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☆ Worker complaints alleging anti-union shutdowns rise as organizing surges
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Eli M. Rosenberg | Eli Rosenberg Is An Investigative Tech Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +13 min

The company, G&D Integrated, had closed the factory, saying it had suddenly lost its decade-old contract with a Japanese company, workers said. Starbucks closed multiple stores this year following union activity. Trader Joe’s, for example, abruptly closed a wine shop in the center of New York City where workers had been organizing. Demonstrators protest outside a closed Starbucks in Seattle on July 16. More than 40 percent of the stores had union campaigns, according to data from Starbucks Workers United, the union that has been organizing the workers.

☆ The federal government wants to stop your boss from spying on you
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Jacob Zinkula | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Companies are using surveillance technologies to keep tabs on remote workers. Under current law, some level of employee surveillance is generally allowed. Some experts have called this "productivity paranoia" a sentiment that's led some companies to expand the use of various surveillance technologies. These are among the reasons Abruzzo's memo called on the NLRB to review companies' surveillance technologies and assess whether they restrict workers' rights. While the emergence of remote work has brought this surveillance into the spotlight in recent years, the legal landscape remains murky.

☆ Gen Z's not lazy — they're just refusing to put up with the toxic work culture that Boomers created
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Kim Kelly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

"And I personally think that all of us in Gen Z, when we experienced that with our parents, we were like, 'Fuck that. And now, Gen Z is turning to organizing as a way to stand up to corporate bosses. But she and her Gen Z peers are not ready to accept that mode of thinking. Put simply, young workers want something better than their parents had and aren't afraid to seek it out. Because if there is one quality that Gen Z has in spades, it is audacity — and no mass movement has ever succeeded without it.

☆ These baristas are leading a nationwide campaign to unionize Starbucks. It came at a cost
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +13 min

Since then workers at 243 other stores spread over 38 states have voted to join Starbucks Workers United — that’s more than five stores a week. Still, most of the fired workers nationwide remain off the job, including Tambellini. “The pizza place next door [to the Starbucks store I worked at] offered me a job almost immediately,” said Tambellini. Starbucks employees and supporters react as votes are read during a union-election watch party in Buffalo, New York. The Starbucks workers are really demonstrating that it’s possible to unionize in an industry where it was thought of as impossible to organize, due to high turnover and a large percentage of young people,” he said.

☆ UAW seeks election to represent GM battery joint venture workers
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstOct 31 (Reuters) - The United Auto Workers on Monday said it was seeking an election to represent workers at a General Motors (GM.N)/LG Energy (373220.KS) battery cell manufacturing joint venture in Ohio after the companies refused to recognize the union. In August, the Warren, Ohio Ultium plant began production, the first of least four planned U.S. battery factories by the joint venture. In May, President Joe Biden, in a trip to South Korea, expressed support for workers seeking to unionize joint venture battery plants. "For every joint venture that manufactures electric vehicle batteries would be made stronger by collective bargaining relationships with American unions," Biden said. GM and LG Energy are considering an Indiana site for a fourth U.S. battery plant expected to cost about $2.5 billion.

☆ Employees took advantage of the Great Resignation. Now employers are about to take revenge.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Jake Rosenfeld | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

The 2008 financial crisis spared no one — income gains halted for nearly everybody as the economy plunged into the worst recession in almost a century. A tight labor market is good for workersThe main culprit behind these gains in worker power has been the tight labor market. A tight labor market also means companies have to offer higher wages to attract new employees or get people to switch jobs. And the iconic coffee maker isn't the only big-name corporation to raise pay in the face of rising worker unrest. So without a contract to lock in economic gains, workers may have won a series of battles, but they risk losing the long-term war.

☆ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated labor laws with union remarks, federal agency alleges
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor laws when he remarked in recent interviews that employees could be negatively affected by unions, a federal labor agency said. He echoed those comments in the Bloomberg interview, saying workers would be "better off without a union." The complaint also requests that Amazon mail and email workers a notice informing them of their labor rights. Last week, Amazon workers at a fulfillment center near Albany rejected unionization. WATCH: Watch CNBC's full interview with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on his first annual letter to shareholders

☆ New York tops West Coast again as nation's No. 1 port in sign of permanent trade shift
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Lori Ann Larocco | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The previous monthly data was the first time New York topped the West Coast and was being watched as a tipping point. Fears of a strike among West Coast port workers is one of the primary reasons behind the coastal shift in trade to the U.S. The freight railroads have shifted with the port trade trends as the East Coast has gained. "We expect the East Coast trend to continue, and our railroad is ready to deliver for more than half of the country's consumers and manufacturers," he said. As more trade has moved east, port congestion has come with it.

☆ Amazon workers in California withdraw petition for union vote after defeat in New York
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Workers at a California Amazon facility withdrew their petition late last week to unionize with the ALU, just days after the labor group failed to win enough votes to unionize an Amazon facility in upstate New York. The move to withdraw comes roughly two weeks after the petition was submitted, per the NLRB’s docket of the case. In an email to CNN Business, ALU President Chris Smalls played down the significance of the withdrawn petition. Since the watershed union win at JFK8, the ALU hasn’t seen success with organizing efforts at other Amazon facilities. Moreover, Amazon has refused to recognize or meet with the union at JFK8 — and continues to challenge the union’s election win.

☆ Amazon workers in Albany, New York, vote against unionization
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Employees at an Amazon warehouse near Albany overwhelmingly rejected a unionization effort on Tuesday, delivering a blow to an upstart labor union seeking to organize workers at the retail giant. Officials said 949 workers at the ALB1 warehouse were eligible to vote on whether they should become part of the Amazon Labor Union. ALU’s victory at JFK8 was a watershed moment for the labor movement, establishing the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the U.S. Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Southern California last week filed a union petition with the hopes of joining the ALU. Amazon workers at facilities in California, Illinois and Georgia recently held walkouts, in time for Amazon’s fall Prime Day discount event, to urge the company to respond to employee concerns around working conditions.

☆ Amazon workers in Albany vote against unionization, labor leader calls it 'sham election'
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Employees at an Amazon warehouse near Albany overwhelmingly rejected a unionization effort on Tuesday, delivering a blow to an upstart labor union seeking to organize workers at the retail giant. Officials said 949 workers at the ALB1 warehouse were eligible to vote on whether they should become part of the Amazon Labor Union. ALU's victory at JFK8 was a watershed moment for the labor movement, establishing the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the U.S. Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Southern California last week filed a union petition with the hopes of joining the ALU. Amazon workers at facilities in California, Illinois and Georgia recently held walkouts, in time for Amazon's fall Prime Day discount event, to urge the company to respond to employee concerns around working conditions.

☆ Apple workers vote to unionize second U.S. store
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-15 | by ( Doyinsola Oladipo | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

NEW YORK, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Apple Inc retail workers voted to form a union at an Oklahoma location, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said on Friday, making it the tech giant's second U.S. store to organize. Employees at the Apple Penn Square store in Oklahoma City voted 56 to 32 in support of joining the Communications Workers of America Union (CWA), securing the needed majority, according to a tally by the NLRB. Apple workers near Baltimore, Maryland, voted in June to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The CWA in May withdrew an election petition on behalf of Apple workers in Atlanta, Georgia, claiming that Apple had repeatedly violated federal labor law and the rising number of COVID infections among store employees made a fair election impossible, according to the CWA. Some current and former Apple workers last year began criticizing the company's working conditions online, using the hashtag #AppleToo.

☆ Inside the cold war between Amazon and unions, which are wielding drones and secret agents to expose the company's labor practices
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-15 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Unions infiltrated Amazon construction sites in Oregon and Washington seeking regulatory violations. On a frosty morning in February 2021, Tom Tanner walked into an under-construction Amazon warehouse in eastern Washington seeking work. Campaigns to organize Amazon warehouse workers have grabbed national headlines. Amazon workers at the LDJ5 Amazon Sort Center join a rally in support of the union on April 24 in Staten Island, New York. Wendell Jeffson in a boom lift at the Amazon warehouse in Shelby, Michigan, when he was 17.

☆ Amazon Labor Union faces next showdown in upstate New York
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

The next month, that same group, the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), fell short at a smaller facility across the street. On Wednesday, workers at an Amazon facility near Albany, New York, will begin voting on whether to join the ALU and become the second unionized Amazon warehouse in the United States. It also comes as Amazon has still not formally recognized the union in Staten Island or come to the bargaining table. Chris Smalls, a leader of the Amazon Labor Union, leads a march of Starbucks and Amazon workers and their allies to the homes of their CEOs to protest union busting on Labor Day, September 5, 2022, in New York City, New York. “I think they have an uphill battle ahead,” Kochan said of the union vote at the ALB1 facility.

☆ Amazon workers at Southern California warehouse file for union election in potential first for the state
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Workers stand in line to cast ballots for a union election at Amazon's JFK8 distribution center, in the Staten Island borough of New York City, U.S. March 25, 2022. Amazon workers at a warehouse in Southern California have filed a petition to form a union with the National Labor Relations Board. Employees at the warehouse, located in Moreno Valley, California, are seeking to be represented by the Amazon Labor Union, a grassroots group of current and former Amazon workers that successfully unionized a Staten Island warehouse, referred to as JFK8, earlier this year. The move adds to a recent upswing of labor organizing among Amazon workers. Workers at a major Amazon air hub in nearby San Bernardino recently held walkouts to demand pay increases and highlight safety concerns.

☆ Waymo workers form union in the latest push to organize Silicon Valley
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Eli M. Rosenberg | Eli Rosenberg Is An Investigative Tech Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

Food service employees at the autonomous driving company Waymo are forming a union, the latest push by support workers to organize at Silicon Valley's most prominent companies. The workers are employed by Sodexo, which contracts service work for Google and other companies. "We are confident this one will also reach an amicable agreement for workers, the union, and our client very soon." The workers are part of Silicon Valley's ranks of contractors who support and supplement the work at tech companies. Her team unionized in 2020, and some of them have been joining meetings with the Waymo workers to show them the ropes of organizing and talk up the union.

☆ North Hollywood strippers set to vote on joining a union
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-09 | by ( Natasha Chen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Los Angeles CNN —Strippers at the Star Garden topless dive bar in North Hollywood will soon receive ballots to hold an election for collective bargaining, which may result in the first stripper union in the US in more than a decade. On Nov. 7, the NLRB will count the votes from Star Garden dancers, entertainers and DJs, determining if they will join the Actors Equity Association, a union of performers and other show business professionals. The facts are clear: The workers at Star Garden are entitled to a union election,” said Andrea Hoeschen, assistant executive director and general counsel for Actors’ Equity Association. “Most of the purportedly eligible voters have never been employees of Star Garden; they were in fact, and in law, merely lessees with no employment relationship,” Gaylord and Linker wrote. Since then, the dancers have been picketing most weekends outside the Star Garden, dressed in themed costumes, urging patrons to go to different clubs.

☆ Workers at Home Depot in Philadelphia file for union vote
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN Business —Workers at an Home Depot store in Philadelphia have filed to have a vote to be represented by a union. in Philadelphia, has about 275 employees, according to the filing by an independent union, Home Depot Workers United, which is seeking the vote. Home Depot issued a statement saying it will work with the union vote process, but that it doesn’t support the union’s organizing efforts. Only 4.4% of retail workers are members of a union, according to Labor Department data, compared to 6.1% of private sector workers overall, and 10.3% of all US workers. There are more than five times as many private sector workers than there are workers in the public sector.

☆ Almost 300 Home Depot workers vote to unionize in Philadelphia
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Áine Cain | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Home Depot employees based in Philadelphia have filed a petition to unionize. The union is listed as "Home Depot Workers United." A National Labor Relations Board filing stated that the 274 workers are all based around Philadelphia. —Daily Union Elections (@UnionElections) September 20, 2022The union is listed as "Home Depot Workers United." According to the Teamsters, those workers were "the first Home Depot employees to join the union."

☆ Labor board rejects Amazon's push to overturn its workers' historic union victory
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-02 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon is about to lose its bid to overturn its workers' vote to form their first labor union. With the objections cleared, the labor union would be free to pursue certification with the NLRB. The warehouse workers had been the first in the e-commerce company's history to successfully form a union, voting in April to join the newly founded Amazon Labor Union. With Thursday's decision, the Amazon Labor Union is now cleared to pursue certification as the first recognized labor unit in the logistics giant — four months after workers voted to do so. Amazon and the Amazon Labor Union did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

☆ A judge ordered Starbucks to reinstate 7 workers in Tennessee who say they were fired over union activity
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-19 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A judge ordered Starbucks to reinstate the "Memphis Seven," who say they were fired over union activity. The union Starbucks Workers United said that the company fired the workers – known as the "Memphis Seven" – in retaliation for organizing and speaking to the media. Among other things, the NLRB asked Starbucks to give the fired workers their jobs back. "The Court agrees with the Board that reinstatement of the Memphis Seven is just and proper," District Judge Sheryl Lipman wrote in a filing Thursday. Workers at a store on Elmwood Ave, Buffalo voted to form a union, the first-ever at a corporate-owned Starbucks store in the US, in December.

☆ Starbucks is using 'illegal tactics' to stop workers in New York state from unionizing, the NLRB claims
▼ + stars: | 2022-06-24 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The NLRB has accused Starbucks of using "illegal tactics" to deter workers from unionizing. Starbucks also "repeatedly" closed the Buffalo stores early "to hold anti-union meetings," which reduced staff's earnings, the NLRB wrote. Workers United – the union that the Starbucks stores are organizing with – previously said Starbucks' actions were affecting staff's stance on unionizing. Starbucks workers in Buffalo first announced plans to unionize last August, citing understaffing, product shortages, and their experiences working during the pandemic. In May, the NLRB also petitioned for injunctive relief for seven former Starbucks employees in Memphis, Tennessee it said were "unlawfully fired" for organizing.

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