slate, the Teamsters United slate captured all national offices, from president down to a majority of the international executive board. Heading the slate, to take office in March, is the President-elect Sean O’Brien, currently President of Boston Local 25 and General Secretary-elect Fred Zuckerman, currently President of Louisville, Kentucky Local 89. They will serve five-year terms.

O’Brien has been sharply critical of the current contract with United Parcel Service and has vowed a campaign to take a more militant stand on future contracts with the company. He is also committed to a full-fledged campaign to organize Amazon drivers.

The vote signals a growing sentiment in the union movement that are fed-up with contracts that  have left millions of workers behind while corporate profits soar.

NY Times, 11/19; Labor Notes, 11/18; Teamsters for a Democratic Union website

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE YEAR’S WORK OF TWO UNIONS

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We link below to the newspaper of two international unions, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) and the United Auto Workers,  listing their accomplishments this past year. We will be linking to other union newspapers from time to time.

https://www.ueunion.org;  https://uaw.org

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NOTES FROM GROWING UNION ACTIVITY

Richmond, California is seeing a big jump in union activity with the unionization of 850 workers at the Hello Fresh facility. For Unite Here Local 2850, the union leading the drive, it will mean a big jump in their membership and a major step in Unite Here’s campaign to organize the rapidly growing meal kit industry. In Mingo Junction, Ohio, 175 steelworkers at the JSW mill are pushing to be represented by the United Steelworkers. JSW is a company based in India that is one of the world’s major steel companies.

 

A few other major union activities include:

  • 350 janitors, members of Service Employees International Union Local 105, at Denver International Airport who conducted a one-day strike October 1 to enforce their demands for higher wages and better working conditions. A full-blown strike is a strong possibility if negotiations with management break down.
  • A continuing strike by several hundred members of United Auto Workers Local 509 at Senior Aerospace in Burbank, California.
  • A strike by 420 distillery workers represented by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23-D at Heaven Hill in Bardstown, Kentucky.
  • Steelworkers Local 40 in Huntington, West Virginia, now has 450 workers on strike at Special Metals, the largest nickel alloy plant in the world.
  • San Antonio (Texas) Symphony’s 72 musicians, after previously taking a big pay cut, are striking against management’s demand to cut dozens of jobs.
  • Other labor actions involve two thousand hospital workers in Buffalo, NY, and 2,000 telecommunications workers in California. The Buffalo hospital workers are members of the Communication Workers of America, Local 1133, who have been on strike at the city’s Mercy Hospital.

Who Gets the Bird, 10/2/21, (Email newsletter by subscription), Denver Post, 10/6

Union Actions Mushrooming Across Country

The Guardian reports a big spike in union actions around the country as workers in a wide range of industries are demanding higher wages, better safety and working conditions, and fighting against cuts in staff. The number of these actions are difficult to follow, particularly since they are barely reported in the press. Just a few of them are listed below.

  • Some 24,000 nurses and healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente in California are set to take a strike authorization vote. If they strike, they will join 700 building engineers already on strike in the San Francisco area. Strike authorization votes are also in the works with 3,400 health workers in Oregon and 7,400 health workers at USW Kaiser Permanente. Rejecting the company’s claim that their “Labor Management Partnership,” created 24 years ago was the framework with which to solve the issues and should not be abandoned “in the spirit of partnership” a union spokesperson, registered nurse Denise Duncan, said, “We have people burned out, complaining of mental health issues and PTSD. We’re in a situation as a union where we’re concerned about the future of nursing.”
  • Other union workers voting to authorize strikes even as their contract negotiations continue are transit workers in Beaumont, Texas, and Akron, Ohio, group home workers in Connecticut, cafeteria workers at Northwestern University, and 2,000 workers at Frontier Communications in California. Strike authorization votes are also taking place among graduate school workers at Columbia and Harvard Universities. Authorization for a bargaining team to call for a strike vote has come from graduate school workers at Illinois State University. Tens of thousands of other workers throughout the country have also authorized strikes or are on the verge of doing so.
  • Recently settled strikes involved 2,000 carpenters in Washington State, 1,000 Nabisco factory workers in five facilities across several states and 600 Frito Lay workers in Kansass

Michael Sainato in The Guardian, 10/1, Portside, 10/1,

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Labor’s Future – A Discussion

For an interesting discussion on the prospectives for a vibrant future of the labor movement, click on the link below:

Webinar organized by Marylyn Katz on the current labor situation and the labor movement. Courtesy, Locker Associates, New York
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Some Labor Roundups

Almost 250 Refresco workers in New Jersey, mostly Latin American immigrants, voted in June to join jjhe United Electrical Workers union (UE). Their victory was the largest National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) win in the U.S. by a group of blue-collar workers in the first half of 2021, and came over a year after workers at the plant staged a walkout to protest the utter disregard for their safety shown by management during the pandemic.

The union win came, according to UE, after years of abusive treatment by supervisors, low wages, paltry benefits, sexual harassment, an unforgiving attendance system that penalizes workers for getting sick, and constant schedule changes.

UE News, 8/6/2021

An indication of the new awareness of workers to the values of belonging to a union is the way workers in small shops have begun to unionize.  One recent example of this is the vote of 39 employees at Greenlight Bookstores’ two locations and Yours Truly Stationery store, all in Brooklyn, NY to join the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. The co-owner of Greenlight says that they will “voluntarily recognize the union.” Several other bookstores in the New York City area have already voted to join RWDSU over the past two years.

In a similar action, workers at Colectivo Café in Milwaukee, closely voted for a union, Local 494 of the International Union of Electrical Workers. However, the closeness of the vote will make contract negotiations with the company difficult.

Publishers Weekly, 8/17/2021

Urban Milwaukee, 8/23/2021

One of the reasons for the expansion of charter schools over the past couple of decades is the desire of states and local cities to get around the heavily unionized teachers in public schools. But charter school staffs are increasingly organizing in the face of the work loads and other undesirable conditions in many chartrer schools. In one of the latest actions on this front is the vote of the 142 teachers in North Bend, Oregon’s virtual charter school, Virtual Academy, to join the state’s American Federation of Teachers.

Who Gets the Bird, 8/2-19/2021

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