The good news is this thing isn’t rocket science. With the right combination of Google alerts, free time, and obsessive interest in our labor union mastodons, it can be replicated. I also don’t know if this is goodbye or see you later — but for the next few months, maybe year, I’ll have my hands full and this is me leveling with you all on that front.

Please do stay in touch, and it would be really helpful if someone could put together a weekly roundup of everything happening in the labor movement so I could keep up on current events… And serious deep thanks to everyone who has contributed to this project with a few bucks, tips, analysis, corrections, connections, and so much more. It’s seriously been one of the best projects I’ve worked on.

You can always reach me by email at jonahfurman@gmail.com, at the next Labor Notes Conference, or in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Work Stoppages Page comments section (I wish).

In solidarity,

Jonah

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

The Warrior Met strike has ended. I mentioned last week the UMWA offered to end the strike by having hundreds of miners return to work in Brookville, AL (without a contract); that offer has now been accepted by the company, and Kim Kelly, who has been nearly synonymous with this strike in terms of press coverage, has the post-mortem.

The TUGSA (AFT Local 6290) Temple University grad worker strike in Philadelphia has not, as members voted down a contract offer by over 90 percent; the administration said the bargaining team promised to recommend the deal to membership, which members of the bargaining team said was a lie.

Musicians Local 802 is on strike against Distinguished Concerts International New York, a production company that puts on concerts at Carnegie Hall and other prominent NYC venues; the musicians first unionized in 2019, and mediated talks for a first contract (yes, four years later) broke down in January. Elsewhere in NYC, about 100 staffers at New York Legal Assistance Group struck for two days with UAW Local 2325.

Workers who make roof shingles for CertainTeed in Portland, OR walked off the job with Laborers Local 737 on Wednesday afternoon; I haven’t seen any news coverage, but last I saw on social media, they were still on strike as of this weekend.

A few hours before that, about 100 workers for Continental Cement in Hannibal, MO with USW Local 11-205 walked off the job in an unfair labor practice strike; they’ve been without a contract since May.

ATU Local 689 is contesting Loudoun County, VA’s position that the county can’t fine operator Keolis for failure to provide service during the now quite-long strike of 170 some workers; it kind of boggles the mind that the private operator of public transit still gets paid by the public while it fails to operate said transit, but hey, anything to turn the screws on some bus drivers, eh?

The less-common K-12 support staff strike is getting, well, more common, this month, with SEIU Local 284 food service workers still on strike in Hastings, MN after several weeks. About 100 school support staff with AFSCME Local 51 in Morgan County, OH filed a 10-day strike notice which would have them on the picket line as early as Monday. And oh, yeah, the 30,000 Los Angeles K-12 support staff with SEIU Local 99 just announced a mass rally in March as they team up with UTLA (who also have not had a contract since the school year began). Speaking of big school districts, UFT activists in NYC are raising the alarm about the continued push to privatize retiree healthcare, despite a pattern-setting agreement being announced with DC37, the city workers’ union. And speaking of K-12 strikes, teachers in the Penns Manor district in Clymer, PA are going on strike starting Monday, having authorized way back in November.

In higher ed, 1200 researchers and postdocs with UAW Local 4121 at the University of Washington have authorized a strike, following in the footsteps of their fellow West Coast UAW higher ed unionists in California.

In the skies, ALPA FedEx Express pilots have authorized a strike authorization vote (not a typo), while Teamsters Local 120 flight attendants for regional carrier Sun Country picketed in Minneapolis (in February!).

The sleeper big story of this week may end up being 6,000 Caterpillar workers with four UAW locals walking out on strike (mostly in and around Decatur and Peoria, IL, but also a small group in York, PA) when the clock strikes midnight on March 1st, and their contract expires. The UAW’s typically closed-door negotiations means there’s been little press coverage, but workers overwhelmingly authorized a strike last month, and the company has been prepping for a strike since at least November (when salary-side non-union workers reached out to me). Workers have been watching their counterparts at Deere and CNH walk off the job over the past 18 months, and win big at Deere (where workers were already considerably better off than at Cat). Of course, Caterpillar’s labor claim to fame is the ill-fated battles of the 1990s, which earned the company one of the most vicious anti-union reputations of any big unionized manufacturer. That inspirational and tragic legacy will loom large over any potential walkout. If you don’t find it too rage-inducing, check out this scab staffing agency’s take on the dispute; their take is that the end of the CNH strike makes it easier to find Midwestern manufacturing scabs, but the tight labor market makes it harder.

After the protracted dispute among Senate cafeteria workers, it’s the House’s turn; some 155 UNITE HERE Local 23 members under two contracts (catering and dining) in DC are fighting megacontractor Sodexo for a similar deal as the one the Senate workers won last year.

SEIU Local 521 city workers in Bakersfield, CA picketed for a fair contract this week, as they’ve been working under an expired deal since July.

CWA has announced a new tentative agreement covering 7,000 AT&T Mobility workers and some number of DirectTV workers across nine southeastern states, both in the union’s District 3.

Coffee workers at three Somerville, MA cafes (shoutout Diesel) have ratified a union contract with UNITE HERE’s New England Joint Board; it is, in fact, possible for baristas to win a contract.

I don’t usually roundup bargaining statements or white papers, but I thought AFGE’s push to maintain telework – from a climate angle – was interesting. The union (and other white collar workers, especially in the public sector) has had rolling fights, agency by agency, to maintain pandemic-era telework policies, especially as workers have relocated and otherwise made lifestyle adjustments.

The Writers Guild has a date set – March 20th – to begin negotiations with the AMPTP, the employers association, before their contract expires May 1st. There’s a serious amount of strike speculation surrounding these talks, not least because the Directors Guild, which usually goes first and sets a sort of pattern for the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA, has deferred to the apparently-more-pissed-off Writers Guild. A big Hollywood walkout would be a heck of a way to inaugurate what could be the striking-est summer of the 21st century.

That is, if the Teamsters indeed strike UPS. For the big picture on that, I found Alex Press’s piece for Jacobin about as good an overview as I’ve seen.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

So, who’s going to be the next Labor Secretary? Julie Su seems to be the path of least resistance (and popular with labor and progressives), already being the deputy at DOL, but AFA-CWA’s Sara Nelson is now apparently in the conversation, as is the NFLPA’s ex-head DeMaurice Smith.

In Maryland, unions including the Machinists and AFSCME are pushing for multiple labor reform bills, as the supermajority blue state still doesn’t have universal collective bargaining for public employees.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

The ballot count in the UAW election runoff to determine the first-ever directly-elected president of the union will start at 9am on Wednesday, and we’ll probably have a good sense of the outcome by the end of the week. Turnout is up by about 40 percent from the first round, with the final number of ballots probably going to land just a little north of 140,000, of one million mailed (though 650,000 of those to retirees). The vote count comes almost six years after the first charges were brought in the Chrysler corruption scandal that triggered a Department of Justice consent decree that triggered a referendum on direct elections that triggered the union’s first-ever membership-wide direct leadership elections. In the final days of ballots being mailed back, and days before a potential Caterpillar strike, the International Executive Board voted to increase strike pay to $500 a week, which had been a hugely contentious fight at the union’s convention last summer.

In other national union election news, CWA incumbent president Chris Shelton is retiring ahead of the union’s July convention, and is endorsing Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens to succeed him. I haven’t seen other candidates announce their intention to run, but you also don’t usually see campaign websites for candidates who expect to run unopposed.

NYC’s TWU Local 100 experienced some union politics by other means.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 1,566 UPenn medical residents in Philadelphia have officially filed their NLRB petition with CIR SEIU, while another 810 medical residents, this time at the University of Buffalo, are organizing with UAPD (AFSCME). Elsewhere in highly-educated unionism, 900 grad student workers at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH have filed for an NLRB election with the UE, as the grad worker organizing wave also rolls on. 150 healthcare workers in the Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Unit are organizing with UFCW Local 3000. 134 pharmaceutical manufacturing and warehouse workers for Topiderm in Amityville, NY are organizing with UFCW Local 342. 62 clerical workers subcontracted by Amentum to the Department of State in Sterling, VA are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 99. 62 doctors, nurses, and midwives at Providence Women’s Clinic locations in and around Portland, OR are unionizing with the Oregon Nurses Association (AFT). 52 baristas at three stores in Somerville, MA, Branford, CT, and Sutton, WV (the state’s first!) are organizing with Starbucks Workers United. Another 39 dialysis clinic workers at a Fresenius in Elk Grove, CA are joining SEIU UHW. 19 cannabis workers at [deep breath] “Grow OP Farms LLC, dba Phat Panda LLC, dba Sticky Frog, dba Hot Sugar” in Spokane Valley, WA are unionizing with UFCW Local 3000. 18 plumbers for BLOX, which makes modular medical rooms in Bessemer, AL are joining UA Local 91. 18 Asplundh tree trimmers in Willow Grove, PA are unionizing with the Utility Workers, though most other Asplundh union shops are IBEW, as far as I’ve seen. 17 AV workers at NYC’s School of Visual Arts Theater are joining IATSE Local 306. 15 workers at green recycling outfit Zero Waste Energy in San Leandro, CA are joining Machinists Local 1546, though Teamsters Local 70 and ILWU Local 6 are listed as “involved parties” (which usually means they represent some members at the company, but that’s just my speculation and is a little confusing for a small outfit). 13 ER doctors at Providence Medical Center in Medford, OR are joining AFT Local 6552. 11 skilled hospital maintenance workers for UPMC Jameson in New Castle, PA are joining Operating Engineers Local 95. Nine food service workers at Green Sage Cafe in Asheville, NC are joining Teamsters Local 61. Eight dispatchers with the Texas New Mexico Power Company in Alvin, TX are joining IBEW Local 66. Three plumbers for Custom Plumbing in Crown Point, IN are joining UA Local 210. Three workers at construction equipment outfit Herc Rentals in Scott City, MO are joining Operating Engineers Local 513. Two more bank tellers with the Lake Michigan Credit Union in Bonita Springs, FL are joining CWA.

NLRB election wins…: 77 staffers at Freedom House, a democracy-promotion NGO (not the homeless shelter of the same name, as I mistakenly guessed when they first filed), voted 49-5 to join OPEIU Local 153. 72 drivers and dispatchers for FCC Environmental Services recycling company in Dallas voted 35-30 to join Teamsters Local 745. 31 non-profit staffers at the Western Massachusetts Training Consortium in Northampton, MA voted 8-6 to join UAW Local 2322. 29 ballet dancers at the Texas Ballet Theater in Fort Worth, TX voted 20-6 to join the American Guild of Musical Artists. 23 workers at Braeburn Alloy Steel in Lower Burrell, PA voted 19-4 to join the Steelworkers. 19 workers who make turbines for Ethosenergy in Houston voted 11-7 to join Carpenters Local 724. 13 construction workers for Caliber Concrete in Milton, WA voted 3-0 to join the Laborers.

…and losses: 28 warehouse workers, refinishers, and drivers for CORT Furniture in North Bergen, NJ voted 8-16 against joining Teamsters Local 814, who initially filed for an election in March of 2020.

Decertifications and raids: SEIU District 1199 WV/KY/OH narrowly survived a decertification attempt among 167 support staff at Cleveland’s Lutheran Hospital, 70-61.

In case you thought the UE wasn’t organizing enough grad student workers, the union has announced drives at the University of Minnesota (where the 4400 or so grad workers have started signing cards) and Princeton (where apparently a majority have already signed up; I’d like to think this is because of my hard work as an AFT staffer working on the Princeton grad for like a month six years ago). Elsewhere in higher ed, the UAW is organizing non-tenure-track faculty at NYU and at Harvard, where undergrad workers are organizing as well (though not, as far as I’ve seen, affiliated with an established union). And adjacent to higher ed, nurses at DC’s George Washington University Hospital are unionizing with the DC Nurses Association (NNU).

In a rare non-education or -healthcare related organizing drive (51% joking), 283 workers at a New Flyer electric bus plant in Shepherdsville, KY won a card check vote to join IUE-CWA (thanks to a reader for the tip, and sorry to my friend who worked on that campaign for erasing your valiant efforts).

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

In the past weeks, several extremely long strikes have ended or are moving rapidly in that direction: the UMWA has sent a letter to Warrior Met coal in Brookwood, AL, offering an “unconditional return to work” without a contract, a month shy of the two-year mark of what started as an 1100-member strike, a strike in which pickets were outlawed by activist judges, in which hundreds of workers scabbed, in which miners headed to Manhattan and DC to target the shareholders and politicians behind Warrior Met, and in which, as UMWA president Cecil Roberts put it in his letter to the company, “nothing has materially changed.” In second place, at seven months, the Teamsters Local 251 strike of 40 DHL subcontracted drivers in Pawtucket, RI has ended with a ratified contract. After just under six months, the 50 Kaiser mental healthcare workers on strike with NUHW in Hawaii ratified a new contract. And finally, UAW Local 2110 members on strike at HarperCollins since November are headed back to work this week with a ratified contract.

In transit, the ATU Local 689 strike against private operator Keolis, which runs Loudoun County, VA’s public transit system, is now in its eighth week on strike with the union pushing on the County’s Board of Supervisors (headed by Phyllis Randall, a Democrat who has gotten around $100,000 in campaign contributions from labor, including ATU specifically) to intervene; maybe ATU President John Costa could mention it at his next DNC function. Meanwhile, in neighboring Prince William County, VA, 150 transit workers with Teamsters Local 639 have also walked out on strike against Keolis, shutting down the county’s OmniRide system. Transit workers in Ithaca, NY with UAW Local 2300 ratified a new agreement after eight months without a contract. Columbia, MO transit workers (and other public workers) with Laborers Local 955 rallied for a 10 percent wage increase and against a proposed cut in public transit service; ATU Local 519 transit workers held a similar protest in La Crosse, WI.

Some 600 grad workers at Philadelphia’s Temple University went on strike on January 31st with AFT Local 6290, and though the administration recently announced a tentative agreement, the union is very clear that they are still on strike until the deal gets voted on. Elsewhere in higher ed, Harvard’s clerical union, HUCTW, has begun info picketing for wage increases, 10 months into negotiations. Undergraduate students at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH won a $21 minimum wage after a strike threat, having organized last year.

Around two dozen workers for Mt. Baker Roofing in Bellingham, WA struck for basic things like bathrooms and drinking water, supported by Familias Unidas por la Justicia.

City workers in Portland, OR and Camden, NJ struck; in Portland, 600 members of Laborers Local 483 walked off for three days, with the main showdown at the city’s wastewater treatment plant, and won a bigger wage package. In Camden, 130 Waste Management sanitation workers with Teamsters Local 115 walked off at the beginning of the month, and I honestly can’t find anything on the status of the dispute.

A few dozen workers at Medieval Times in Buena Park, CA walked off the job, causing in-character chaos and other fun, as the workers fight for a first contract, having unionized with AGVA in November.

Coffee workers kept the strike wave alive with Starbucks Workers United shutting down an Atlanta store for an Unfair Labor Practice morning strike, while baristas at Remedy House in Buffalo, NY went on strike and quickly won union recognition with Workers United.

And speaking of unfair labor practice strikes before recognition, REI workers who are organizing with RWDSU in Beachwood, OH walked off the job as the company plays stupid delay games with the NLRB.

200 NewsGuild members at NBC, MSNBC, and the TODAY Show struck for a day in protest of newly-announced layoffs.

The latest technically-illegal strike in Massachusetts closed schools for a week in Woburn, MA, with the Massachusetts Teachers Association showing that their locals aren’t afraid to go up against massive fines and the letter of the law. School cafeteria workers in Hastings, MN are in the second week of their strike against poverty wages with SEIU Local 284, and school bus drivers with Teamsters Local 959 in the Mat-Su Valley, AK have been on strike for the entire month of February, with no deal yet in sight. After much signaling to this effect, SEIU Local 99 school support staff in Los Angeles (of which there are a lot, like 30,000 members) have indeed authorized a strike, with mediation to start this week. And NYC’s UFT is taking its contract campaign more public which is out of character, to say the least, for the union; though the new pattern-setting tentative agreement AFSCME DC37 just announced with the City may accelerate the timeline. In Richmond, CA, after some strike talk, teachers reached a tentative agreement.

40 members of Teamsters Local 916 for massive food processor ADM in Decatur, IL (so massive that I believe these workers operate a power plant specifically for the company’s Decatur operation) have been on strike for three weeks.

Several dozen workers for Cognizant, a contractor for YouTube Music, are on an unfair labor practice strike with the Alphabet Workers Union after the employer tried to end their remote work policy a week after they filed for a union election.

Some 180 Aramark laundry Teamsters averted a strike across five Midwestern states and as many local unions, reaching a new agreement at (I think actually a little bit after) the last minute. 

We could soon see a rare insurance industry strike at Madison, WI-based CUNA Mutual Group, where 450 OPEIU Local 39 members have been in a protracted contract dispute and are talking work stoppage…

Around 700 concessions workers with UNITE HERE Local 1 at Chicago’s United Center authorized a strike and aren’t making much progress with megasubcontractor Levy.

IBEW Local 4’s strike authorization vote at KSDK Channel 5 in St. Louis got the formal stamp of approval from IBEW HQ (a formal bureaucratic move), but it’s unclear when these broadcasting workers might walk, with bargaining scheduled through the end of February.

Wichita, KS nurses with NNU held a rally as they enter negotiations for a first contract with Ascension while 300 more nurses organize across town (see below). SEIU Local 1107 nurses in Las Vegas protested a scheduling policy change that somehow makes it even harder to be a working hospital RN.

The rail worker paid sick leave fight is still not over, and BMWE and BRC workers at CSX (then expanded to IAM and NCFO as well) secured a deal for paid sick days (four, not seven or 15 as had been pushed by the unions). I’ve heard rumors of other sick day deals to be rolled out for the, I don’t know, 90 percent of rail workers who aren’t members of those four unions at CSX, but I haven’t seen anything official.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Marty Walsh is leaving the Department of Labor to head the NHLPA, where he will double his salary and at least halve the number of people getting mad at him.

Utah’s state legislature is coming after the public sector unions.

Loudoun County, VA is moving closer to local public sector collective bargaining, as firefighters and teachers collect signatures to petition the local authorities to pass an ordinance under the 2021 state law that allows such things.

The federal Office of Personnel Management is telling agencies to take another look at who they’ve excluded from bargaining units and take a more expansive view of who gets to be a federal union member.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

The UAW election is in its final days of mail-in voting, with ballots set to be counted in early March; Ian Kullgren spoke to incumbent Ray Curry and gave an overview of the stakes, while challenger Shawn Fain laid out his case in the Detroit Free Press. 

And on its heels may be a contested UFCW international leadership election, which I believe would be the first of its kind since the union’s founding in the 1970s. The UFCW reform effort (which I wrote about some months ago for Labor Notes) is coalescing around the “Meet the Moment” candidates, though there remains an uphill battle to hold an actual vote, let alone for any challengers to win such a vote.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 

Education: 1700 more grad workers are unionizing, this time with the UAW at Boston’s Northeastern University, another effort revived from the Trump era. More undergraduate workers are unionizing: 286 resident assistants at Boston University with SEIU Local 509 (who just organized 3,000+ grad student workers), as well as 96 RAs at Fordham in the Bronx, and 80 more at Troy, NY’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the latter two both with OPEIU Local 153. 70 educators at Brookside School in Cottekill, NY are unionizing with SEIU Local 200; 31 more at a KIPP charter school in Denver are joining the Colorado Charter Teachers Association (which I assume is NEA). 44 teachers and clericals at Oak Park, IL’s School of Rock are inexplicably joining the Iron Workers. Not to be outdone by the grad students, 36 shuttle drivers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles are joining SEIU Local 721.

Healthcare: It’s not at the NLRB (yet), but 1400 medical residents at Philadelphia’s Penn Medicine have signed onto a supermajority request for voluntary recognition with CIR SEIU. 830 medical residents and fellows at the Loma Linda University health education consortium in San Bernardino County, CA are organizing with the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (AFSCME), and not, notably, CIR; another 44 doctors at the Centers for Family Medicine in Irvine, CA and 37 at Community Health Center of Snohomish County in Everetta, WA are also joining UAPD. 300 nurses at Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph Hospital in Wichita, KS are organizing with NNU; 650 other RNs at another Ascension hospital in Wichita organized last year. 150 mental health workers at Shalom House in Portland, ME are organizing with SEIU Local 1989. 150 doctors and podiatrists at Allina’s Mercy/Unity Hospital in Fridley, MN are joining SEIU Local 10MD. 90 social workers at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, CA are unionizing with SEIU UHW. 55 mental healthcare workers at Minneapolis’s Riverside Hospital are joining SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa. 29 mental healthcare workers at Cornerstone Montgomery in Rockville, MD are unionizing with SEIU 1199. 26 dialysis clinic workers at Fresenius in San Diego are joining SEIU UHW. 19 maintenance workers at Los Angeles’s Good Samaritan Hospital are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 501, and 16 more at Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth, NJ are joining Operating Engineers Local 68.

Teamsters: 196 school bus drivers for First Student (operating as “Apple Bus”) in Huntsville, AL are unionizing with Teamsters Local 402; another 48 drivers for Student Transportation of America in Portland, OR are joining Teamsters Local 206. 110 Republic Services sanitation workers in Mesa, AZ are organizing with Teamsters Local 104; 13 more in Petaluma, CA are joining Teamsters Local 665. 54 workers who make plastic packaging for Graham Packaging in Selah, WA are unionizing with Teamsters Local 760. 50 beer distribution drivers for Premium Distributors in Richmond, VA are organizing with Teamsters Local 322. 21 drivers for Emerald Textiles in Commerce, CA are joining Teamsters Local 986. 16 Pepsico workers in West Branch, MI are joining Teamsters Local 406. 16 dispensary workers at Botera in Brockton, MA are joining Teamsters Local 653. 11 workers for Pittsburgh pallet company 48forty Solutions are joining Teamsters Local 249. 11 oil delivery drivers for Broco Energy in Haverhill, MA are joining Teamsters Local 170. 

Other industries: 180 more manufacturing workers for Bobcat in Rogers, MN are organizing with the Steelworkers; the union won one of the biggest blue collar NLRB wins last year among 700 Bobcat workers in North Dakota (as far as I know, only one of the other five Bobcat factories (aside from Bismarck and now, maybe, Rogers) is union, in Gwinner, ND). 156 utility workers at Calenergy in Calipatria, CA are organizing with IBEW Local 47. 130 staffers at Philadelphia nonprofit Community Integrated Services are organizing with AFSCME Local 1739. 128 more baristas are joining Starbucks Workers United in Chicago, Philadelphia, Sacramento (x2), Portland and Hillsboro, OR, Knoxville, and Salisbury, MD; 69 more Blank Street Coffee shift leads and baristas in NYC are joining UFCW Local 1500. 118 workers who work with homeless young people with New Avenues for Youth in Portland, OR are unionizing with AFSCME Council 75. 79 grocery workers at Asian grocery importer Market World in Los Angeles are organizing with the new but growing California Retail and Restaurant Workers Union. 73 workers at a machine shop, Trulife, in Bellingham, WA, are organizing with Machinists District 160. 60 workers at Dulles Drywall in Chantilly, VA are joining Carpenters Local 197. 

Smaller shops: 49 ski patrollers at Loveland Ski Area in Dillon, CO are joining CWA. 42 clericals at Penske in El Paso, TX are joining UAW Local 286. 39 hotel workers at the Westin in Itasca, IL are joining UNITE HERE Local 450. 32 workers at PPG Automotive Finish in Strongsville, OH are joining the UAW. 31 workers for Madison, FL’s Tri-County Electric Cooperative are organizing with the IBEW. 30 workers at Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center are joining AFSCME Council 8. 27 workers for Duke Energy in Harrison, OH are joining IBEW Local 1347. 25 workers at resale and salvage outfit Urban Ore in Berkeley, CA are joining the IWW. 23 workers at Hertel Hardware & Plumbing Supply in Buffalo, NY are joining UA Local 22. 22 clericals at a Hormel meatpacking plant in Tucker, GA are joining UFCW Local 1996. 17 retail workers at Bob’s Discount Furniture in North Dartmouth, MA are joining UFCW Local 328. 17 workers for Sunbelt Rentals in New Jersey are joining Operating Engineers Local 825. 16 workers who run a mental health crisis hotline in Tempe, AZ are unionizing but the filing is unclear (I mean the listed “union” appears to be a company registered six months ago in Wisconsin, doesn’t make sense, maybe this is an independent union?). 15 ironworkers for New Steel Fabricator in Calexico, CA are joining the Iron Workers. 15 maintenance workers at Chicago’s Midtown Athletic Club are joining Operating Engineers Local 399. 15 workers at Atlanta Gas Light are joining IBEW Local 1997. 14 staffers at pre-apprenticeship program Oregon Tradeswomen in Portland, OR are joining Machinists District W24. 11 electricians for Marathon at their Long Beach, CA terminals are joining IBEW Local 2295. 

NLRB election wins…: Two more massive units of graduate student workers have won landslide votes, with UE picking up 3,186 members (that’s nearly 10% of their total reported membership in 2020) at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in a 2,053-67 (!) vote, and UAW picking up around 3400 members at Los Angeles’s University of Southern California after a 1,599-122 blowout. 1,297 hospital techs and support staff at Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, CA voted 720-577 to join SEIU UHW, though it sounds like management is intent on aggressively appealing the vote. 305 workers at the Smart & Final distribution warehouse in Commerce, CA voted 173-93 to unionize with Teamsters Local 630. 238 workers at grocery wholesaler UNFI in Rocklin, CA voted 97-79 to join Teamsters Local 150. 196 “transit ambassadors” who work in MBTA stations for Block by Block in Boston voted 71-2 to join Teamsters Local 25. 172 baristas at twelve locations of Blank Street Coffee in NYC voted 92-15 to join UFCW Local 1500 in two votes; elsewhere in coffee, Starbucks Workers United won four votes (in Portland, OR, Liverpool, NY, Shoreline, WA, and Evanston, IL) and lost two (in Colorado Springs and Penfield, NY), picking up 87 members; UFCW Local 881 won two elections among 25 La Colombe baristas in Chicago, almost unanimously, 23-0; and 34 at Intelligentsia Coffee in Los Angeles voted 17-14 to join IBEW Local 1220 (which is odd because that’s an Illinois local, but a little less odd because they have the only union contract at Intelligentsia). 157 healthcare workers at the St. Joseph Home Care Network in Petaluma and Santa Rosa, CA voted overwhelmingly, 105-6, to join NUHW. 136 non-profit mental healthcare workers for Resilience Medical in New York City voted 79-13 to join AFSCME DC37 under the still-recent non-profits-that-contract-with-the-city neutrality law. Teamsters Local 577 won yet another school bus union vote, with 58 drivers at First Student in Plainview, TX voting 36-4 to join; 41 more school bus drivers for Durham in Providence, RI voted 23-17 to join ATU Local 618. 43 zookeepers at The Living Desert in Palm Desert, CA voted 28-2 to join AFSCME District Council 36. 33 teachers of unaccompanied minor immigrants for Southwest Key in El Paso, TX voted 15-9 to join Operating Engineers Local 351. 21 nursing home workers at West River Rehab in Milford, CT voted 12-1 to join SEIU 1199 New England, as did 16 more at Madison House in Madison, CT, 12-0. 19 construction workers for RNR Concrete in Napa, CA voted 8-3 to join the Iron Workers. All 18 residents at Berkeley, CA’s LifeLong Medical Care voted to join SEIU CIR. 15 workers for Dryden Ambulance in Dryden, NY voted 5-1 to join IAFF Local 709. 15 warehouse workers at Fort Bliss, TX voted 14-0 to join Operating Engineers Local 351. 11 crane operators at Bauman Crane in Chalfont, PA voted 6-3 to join Operating Engineers Local 542. 

…and losses: 123 factory maintenance workers for Brown & Root but working at the International Paper factory in Valliant, OK voted 17-97 against joining the Steelworkers. RWDSU also lost in a landslide vote among 56 lumber workers for Patrick Industries in Decatur, AL, 5-48. 44 ironworkers at Shannon Side Welding in Daly City, CA voted 6-19 against joining the Ironworkers. 32 skilled maintenance workers at healthcare facilities company Medxcel in Indianapolis voted 11-17 against joining Operating Engineers Local 399. 22 staffers at non-profit Hello Neighbor, which provides services to refugees in Pittsburgh, voted 6-9 against joining the Steelworkers. 12 facilities workers at a Fort Bliss, TX contractor voted 2-10 against Operating Engineers Local 351. 

Decertifications and raids: OK, best I can tell, 1199 SEIU and Boilermakers Local 947 are fighting over a whopping 1,080 home health care workers at Community Care Companies (based in Smithtown, NY but across the state); this made absolutely no sense to me until I realized that Local 947 is actually an IUJAT local (IUJAT being known especially for raiding and/or having sweetheart contracts) that was absorbed into the Boilermakers in 2020 – either Local 947 is raiding 1199 or they’re both going after this unit, which is just very suspect on the 947 front, since they had fewer than 400 members in total as of a year ago and are, you know, theoretically in the Boilermakers as opposed to 1199, one of the largest home healthcare unions in the country. While northern Virginia transit workers with ATU and the Teamsters are on strike, 149 First Transit workers who run Arlington, VA Rapid Transit voted 41-76 to decertify AFSCME Local 3001. 118 school bus drivers and mechanics for Towne Bus in Medford, NY decertified Teamsters Local 1205 in an 11-50 vote. Operating Engineers Local 103 survived a decertification vote, 48-31, among 80 workers who make cement products for Martin Marietta Materials in Indianapolis. The UFT also survived a decert, at Elm Community Charter School in Elmhurst, NY, 12-4. All 17 maintenance workers at another Fort Bliss, TX contractor voted to decertify Operating Engineers Local 351. 12 workers at Gerald Hyundai dealership in North Aurora, IL voted 2-9 to drop Machinists Local 701. Three air traffic controllers in West Tisbury, MA voted 1-2 to drop PATCO. 

In auto, a group of workers at Tesla’s Buffalo, NY went public with their union drive with Workers United and dozens were immediately fired, which will be the latest high profile test of whether the United States has functioning labor law (Tesla should’ve known better than to operate in Buffalo if they didn’t want Workers United organizing). And in other auto news, Ford announced that they’ll respect a card check process with the UAW for around 2500 workers who will be making electric vehicle batteries at a new plant in Marshall, MI, a promising sign of the Big Three not outright avoiding the union as the industry goes electric (though it should be noted that Ford is building Blue Oval City, a Tennessee megacampus, that will be important for the future of the union).

Teamsters Local 322 and SEIU Local 512 seem to have reached a turf agreement for city workers in Richmond, VA, newly eligible to legally unionize, with blue collar workers filing to join the Teamsters, and admin and clericals filing with SEIU.

15 staffers at The Innocence Project in Atlanta have joined Teamsters Local 728 after a card check vote.

Last week, I mused that the HarperCollins UAW Local 2110 strike (which is now bringing in a federal mediator) might be the longest running strike outside of Warrior Met now that the CNH strike is over – but the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike with the NewsGuild, Teamsters, and CWA has it beat by three weeks, marking 100 days on the line this week. The Guild has asked the DOJ to bring an antitrust case against the employer, won an NLRB ruling against the paper, and got a shout out from the floor of Congress this week. UAW Local 171 workers at Sherwin-Williams in Williamsport, MD have also been out for over two months, with little attention on or coverage of their strike. And speaking of ongoing strikes, ATU Local 689 transit workers remain on the picket line in Loudoun County, VA against French subcontractor Keolis, and are taking the line to the French Embassy in DC.

In new(er) strikes, Luis Feliz Leon wrote for Labor Notes about the non-union restaurant strike at Twin Peaks in Brentwood, TN, where both back and front of house workers have walked off in protest of particularly egregious harassment from management. In K-12 education, over 500 Woburn, MA educators have walked off on the latest “illegal” strike in the state, SEIU Local 284 food service workers in Hastings, MN public schools have set a strike date for next week, and around 40 K-12 educators at the UCLA Lab School in Los Angeles struck for two days as management stalls on negotiating a contract, amid other grievances about the direction of the institution; the Pacific Collegiate Charter School in Santa Cruz, CA is also at an impasse in bargaining. Janitors with SEIU USW for contractor Nova in San Diego County, CA also struck for two days and then suspended the strike to go back to the bargaining table for the next two weeks; meanwhile, janitors with 32BJ SEIU in NYC protested Twitter’s layoffs.

In Florida, the six-union Service Trades Council Union has officially recommended its 45,000 members vote no on what Disney says is its best offer; there’s no strike deadline (or even strike authorization) yet, but they’re on a month-to-month extension, so things could theoretically move fast.

Some 6,000 members of four UAW locals in Illinois and York, PA, voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike against Caterpillar, which could happen as soon as March 1st, when their contract expires. If they walk, it will not only be an important echo of the protracted battle at the company in the 1990s, but also the third big farm and construction equipment manufacturer strike in a very short period, following Deere and CNH, plus a big successful organizing drive at Bobcat. It sounds like part of what’s behind the strike push is the big wins at Deere; that added to the fact that Deere workers were already better off than those at Caterpillar in the first place means expectations may be high for improvements at Cat, and the notoriously anti-union company may likewise be looking to make a stand.

Around 600 Portland, OR city workers with Laborers Local 483 are days away from a strike, with the city moving to hire replacements under an emergency order; apparently one of the core sticking points is the city’s insistence on capping cost-of-living increases at 5 percent, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent data says CPI in the Western US went up 6.2 percent in 2022. Elsewhere in city worker unions, Teamsters Local 507 members who work for the city of Cleveland voted to ratify a deal, having threatened (but not actually having taken) a strike authorization vote. 

As expected, Michigan Nurses Associations members at two hospitals – McLaren Central in Mount Pleasant, MI and MyMichigan in Alma, MI – have voted to authorize strikes; they’d need to give 10-day notices before any walk off.

Library workers at the University of Washington with SEIU Local 925 came right up to the edge of striking before winning a tentative agreement.

Several thousand King Kullen grocery workers with UFCW Local 1500 on Long Island, NY voted to authorize a strike, after their contract expired in December.

New York City’s municipal workers are at an indefinite contract stalemate with the city, partly over a long battle over retiree healthcare and an agreement by the unions, years ago, to base raises on healthcare cost savings, which of course incentivizes the city to cut healthcare costs, which they tried to do, specifically for retirees, but which was met with fierce resistance. Claudia Irizarry Aponte has a great write-up of the situation for The City.

And speaking of contract stalemates, Canadian Pacific is apparently stonewalling the BMWE in negotiating a national agreement (they are only partly covered by the national freight rail negotiations); workers are rallying in Minneapolis this week in protest.

And speaking of rallies, ATU Local 836 bus operators in Grand Rapids, MI rallied against their employer, The Rapid, dividing and conquering, giving raises to mechanics but not to drivers. Elsewhere in transit, 500 Charlotte, NC bus drivers with SMART Local 1715 who set a strike date apparently have a tentative agreement.

At the airlines, TWU Local 550 dispatchers at Southwest have a TA, and 8,000 airline mechanic Teamsters at United ratified a deal. 

In Orlando, convention center workers for megacontractor Sodexo with UNITE HERE Local 737 ratified a contract after authorizing a strike, and, notably, won a similar wage increase – $5 added to the base wage over three years – as the union is fighting for at nearby Disney.

In New Mexico, state employees with CWA Local 7076 rallied for telework rights, which remains a top-ticket issue for unionized workers who can work from home but are facing pushes from employers to force workers back into the office.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

The staff union (represented by the Chicago NewsGuild) at SEIU Local 1 is raising the alarm about proposed layoffs under new union leadership.

Extremely publicly unsavory NYC PBA (police union) leader Patrick Lynch is facing a challenger in that union’s election, as he has failed to deliver a union contract for several years.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 266 warehouse workers for TCGPlayer, a game card distributor, are organizing with CWA in Syracuse, NY; it’s the second drive, after a failed effort in 2020. 155 workers for findhelp, which helps connect people with social services, based in Austin, TX, are organizing with OPEIU Local 1010. 112 workers who provide home care for Avalon Private Duty, 82 for At Home Caregivers, 75 for 702 Caregivers, and 25 more for All About You, all in Las Vegas, are organizing with SEIU Local 1107. 100 workers who make air conditioners for Carrier in Charlotte, NC are organizing with UA Local 421; so are 68 utility workers for Duke Energy in Charlotte, with IBEW Local 962. 65 drivers for “the Midwest’s leading seafood distributor,” Fortune Fish Co. in Bensenville, IL, are unionizing with Teamsters Local 703. 55 workers at Philadelphia’s New Foundations Charter School are organizing, presumably with AFT. 53 workers at Lodi, an Italian restaurant in NYC’s Rockefeller Center, are unionizing with the independent Restaurant Workers Union Local 1. 46 workers at Philadelphia’s Please Touch Museum, a children's museum, are joining AFSCME Local 397. 33 EMTs and paramedics for Frontier Ambulance in Riverton, WY are joining the USW. 33 school bus drivers for Tewksbury (MA) Transit are unionizing with Teamsters Local 25. 25 baristas in Columbus, OH are joining Starbucks Workers United. 20 workers who I think install automatic doors for Assa Abloy in Auburn, MA are joining the Carpenters. 15 service shop workers at Ford of Port Jefferson Station, NY are joining UAW Local 259; and six technicians at South Suburban Mitsubishi in Matteson, IL are joining Machinists Local 701. 12 projectionists at NYC’s Anthology Film Archives are unionizing with IATSE Local 306. Six telehealth nurses at DC’s Shepherd Park Children’s National are joining NNU (the DC Nurses Association). Five product testers for Reviewed, which seems to be Gannett/USA Today’s Wirecutter equivalent, are unionizing with the NewsGuild in Cambridge, MA. Four subcontracted maintenance workers at a Marriott in Chicago are joining Operating Engineers Local 399. 

NLRB election wins…: AFT Local 5221 won two landslide votes among about 2200 workers at the University of Vermont Medical Center, 1120-181, among two units of technical staff and support and maintenance workers, which combined are the biggest NLRB win outside of Amazon or higher education in years. 119 truck drivers who contract with the USPS for 10 Roads Express in Columbus, OH voted 57-21 to join APWU. Around 100 workers at a third Trader Joe’s, this time in Louisville, KY, voted to join the independent Trader Joe’s United, 48-36. In two votes, 40 case managers and therapists at San Gabriel (CA) Valley Medical Center voted a combined 26-2 to join NNU. 38 stagehands at Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas voted 25-1 to join IATSE Local 720. 13 bank tellers unionized with CWA at the Lake Michigan Credit Union in Wyoming, MI, in a relatively rare banking union win. Seven workers for I think a weed delivery company, Grassdoor, in Commerce, CA voted 3-0 to join Teamsters Local 630. Six maintenance techs at Seattle’s KOMO Plaza data center voted 5-0 to join Machinists District 751. Five subcontracted workers who manage the FBI headquarter’s fleet of cars in DC voted 3-0 to join Operating Engineers Local 99. All four groundskeepers at Portland’s Reed College voted to join Teamsters Local 305.

Starbucks Workers United went two for three this week; 36 baristas in Skokie, IL and Boulder, CO joined the union in a combined 25-2 vote, while 26 in Riverside, CA voted 9-15 against joining. Elsewhere in coffee, 13 La Colombe baristas in Chicago won the chain’s third union vote, unionizing with UFCW Local 881, 12-0 (their counterparts in DC voted last month to join UFCW Local 400).

…and losses: 37 glaziers for Hall Aluminum Products in Kiowa, CO voted 5-10 against joining IUPAT Local 930.

Decertifications and raids: 11 LPNs across several CentraCare Health facilities in Paynesville, MN voted 4-7 to decertify AFSCME Local 105.

Friend of the newsletter Dave Infante over at Fingers wrote about the independent Brewing Union of Georgia that was born in Athens, GA earlier this year.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

After eight months, the 1100-member CNH strike is over, with members of the two striking locals (UAW Local 180 in Racine, WI and Local 807 in Burlington, IA) voting by 62 percent to accept a deal. I haven’t seen details, but workers rejected a deal 55-45 two weeks ago that reportedly provided for 28 percent wages but kept some healthcare concessions, so presumably there are at least some tweaks to this offer that swung those 17 percentage points. Part of that may have been the company’s threat to hire 220 permanent replacement workers, which they announced soon before the vote. And Monday, another long industrial strike ended, with BCTGM Local 100-G members at Ingredion in Cedar Rapids, IA voting to end their six-months-long strike; from the little I’ve heard, it sounds like they beat back the worst of the company’s proposed concessions. That leaves UMWA’s strike at Warrior Met in Brookwood, AL far and away the longest-running active strike in the country, which has now entered its third calendar year. I think second in the running may be the UAW Local 2110 strike at HarperCollins, which is now in its tenth week, and marked it with a rally in NYC.

In higher education, the 900 members of University of Illinois Chicago’s UIC United Faculty (AFT/AAUP Local 6456) struck for four days and won a $60,000 floor for non-tenure track faculty, among other gains; UIC is one of the most-struck higher education institutions of the past decade at least. Their SEIU Local 200 counterparts at Fordham University in the Bronx, NYC came close to walking off the job as well, reaching a deal 12 days before a strike was set to begin. A couple dozen K-12 teachers in the UC Lab School system will strike for two days this week as the administration refuses to grant them a contract.

Around 100 maintenance workers with Machinists Local 56 are on strike at Mueller Co. in Chattanooga, TN, which produces water valves; it sounds like it’s primarily a fight over working hours, specifically about the company attempting to limit overtime. It’s also the union’s first strike at the plant since 1976, apparently.

Nursing home workers with SEIU Healthcare Missouri at Hillside Manor Rehab in St. Louis held a one-day unfair labor practice strike who are facing everything from bed bugs to wage theft.

The independent Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) is taking a strike authorization vote, the latest in airline labor unrest; since they’re under the Railway Labor Act and the vote isn’t happening until May, we’re a long ways off from a legally-sanctioned strike, but it’s an escalation. Meanwhile, APFA flight attendants are picketing American Airlines at eleven airports around the country for one day this week; the company has countered with, you guessed it, chili.

Some 1400 utility workers for Baltimore Gas & Electric, who organized with IBEW Local 410 in 2017, are taking a strike authorization vote. Their contract expires at the end of February. Laborers Local 483 in Portland, OR is at an impasse in bargaining a 630-worker contract in the parks, transportation, and sanitation departments, which could mean a strike as soon as February. Subcontracted janitors with SEIU USWW in San Diego County, CA say they’re ready to strike, too. The town of Hartford, NY has declared a state of emergency as they apparently only have one remaining working Teamster snow plow driver and are at an impasse with the union, with snow in the forecast; Saratoga County, NY is also at an impasse, with over a hundred 911 dispatchers and prison guards repped by the “United Public Services Employees Union.”

20 IATSE Local 700 workers who do post-production for Saturday Night Live’s pre-taped stuff have authorized a strike, after organizing in October.

250 nurses with the Michigan Nurses Association at two hospitals – 150 at MyMichigan Medical Center in Alma, MI and 100 at McLaren in Mt. Pleasant, MI  – are taking strike authorization votes this week. A few dozen workers with 1199 SEIU at Brigham & Women’s Faulkner Hospital in Jamaica Plain, MA walked off the job for a contract rally, protesting management’s offer of a ten cent raise. Healthcare workers at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London, CT held info pickets at several hospital campuses as 900 workers with AFT Local 5123 push for a fair contract. Some 200 supporters and members of the Oregon Nurses Association rallied at the Portland, OR headquarters of Providence Health, as 2,000 nurses at three campuses work without a contract (shout out to Jamie Partridge mean-mugging the bosses!).

180 Teamsters who work at Aramark in four locals (Locals 90, 120, 238, and 554) across five states (South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois) are gearing up for a strike as soon as Friday.

And speaking of Teamsters, UPS Teamsters marked Martin Luther King Day with rallies at a number of UPS hubs demanding the company make the day a paid holiday, one of many demands the union has raised up as they go into their biggest contract fight in decades. In Ann Arbor, MI electrical workers with the IBEW and supporters rallied for the “United Six,” a group of workers of color at United Electrical Contractors who faced racist discrimination from the company and lost their jobs when they spoke up.

Teachers in the Penns Manor school district in Clymer, PA have “unanimously rejected” a contract proposal that would cut family healthcare plans; the educators authorized a strike in November. The Haverhill, MA teachers union has paid the state of Massachusetts $110k for violating a judge’s injunction against striking, and the local school board wants hundreds of thousands more, which the union is contesting. AFSCME Local 1303-467, which represents a few dozen New Haven school nurses, has a new contract after two years of bargaining.

Jeff Schuhrke at In These Times looked at how rail workers are keeping up the fight for sick leave after being shut down by the US Congress and Joe Biden. On a couple smaller carriers, rail workers with the BLET and IBEW ratified new contracts.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

UFCW Local 2 is calling for a federal investigation into the police killing of a meatpacking worker on the job in Guymon, OK. 

A federal court upheld a 2019 ruling that blocked some Trump-era NLRB efforts to make union elections take longer, which benefits the employer; there were some administrative items that survived, but it seems like minor good news for workers trying to organize through the NLRB.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 150 sanitation workers for GFL Environmental in Wayne, MI are organizing with Operating Engineers Local 324; 22 more for Casella Waste Systems in Tonawanda, NY are joining Teamsters Local 449. 90 nursing home workers at Aegis Living Ravenna in Seattle are organizing with SEIU Local 775. 73 workers at Creature Comforts brewery in Athens, GA are launching the independent Brewery Union of Georgia. 52 baristas in Lynbrook, NY and Portland, OR (who knew they had any non-union stores left?) are joining Starbucks Workers United. 50 mechanics for Amentum at Wheeler Air Force Base, HI are joining Machinists Local 1998. 40 drivers for USPS freight contractor 10 Roads Express in Hazelwood, MO are unionizing with Teamsters Local 688 (which is a little odd; this is usually APWU turf). 29 stagehands at Brooklyn Steel music venue in NYC are joining IATSE Local 4; 11 others at dance studio BodyVox in Portland, OR are joining IATSE Local 28. 29 support staff at Prairie Crossing Charter School in Grayslake, IL are unionizing with AFT Local 504. 27 workers at Four Daughters cannabis grow facility in Sharon, MA are unionizing with UFCW Local 1445. 22 workers at Braeburn Alloy Steel in Lower Burrell, PA are organizing with USW Local 5652. 15 workers at Western Waterproofing Company in Omaha are joining Bricklayers Local 15. 14 warehouse workers for Spartan Logistics in Northwood, OH are joining Teamsters Local 20. 11 sheet metal fabricators at Quicktin in Tacoma, WA are unionizing with SMART Local 66. 10 RNs at New Vitae Health & Wellness in Philadelphia are joining NUHHCE District 1199C (AFSCME). Eight building engineers in Richmond, CA are joining Operating Engineers Local 39. Eight workers at Stetson Building Products in Bettendorf, IA are joining the USW. Four water utility workers in Hannibal, MO are joining the Machinists. 

NLRB election wins…: In a mixed result, SEIU Texas won one and lost one election among two units of workers at Tenet’s Hospitals of Providence – Sierra Campus in El Paso, TX; 242 service, maintenance, and techs voted 67-7 to join the union, while 63 “professional” employees voted 3-8 not to. Yet another New Seasons grocery store in Portland, OR has joined the independent New Seasons Labor Union, after 124 workers voted 71-23 to unionize. 77 workers who make “polymerization chemicals” for Nouryon in La Porte, TX voted 40-36 to unionize with the USW. 58 hospice workers for Sutter Care At Home in Sacramento voted 39-9 to join NUHW. 55 faculty members at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts voted 36-2 to form the independent Association of Teachers Training Actors. 38 weed dispensary workers in Rockford, IL voted an impressive 30-0 to join Teamsters Local 777. 33 chemical workers at Ascensus Specialties in Elma, WA voted 23-8 to join Teamsters Local 252. 28 workers at La Grange Crane Service in Hopkins, IL voted 25-0 to join Operating Engineers Local 150. 20 workers at Afuri Ramen in Portland, OR won their union vote, 16-0, establishing the independent Restaurant Workers of Portland (who are also organizing a Potbelly’s location). 19 dancers at the Memphis Ballet have voted to join AGMA (though the NLRB site hasn’t updated with a count). 17 court reporters for Remote Legal in NYC voted 10-2 to join CWA. 14 bus drivers for DS Bus Lines in Amarillo, TX voted 8-4 to join Teamsters Local 577. 13 subcontracted border patrol mechanics in Harlingen, TX voted 8-0 to join Machinists Local 2949. Seven sprinklerfitters for TP Mechanical Contractors in Dayton, OH voted 3-1 to join UA Local 669. Seven maintenance workers at the Hopkinson House apartments in Philadelphia voted 6-0 to join Workers United’s Philadelphia Joint Board. Five veterinarian techs at Eye Care for Animals in Chicago voted 4-1 to join Machinists Local 701. 

…and losses: 27 workers at a Curaleaf dispensary in Tucson, AZ lost their rerun election (which they initially won, but was negated for some reason behind a FOIA wall) to join UFCW Local 99, 10-13. 13 workers at a Rite Aid in Corvallis, OR lost their bid to form the independent Pharmacy Technicians of Rite Aid union, 2-11. Nine subcontracted workers at a DC wastewater treatment plant voted 3-6 against joining Operating Engineers Local 99. 

34 Starbucks workers in Skokie, IL and Flower Mound, TX voted 24-8 to join Starbucks Workers United; in a rerun of a loss, 25 more in Lafayette, LA voted again not to, 10-10. And speaking of new coffee organizing, Peet’s Coffee now has a union in Davis, CA, after workers there voted 14-1 to join Workers United.

Decertifications and raids: 15 workers for Cardinal Steel Supply on the Mississippi River in St. Louis voted to decertify ILA Local 1765, 2-11. 

1400 meatpacking workers at Tyson in Columbus Junction, IA are organizing with UFCW Local 431 in conjunction with workers center Escucha Mi Voz, and the company is putting out some egregious union-busting communications to the workers. 

Nickelodeon has voluntarily recognized 177 production workers who were seeking to join the existing IATSE Local 839 (The Animation Guild) unit at the network. 

Journalists at Reveal, a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, have announced their intent to unionize. 

Syracuse University grad workers are organizing with SEIU Local 200. Teachers in Prince William County, VA are voting on formal unionization having won a local collective bargaining ordinance.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

The 7,000-member NYSNA nurses strike at Montefiore Medical Center and Mount Sinai in NYC is over after three days, winning the ever-sought-after goal of lower staffing ratios, with what sounds like some kind of enforcement mechanism in the actual contract (plus a 19 percent raise over three years). The question is whether winning enforceable staffing ratios is enough to address the crisis in hospital nursing; either way, analysts are expecting the rolling nurse strike wave to continue apace.

For Labor Notes, Courtney Smith and I wrote about the ATU Local 689 strike against Keolis, a private operator of the Loudoun County, VA public transit system. It’s the latest of many of these sorts of fights, especially in the DC region, where private operators win a privatization contract on an impossibly low-dollar bid and proceed to aggressively fight the unions, where they exist, to cut wages and benefits. In this case, the company even forced, essentially, a re-vote on the union, which Local 689 handily won. In Charlotte, NC, 500 or so transit workers with SMART Local 1715 at the Charlotte Area Transit System (“CATS”), run by another private operator, RATP Dev, authorized a strike last week, but apparently won’t walk before February; in September, members rejected a contract that would’ve taken away days off in exchange for an 11 percent raise.

180 Durham School Services school bus drivers in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, AK (aka “Mat-Su,” a county the size of the state of West Virginia) with Teamsters Local 959 have authorized a strike over, among other things, a lack of ice scrapers (which seem important for school bus drivers in Alaska in January).

The Starbucks Workers United strike wave was kept alive by a walkout in Tucson, AZ this week.

The Service Trades Council Union, comprised of six unions (IATSE Local 631, Teamsters Local 385, TCU-IAM Local 1908, UFCW Local 1625, and UNITE HERE Locals 362 and 737), recommended their 42,000 members at Disney World in Orlando, FL reject the latest contract offer which includes a $1 raise. The contract expired in October and the unions have been rallying for a new deal.

And speaking of potentially huge entertainment strikes, the Directors Guild of America is signaling to its members that this round of negotiations could be rocky; combined with a much-rumored Writers Guild strike possible in May, it could be a big year for Hollywood labor.

UFCW Local 1496 is at an impasse in bargaining with Kroger-owned Fred Meyer grocery stores in Fairbanks, AK. 

Another round of layoffs has hit Twitter janitors, this time with 32BJ SEIU in NYC,

The players of the US Football League (a new minor football league apparently) have ratified their first union contract with the Steelworkers.

The 250 striking HarperCollins workers with UAW Local 2110 will mark their 50th day on strike with a rally in Manhattan, NY; they’re the only unionized big publisher, but have been without a contract since April 2022.

Some high-profile new organizing targets hit milestones this week, with the Amazon Labor Union finally being officially certified in Staten Island, NY by the National Labor Relations Board, nine months since they won their vote. Apple has begun negotiations with its first unionized store in Towson, MD, where workers organized with the Machinists back in June. And CWA’s Alphabet Workers Union won a group of Google contract workers a raise, a milestone for the minority/solidarity union.

The National Postal Mail Handlers Union (LIUNA) is mailing out ballots for its contract ratification vote; I have no reason to expect anything other than smooth sailing here, but with the big NALC contract coming up as well, it’ll be interesting to see how postal workers are feeling about their contracts these days.

Spirit Airlines ALPA pilots have ratified their contract that contains a 34 percent raise over two years; Delta pilots have a new tentative agreement as well, while those at United, APA pilots at American, and SWAPA pilots at Southwest, very much do not, as far as I’ve seen.

Education: 30,000 SEIU Local 99 support staff in the Los Angeles school district have set a date for their strike authorization vote. Teachers in Melrose, MA authorized a strike for Tuesday, but got a new contract in just over 24 hours. In higher education, grad workers with GEO (AFT Local 3550) at the University of Michigan rallied for raises as the university brought in consultants for their new DEI Strategic Plan which does not, apparently, include raises for grad workers. And while I noted that NMSU grad workers with UE ratified a first contract, I failed to note that the University of New Mexico grad workers with UE in Albuquerque, also ratified a first contract.

IAFF Local 1012 firefighters in Coral Gables, FL are at an impasse in negotiations with the city. And in Boston, the police unions are maybe at an impasse (a state board will make that determination), but definitely gearing up for a big political fight. City workers in Canton, OH are the latest to win Juneteenth as a paid holiday in their union contract.

And for the big picture, Bloomberg has a great assessment of the state of strike activity in 2022, by the numbers. By their (proprietary) count, it was a 17-year high in strike activity in terms of number of strikes, though that’s driven largely by over 100 Starbucks strikes (in terms of number of workers, 2022 was less than half of that of the Red for Ed strike wave years, 2018 and 2019). Over 60 percent of the workers who struck were in education; just 5 percent were in manufacturing (durable and non-durable combined).

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Glacier case that, at its worst, threatens to hit unions with extensive damages incurred by companies due to strike activity (which, if you’re thinking that an expansive ruling like that would kind of gut the functional right to strike effectively, yes) and NBC at least thinks our cloaked overlords are going to side with the company. I’ve heard a lot of different opinions on how this one might shake out, but I don’t think there’s much reason to bet on a pro-labor ruling from these folks.

But this week it’s not just the dastardly GOP the unions are mad at; Politico has the story of how some labor leaders feel like Biden’s move to push South Carolina to be the new Iowa in the Democratic Party presidential primaries in 2024 is a major snub to labor, which claims a whopping 1.7 percent membership in the state, the lowest in the country. And in true blue New York, unions rallied at the statehouse against Governor Kathy Hochul’s nomination of an anti-labor judge for one of the top spots in the state judiciary. Luckily these disgruntled union leaders probably have many tools by which to challenge their capture as a very junior partner within the party and we just haven’t heard about them yet.

That said, unions, especially trades unions and workers centers, celebrated a newly-announced Department of Homeland Security policy that would extend protections to non-citizen workers who seek to enforce their rights under the National Labor Relations Act (as I understand it; I’m not a lawyer). Immigration status is one of the clearest vulnerabilities employers exploit when their workers start demanding things like not having their wages stolen, let alone their union rights, and can make it extremely hard to organize those workers (who are for obvious reasons some of the most exploited in the country).

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

The ballots have officially mailed in the UAW runoff election for the three slots that weren’t decided in the first round: President (between incumbent Ray Curry and reform challenger Shawn Fain), one of three Vice Presidents (between two incumbents, as the reformers only ran for two of three slots; Tim Bressler has publicly endorsed Chuck Browning, so he is almost certain to win); and Region 9 Director (between incumbent Lauren Farrell and reform challenger Daniel Vicente). Fain and Curry held an online debate, moderated by Steven Greenhouse, and took up some of the core (and existential) issues facing the union.

And this one’s from a few weeks back, but ALPA’s council chose a new leader to head United’s section of the union, who resigned just two days later after some of his derogatory comments towards women and people of color were made public.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: I failed to note it when it first happened, but 2,000 workers at Burlington’s University of Vermont Medical Center will soon be voting on whether to join the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (AFT), who already represent the nurses. 500 home health aides for Community Care based in Smithtown, NY are apparently organizing, but the filing doesn’t say with whom; another 225 home care workers for Consumer Direct Services in Las Vegas are unionizing with SEIU Local 1107. 400 undergrad teaching assistants at Brown University in Providence, RI are organizing with AFT Local 6516, the existing grad workers local. 352 RNs at Adventist Health in Lodi, CA are organizing with NNU. 67 workers who I think make and service thermostats for Johnson Controls in Arlington Heights, IL are unionizing with UA Local 597; another 17 in Lenexa, KS are joining UA Local 314. 64 drivers for Dallas recycling company FCC Environmental are organizing with Teamsters Local 745. 55 more REI workers are organizing with the RWDSU, this time at a store in Cleveland; two other stores organized last year. 52 workers at the Beyond-Hello Dispensary in Sauget, IL are unionizing with UFCW Local 881. 40 school bus drivers for Durham School Services in Providence, RI are unionizing with ATU Local 618. 31 drivers at Avis Car Rental in Denver are unionizing with, you guessed it, the UMWA. 

Very small shops: 16 mechanics and drivers for Cemex in Ponce, PR are joining either (I think) the Operating Engineers or the Laborers (this could be a raid, the filing is unclear). 15 workers for the ICEE Company in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Amarillo, Wichita, and Siloam Springs, AR are unionizing with UA Local 344. 14 workers for Yecuris, which I think provides mice (specifically “liver-humanized mice”) for drug testing, in Tigard, OR are unionizing with Teamsters Local 206. 13 workers at a Potbelly Sandwich Shop in Portland, OR are unionizing with the Portland Restaurant Workers, which formed out of a ramen shop last year; the Potbelly workers are the first in the chain to file for an election. Elsewhere in Portland, 11 workers at Living Room Theaters are forming the “United Cinema Workers” after going on strike. 12 “care managers” at Monogram Health in Tucson and Yuma, AZ are forming the Arizona Care Managers Union, which looks like it might be connected to the local IAFF, but it’s not totally clear. Ten workers for the Stanislaus Regional Transit Authority in Modesto, CA, operated by Transdev, are joining Teamsters Local 386. Eight drivers for Sky Hop Global in Elizabeth, NJ are joining Teamsters Local 210. Seven workers at Lowell Telecom in Lowell, MA are joining NABET-CWA. Seven staff attorneys who cover housing issues for non-profit RiseBoro in Brooklyn, NY are joining UAW Local 2325. Six flight simulator techs at Aero Simulation in Mobile, AL are joining the Machinists. Four workers at record producer American Vinyl Co. in Asheville, NC are unionizing with IBEW Local 238. Four drivers for “home respiratory care” company Lincare in Wauconda, IL are joining Teamsters Local 301. Four drivers for US Foodservice in Manassas, VA are joining Teamsters Local 355. 

NLRB election wins…: The UE has won yet another absolutely gigantic NLRB vote, this time among 2,893 grad workers at Evanston, IL’s Northwestern University, who voted 1,644-114 for the union. 81 educators at the Northwood Academy Charter School in Philadelphia voted 68-4 to join AFT Local 6056. 50 baristas at all five locations of Louisville’s Sunergos Coffee voted 30-14 to unionize with (deep breath) the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers, which is primarily a railroad craft union that is for some historical quirky reason affiliated with SEIU Local 32BJ. Elsewhere in coffee, 34 baristas in Fayetteville, AR and Bethel Park, PA voted a combined 24-1 to join Starbucks Workers United. 35 school bus drivers for First Student in South Sioux City, NE voted 24-6 to join Teamsters Local 554. All 25 RNs at a San Diego dialysis clinic voted to join SEIU UHW, an impressive unanimous win; 33 at a clinic in El Cajon, CA voted 25-8; 13 more at a clinic in Chula Vista, CA voted 9-3. 21 workers at Sunnyside Dispensary in Buffalo Grove, IL voted 16-0 to join Teamsters Local 777; another 11 dispensary workers at Potomac Holistics in Rockville, MD voted 6-3 to join UFCW Local 400. 17 Pepsi warehouse workers in Santa Rosa, CA voted 9-7 to join Teamsters Local 665. All nine building maintenance workers at luxury condo 40 Bond in NYC voted to join SEIU Local 32BJ. 

…and losses: 62 workers who make airplane parts for LMI Aerospace in Saint Charles, MO tied 27-27 on joining the Machinists, which means they remain non-union. 15 dispensary workers at Liberty Cannabis in Madison Heights, MI voted 6-8 not to join UFCW Local 876. 10 electricians at Fort Hood, TX deadlocked 3-3 on joining the Machinists. Six customer service reps at the Tulare (CA) County Regional Transit agency, operated by Transdev, voted 0-3 on joining Teamsters Local 517.

Decertifications and raids: GCC-IBT Local 1-L looks to be “raiding” a unit of 240 workers who make high-graphic cardboard boxes (think cereal) for Accurate Box Company in Paterson, NJ who are currently members of the dubious Consolidated Commercial Workers of America, Local 528, NOITU-IUJAT (NOITU standing for “National Organization of International Trade Unions,” ha). 145 Frito-Lay workers in Menomonee Falls, WI held on to their union with Teamsters Local 344 in a 64-46 vote; as far as I can tell, this is at least the second decertification vote at that facility – in 2011, workers voted to drop the union, but looks like that vote was rerun due to employer interference, and the union held on. 62 school bus drivers with All-Star Transportation in New Milford, CT stuck with Teamsters Local 671 in a 31-20 vote. 25 lumber workers at Woodgrain in Cape Girardeau, MO voted 16-5 to stick with Teamsters Local 600. 

In a quirk of video game unionism, a few hundred quality assurance workers for ZeniMax, a Microsoft subsidiary, have formed Microsoft’s first-ever union through a card check process with CWA, as the tech giant makes a show of its non-union-busting-ness while it courts federal regulators to let it acquire Activision Blizzard who, in turn, are refusing voluntary recognition to the workers organizing at their subsidiary, aptly named Proletariat.

Elsewhere outside the NLRB, SEIU won a neutrality agreement with Swissport at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport Neutrality agreement at Swissport ORD, after they almost got their license revoked. In Pasadena, CA, CalTech grad workers and post-docs are the latest to announce a union drive with UAW. St. Louis public radio workers are organizing with CWA, and Jacobin has a closer look at the Peet’s Coffee workers organizing with help from Starbucks Workers United.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

The country’s largest strike is over, with 36,000 University of California grad workers and researchers with UAW Local 2865 and Student Researchers United voting to ratify agreements by about 62 and 68 percent, respectively, in a contentious final stretch. Faculty at Fordham University in The Bronx have voted to authorize a strike with SEIU Local 200. Grad workers at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM have ratified a first contract with UE Local 1498, as have RAs at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT with OPEIU Local 153.

17,000 NYC nurses with NYSNA looked poised to take the nation’s-largest-strike mantle, with strike authorization votes nearing unanimity across 12 private sector hospitals; contracts expired at the end of the calendar year, but in the ones and twos, hospitals have reached tentative agreements with the union. With the walkout set for Monday, two of the 12 still don’t have deals – Montefiore in the Bronx, and Mount Sinai’s main campus. If they walk, it will still be a huge strike, around 7,000 RNs. Elsewhere in healthcare strikes, 1800 NNU nurses at the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and Berkeley, CA struck for nine days; my Labor Notes colleague Sarah Hughes covered the contentious bargaining and internal union politics in the leadup to the strike. And 440 workers at Chicago’s Howard Brown Health, an LGBTQ healthcare and social services agency, struck for three days with the Illinois Nurses Association as they fight for a first contract; though the strike is over, the union is still fighting over sixty layoffs the company is pushing. Nurses with SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania have a new contract at UPMC Altoona.

Before the NYSNA nurses walked, the biggest active strike was the CNH/Case agricultural implements strike by UAW Locals 807 & 180 in Burlington, IA and Racine, WI; after months of no movement, the workers voted on a new tentative agreement this weekend, and 55 percent voted to reject it after eight months on the picket line. The strike rolls on. As does the UMWA strike at Warrior Met in Brookwood, AL.

Some 400 UFCW Local 5 members at Macy’s in San Francisco struck for the two days before Christmas; the two-day strike didn’t win them a contract, and now they’re coordinating with Macy’s workers in Seattle with UFCW Local 3000 whose contract expires in February, and Local 5 is gearing up for another strike on Martin Luther King Day.

Ten sanitation clericals in San Jose, CA held a six-hour ULP strike with Teamsters Local 350, which the company probably could’ve managed, but 150 drivers and other workers honored the picket line, shutting down recycling collection. The clericals got a contract.

Workers at Bloom Medicinals weed dispensary in O’Fallon, MO held the state’s first-ever dispensary strike, a one-day walkout as the UFCW Local 655 members pushed for a first contract, having organized this summer.

After the 100+-store “double down” strike in December, Starbucks Workers United members in La Quinta, CA and Ithaca, NY walked out again. Elsewhere in cafes, around 100 workers at Rhode Island’s Seven Stars Bakeries won a first contract with UFCW Local 328 after the company voluntarily recognized the union this summer (it does, sometimes, happen!)

Teamsters Local 320 snow plow drivers in St. Louis County, MN came close to another strike, having walked off in January 2020, but reached a tentative agreement that the union sounds optimistic about.

400-some workers in three Steelworkers locals at the WestRock paper mill in Cottonton, AL rejected a so-called “last, best, and final” from the company to end the three-month lockout; Jacob Morrison has been covering the story for The Real News. Elsewhere in paper, Steelworkers Local 27 members in Baileyville, ME authorized a strike at Woodland Pulp paper mill, but reached a deal before the deadline.

Around 200 Teamsters Local 135 chemical workers at Monosol in La Porte, IN are back to work after a month-long lockout, and appear to have won their core demand of an end to rampant forced overtime.

The NewsGuild has won what is apparently the first union contract at a Texas newspaper, after a 24-day strike at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

K-12: The Akron, OH school board narrowly averted a teachers’ strike, coming to a tentative agreement at the last minute. 35 food service workers with SEIU Local 284 at Hastings, MN public schools have authorized a strike. Teachers in Sparks, NV held an impromptu sickout after a teacher was attacked by a student. The Massachusetts teacher unrest has apparently spread to Quincy, MA, with negotiations going poorly. Teachers in Plaistow, NH are also at an impasse.

SEIU 1199 New England won a new deal for Rhode Island at-home childcare providers; Minnesota home care workers with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota have a tentative agreement with sizable raises as well.

Hundreds of Uber drivers with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance struck against the company’s legal challenge to NYC’s city-mandated pay increase.

Broadway actors with Actors’ Equity Association have a new contract, their first since the pandemic.

NALC postal workers in Portland, ME held a protest against severe overwork and unsafe conditions. 

And speaking of severe overwork and unsafe conditions, read this great, long profile of Teamsters Local 804 and the UPS showdown, and then read Freightwaves on the economics of the potential strike.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

As Congress faced a partisan changeover, the institution got suddenly motivated to do a few things, and managed to pass increased funding for the NLRB (though short of union demands) before the Democrats handed over the House to the GOP, who, despite tripping over themselves, have already attempted to declare that the Congressional Workers Union’s victory in securing unionization rights for Congressional staff is defunct. The Democratic House also passed a bill to expand collective bargaining rights to 100,000 VA healthcare workers (who under some administrative code have had limited union rights), though as far as I can tell the Senate didn’t pass it.

Speaking of the NLRB, management lawyer John Ring is finally off the Board; the Democrats are expected to let his seat stay empty for a while, hopefully making good use of a 3-1 Democratic majority.

OK, this one isn’t union-related per se, but quite notable that the Federal Trade Commission announced it’s banning non-compete agreements, which suppress wages by barring workers for taking certain jobs even after they leave; just a helpful reminder that the federal government can, in fact, use its immense power to intervene on the side of workers, it just chooses not to.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in Glacier Northwest, the latest judicial attack on union rights in this country, which would open up private sector unions to massive lawsuits for damages caused by striking. More Perfect Union lays it out in video format. I guess the fact that strike activity is so low that most years it doesn’t even mathematically register in terms of percent of working time lost is just not low enough for the overlords.

The New York Times looked at White House fallout from the rail strike, and SMART President Jeremy Ferguson gave an interview on basically why Biden “did the right thing” which you can just read here and have your own thoughts and feelings on the matter.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

SEIU Local 1000, the California state employees megalocal, has formally ousted President Richard Louis Brown, who won in a surprise, low turnout vote a couple years back, said a lot of wild stuff, and maybe glued the union hall locks shut at one point?

Four staffers of Philadelphia’s IBEW Local 98 plead guilty to federal charges in the runup to the long-delayed Johnny Doc embezzlement trial, which has been delayed again.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 290 warehouse workers at Smart & Final in Commerce, CA, a store that I guess is sort of like Costco, or a restaurant supplier, but is on the west coast so out of my retail awareness, are organizing with Teamsters Local 630. Having announced the drive in October, 275 workers at Chicago’s Field Museum have officially filed for a union election withi AFSCME Council 31. 200 hospital techs at Burlington, VT’s UVM Medical Center are organizing with AFT Local 5221 (the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals). 177 animators at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, CA, are unionizing with IATSE Local 839, the Animation Guild. 135 workers at Yakima Valley fruit juice processor FruitSmart in Prosser, WA are organizing with Teamsters Local 760. 130 mental healthcare workers at Havenwyck Hospital in Auburn Hills, MI are organizing with OPEIU Local 459. 100 workers at a fifth Trader Joe’s store, this time in Louisville, KY, have filed for an election with Trader Joe’s United, after stores in Minneapolis and Hadley, MA successfully unionized, one in Brooklyn, NY lost their vote, and one in Boulder, CO withdrew their petition before the vote (the latter was with UFCW Local 7, not the independent TJU). 99 dialysis workers at a Fresenius clinic in San Diego are unionizing with SEIU UHW. 60 lumber workers at Patrick Industries in Decatur, AL are organizing with RWDSU. 57 game developers for newly-acquired Blizzard subsidiary Proletariat in Boston have, fittingly, formed a union with CWA. 56 media workers at WROC-TV in Rochester, NY are unionizing with NABET-CWA. 50 front-of-house staff at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre are organizing with IATSE Local 750. 44 zookeepers at the Living Desert Zoo in Palm Desert, CA are unionizing with AFSCME Council 36. 41 workers at Merit Aluminum Foundry in Adelanto, CA are organizing with the USW. 

Smaller shops: 31 workers at farmers market operator Freshfarm Markets in DC are organizing with UFCW Local 400. 30 workers at Nichols Crane Rentals in Joliet, IL are joining Operating Engineers Local 150. 27 CNAs at Complete Care, a nursing home in Ocean Grove, NJ, are joining RWDSU Local 262. 26 staffers at the National Network of Abortion Funds, based in Beaverton, OR, are unionizing with OPEIU Local 11. 26 baristas in Riverside, CA are joining Starbucks Workers United, and 11 more baristas at La Colombe in Chicago are unionizing with UFCW Local 881, following others in Chicago and DC. 26 electricians with TL Electric in Corpus Christi, TX are organizing with IBEW Local 278. 23 plumbers at Right Now Heating and Air Conditioning in Caldwell, ID are joining UA Local 296. 18 truck drivers for Huntingdon, PA-based K-12 food supplier Gold Star Foods – with the amazing slogan “Lunch is our favorite subject” – are joining Teamsters Local 110. Ten more counselors at Fairview MHealth in Minneapolis are joining SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. Eight workers at Royal Crane Service in Markham, IL are joining Operating Engineers Local 150. Seven staffers at social services non-profit Coahoma Opportunities in Clarksdale, MS are unionizing with Teamsters Local 667. Six staffers at the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council in Juneau, AK are joining CWA. Five freight clericals at CPC Logistics in Torrance, CA are unionizing with Teamsters Local 848. Five warehouse workers at Dr. Pepper Snapple Group in Fairmont, WV are joining UFCW Local 400. Five workers subcontracted out of the El Paso-based Training Rehabilitation & Development Institute, a staffing agency for disabled workers, are joining Operating Engineers Local 501 at three federal and border patrol offices. Three workers at United Rentals Pac-Van in East Moline, IL are joining Operating Engineers Local 150. Three air traffic controllers at an airport in Waukegan, IL are joining PATCO (the Florida-based one, I can’t keep track).

NLRB election wins…: After literal decades of organizing, 3200 Yale grad workers have won their union with UNITE HERE Local 33 in an absolute landslide, 1,860-179. Elsewhere in higher ed, 142 RAs at Tufts University in Medford, MA voted 99-3 to join OPEIU Local 153. 61 healthcare workers at Scranton, PA’s Geisinger Clinic voted 44-4 to join PASNAP. 50 therapists at St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco voted 26-4 to join SEIU UHW. 40 workers for Raimore Construction in Portland, OR voted 10-0 to join the Iron Workers. 36 therapists at Northwest Center in Renton, WA, which serves people with disabilities, voted 18-13 to join UFCW Local 3000. 33 skilled maintenance workers at Palos Community Hospital in Palos Heights, IL voted 21-9 to join Operating Engineers Local 399. 28 hospital techs at Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Kennewick, WA joined SEIU Local 1199NW in a 21-7 vote. 26 workers at Deep Roots Harvest dispensary in West Wendover, WV voted 14-8 to join UFCW Local 711; 18 workers at Nature’s Medicines weed dispensary in Wareham, MA voted 6-3 to join UFCW Local 328. 21 baristas joined Starbucks Workers United in Las Vegas in a 11-7 vote; elsewhere in coffee organizing, 10 workers at La Colombe in DC won that chain’s first union 6-1, with UFCW Local 400 – the same local also notched a win at a MOM’s Organic Market in College Park, MD, the third of the chain’s 22 locations to unionize, and the first with UFCW (the first two were with Teamsters Local 57 0); 57 workers voted 17-4. Elsewhere in grocery, 20 grocery workers at the Dill Pickle Food Co-Op in Chicago voted 3-2 (I think; the NLRB’s data entry is messed up, could be 5-0, or 3-0, I don’t know exactly) to form the Dill Pickle Food Co-op Workers Union. 20 transit workers for MV Transportation in Springfield, MA voted 19-0 to join UFCW Local 1459. 19 paramedics for American Medical Response in The Bronx, NY voted 5-0 to join the dubious Novelty and Production Workers Local 298. 13 chaplains at Seattle’s Swedish Hospital voted 9-2 to join SEIU Local 1199NW ; both at the facility in Edmonds, WA voted to join the union. Ten HVAC workers at Fort Knox, KY voted 6-4 to join UA Local 502. Eight building services workers at 49 Chambers condo in downtown Manhattan, NY voted 4-0 to join SEIU Local 32BJ. Eight subcontracted building maintenance workers at federal courthouses in Seattle and Tacoma, WA voted 7-0 to join Operating Engineers Local 302; seven more at the T. Rowe Price building in Owings Mills, MD voted 4-3 to join UA Local 486, and five more at several Jackson Heights, NYC buildings voted 3-2 to join “IUJAT Local 2”. One out of six First Transit dispatchers at facilities in Glen Burnie and Annapolis, MD voted to join ATU Local 1764, which was good enough to win the union. All five heavy equipment operators at a landfill in Corvallis, OR voted to join Operating Engineers Local 701. 

…and losses: In one of the biggest landslides I’ve seen, Machinists District 98 lost a vote among 122 workers who make manufactured houses for Eagle River Homes in Ephrata, PA 11-100. 105 workers who bottle Pepsi products for Acadiana Bottling in Youngsville, LA lost their bid to join Teamsters Local 270, 39-56. Seven lab techs at the Phillips 66 refinery in Ferndale, WA voted 3-4 against joining USW. Four pipefitters at John Henry Foster automation manufacturer in Eagan, MN deadlocked 2-2 on joining UA Local 455. 

SEIU UHW won four and lost two elections across the Satellite Healthcare dialysis chain in San Francisco, San Jose, Gilroy, and Morgan Hill, CA; 92 workers voted a combined 59-9.

Decertifications and raids: 235 workers who make fans for Lasko in Fort Worth, TX are facing a decertification petition of their union, Workers United’s Southwest Regional Joint Board. The dubious Novelty and Production Workers Local 18 appears to have successfully raided 102 members of Teamsters Local 781 in a 43-22 vote at Accurate Metal Fabricating in Cicero, IL. It looks like Teamsters Local 901 is going after a 16-member elevator and escalator repair unit for Schindler in Catano, PR who appear to be currently repped by Union Los Gladiadores (which may be a nickname for Elevator Constructors Local 141).

Max Alvarez at The Real News spoke to members and organizers with NYC’s Laborers Local 79 about the work they’ve done organizing undocumented and non-union workers.

Finally, this month the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its annual report on union membership in the US; Seth Harris breaks down what to look for in those numbers. All I can think of is the late great chronicler of the US labor movement’s decline Mike Davis’s line here: “‘Hope’ is not a scientific category… Fight with hope, fight without hope, but fight absolutely.”

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

The remaining 36,000 University of California strikers, members of Student Researchers United and UAW Local 2865 teaching assistants, have a tentative agreement, with a ratification vote taking place through Friday. Some workers will see proportionally massive raises (I’ve seen figures ranging from 42 percent to 80), though there’s a vocal “vote no” campaign over pay differentials between campuses and other issues, so we’ll see how the vote goes.

Around 100 stores are participating in Starbucks Workers United’s 3-day “Double Down” strike, the union’s biggest action yet; you’ll recall the “Red Cup Rebellion,” in which a similar number of stores participated, but was only a one-day shutdown. Separately, the six-week strike at NYC’s roastery came to an end.

Workers with UAW Local 180 and 807 held solidarity days for the months-long, 1100-worker Case/CNH strike in Racine, WI and Burlington, IA.

K-12: Some 30,000 SEIU Local 99 custodians, school bus drivers, and other staff for Los Angeles public schools are taking a strike authorization vote. Educators in the Mohawk Area School District in Bessemer, PA have rejected a contract offer, having authorized a strike back in September. The teachers union in Escambia County, FL has a deal with the district, but some members aren’t happy with it, and are protesting the agreement. Paraprofessionals in Melrose, MA have a TA.

Healthcare: 400 hospital workers at Los Angeles’s Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital with SEIU UHW struck for five days. After authorizing a strike, 300 nurses with the Michigan Nurses Association at Ascension Borgess Hospital in Kalamazoo, MI have a tentative agreement with an average of 20.5 percent raises in the first year. Facing something like 100 layoffs, healthcare workers with the Illinois Nurses Association at Chicago’s Howard Brown Health are voting on a strike authorization this week; you can donate to their strike fund here. Around 90 support staff at Valley Hospital in Las Vegas have authorized a strike with UNITE HERE Local 226. After the longest strike in state history, St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, MA faces another strike, this time from Teamsters Local 170, who represent therapists and hospital techs. Michigan Nurses Association members in Alma, MI held an informational picket as they reached the two-month mark under an expired contract.

About 30 workers who make resins and paints for EPS, a Sherwin-Williams supplier, are on strike with UAW Local 171 in Williamsport, MD.

UFCW Local 5 members at Macy’s in San Francisco have set a two-day strike date for December 23 and 24, which is probably a really inconvenient day for Macy’s not to be able to sell stuff. It’s a reminder that the “DS” in RWDSU (a UFCW affiliate) stands for “department store,” which used to be a pretty militant section of the labor movement.

Hundreds of United ALPA pilots picketed the company’s board meeting in Houston, amid their ongoing contract fight. Meanwhile, 8,300 customer service workers with the Machinists at Southwest ratified a new deal (having voted down an earlier proposal).

The MASS MoCA staff in North Adams, MA who organized with UAW Local 2110 last year have a first contract, after a one-day strike this August.

Railroad workers rallied in about a dozen cities this week, generally bringing attention to the issues workers face across the industry, from “precision scheduled railroading,” to the fight against one-man crews, to a now-well-known lack of sick days. It comes amid a push for executive action on granting rail workers paid sick days; so far, nothing from the White House as far as I’ve seen.

Lee Harris at The American Prospect is on the UAW electric vehicles beat, with Stellantis announcing 1,350 long-term layoffs at their Belvidere, IL plant as the company builds new electric vehicles and hybrids in Canada. 

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Federal workers have been pushing for the re-confirmation of Ernest DuBester to the Federal Labor Relations Authority to preserve the Democratic majority on the federal labor board for many, many months, and for some reason it still hasn’t happened. Add this to the list of pro-labor partisan no-brainers (like funding the NLRB) that for some reason don’t seem to be a priority for party leadership. On the latter issue, the government passed a one-week extension to avert a government shutdown, and we should know soon how much the administration 

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

Eddie Hall, a working railroad engineer, has won the presidency of the BLET-IBT, ousting 12-year incumbent Dennis Pierce to lead the second-largest freight rail union. It’s hard to stress how much this sort of thing does not happen; not just incumbents losing to challengers, but particularly those challengers being people who are still actively working the job, and are not full-time staff somewhere within the union. I wrote it up for More Perfect Union (above), but it just goes to show how deep the rail workers’ frustration with their union, this contract process, and the outcome, runs. On Friday, Dennis Pierce released a statement that an internal board found election violations that require the vote to be rerun, but also announced that he wouldn’t be seeking reelection in the rerun, so Hall wins but only because Pierce retires, technically.

As the UFCW internal fight ramps up before their 2023 convention this spring, the International’s organizing director, Todd Crosby, resigned in protest and has joined the staff of UFCW Local 3000, the most vocal local in calling for change in the union.

ATU Local 241 in Chicago has re-elected its union president, after the top challenger was arrested the day before the election for, according to police, “coming onto CTA property with union political agendas that were not welcomed.”

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 3400 grad student workers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles are organizing with the UAW, no doubt in part inspired by their counterparts at the UC system. 163 workers at Providence St. Joseph Health Hospice in Petaluma, CA are organizing with NUHW. 150 workers for industrial contractor Brown and Root, out of Baton Rouge, LA, are organizing with the USW. 120 grad student workers at the RAND Corporation’s Graduate School in Santa Monica, CA are unionizing with the UAW. 70 drivers for Sky Hop Global in Glendale, NY and Elizabeth, NJ, which provides ground transportation for airline crew members, are organizing with Teamsters Local 210. 70 workers at the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site (excluding Halloween seasonals) in Philadelphia are unionizing with the USW. 

Coffee: 50 baristas in Liverpool and Penfield, NY are joining Starbucks Workers United. 36 baristas at Intelligentsia Coffee in Los Angeles are joining IBEW Local 1220 (the same local that organized Intelligentsia baristas in Chicago earlier this year, and the Colectivo chain in the midwest). 28 more baristas at Blank Street Coffee in NYC are unionizing with UFCW Local 1500. 16 more baristas at La Colombe in Chicago are unionizing with UFCW Local 881, after two other stores in DC filed with UFCW Local 400 in the past month. 

Other small shops: 43 aircraft fuelers for PrimeFlight at the Orlando airport are organizing with TWU. 34 building engineers and maintenance staff at George Washington University in DC are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 99. 30 workers at La Grange Crane Service in Hodgkins, IL are joining Operating Engineers Local 150. 25 workers for defense contractor Amentum at the Naval Air Station in New Orleans are joining IUE-CWA. 19 workers at Ash’Kara, an Israeli restaurant in Boulder, CO, are unionizing with CWA. 17 US Foods warehouse workers in Breinigsville, PA are organizing with Teamsters Local 773. 17 workers at Grassdoor cannabis delivery operation in Commerce, CA are joining Teamsters Local 630. 17 laborers for Tatitlek, which appears to be a federal construction contractor, in Chaparral, NM are joining Operating Engineers Local 351. 13 bank tellers at the Lake Michigan Credit Union in Wyoming, MI are unionizing with CWA. Ten workers at Freedom House (which I believe is a domestic violence shelter) in NYC are unionizing with OPEIU Local 153. Six weather forecasters for Akima Systems Engineering in Colorado Springs, CO are joining Machinists Local 47. Five more utility workers at Xcel Energy in Eau Claire, WI are joining IBEW Local 953. Four air traffic controllers at the Lebanon Municipal Airport in West Lebanon, NH are joining NATCA. Three organizers in training at SEIU Healthcare Minnesota are unionizing with USW Local 2002. 

NLRB election wins…: Another 600 non-tenure-track faculty members at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago voted to join AFSCME Council 31, 377-33, doubling the size of Art Institute of Chicago Workers United. 242 grocery workers at two more New Seasons stores in Portland, OR voted a combined 152-40, across two votes, to join the independent New Seasons Labor Union; 110 more grocery workers at the Lexington Co-op in Buffalo, NY voted 56-20 to join Workers United. 112 customer service workers at Las Vegas’s Bellagio voted an impressive 92-3 to join Teamsters Local 986, who already represent some other workers at the casino. 92 nursing home support staff at Wadsworth Glen in Middletown, CT voted 55-16 to join SEIU 1199 New England; so did 17 RNs at Salmon Brook nursing home in Glastonbury, CT. 48 educators at Philadelphia’s Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School voted 37-7 to join AFT Local 6056. 44 workers at two dialysis clinics in Antioch and Brentwood, CA voted a combined 32-7 to join SEIU UHW. 28 drivers and mechanics at Chellino Crane in Joliet, IL voted 22-1 to join Operating Engineers Local 150. 16 workers at construction equipment dealer Sunbelt Rentals in Plains, PA voted 9-5 to join Operating Engineers Local 542. 12 fire captains at the Oak Ridge National Lab in Oak Ridge, TN voted 11-1 to join IAFF Local I-101. All eight baristas at Lady Killigrew Cafe in Montague, MA voted to join UFCW Local 1459. Seven contracted building maintenance workers at Dallas’s Earl Cabell Federal Building voted 4-0 to join Operating Engineers Local 564. Five Holland freight clericals in Cincinnati voted 4-1 to join Teamsters Local 100. Three sprinklerfitters for Siemens in Portland, OR voted 2-0 to join UA Local 669. Both dispatchers at First Transit’s operation in Caldwell, ID voted to join ATU Local 398. 

…and losses: Starbucks Workers United just barely lost three elections this week, each by a single vote, meaning 79 baristas in Chicago, NYC, and Hillsboro, OR will not be joining the union, in a combined 30-33 vote. 63 drivers for HD Supply in Kent, WA voted 22-38 against joining Teamsters Local 174. 14 workers at Oasis cannabis dispensary in Chandler, AZ voted 6-7 against joining UFCW Local 99. 12 workers for Adams Communications at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, CA voted 1-8 against joining Machinists District 725. Eight workers for Heritage Fire Protection in Ashland, KY deadlocked 1-1, thus not joining UA Local 669. 

Decertifications and raids: UNITE HERE Local 11 narrowly avoided decertification among 61 dining and facilities workers at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, with workers voting 28-26 to stick with the union. 1199 SEIU appears to be raiding a unit of 15 workers at Wavecrest Home for Adults in Far Rockaway, NY who are currently repped by the dubious International Brotherhood of Trade Union Local 713 (who appear, in turn, to have raided the unit from UFCW Local 2013 in 2015).

Outside the NLRB: Over 600 workers in Maryland’s Office of the Public Defender voted to join AFSCME Council 3. Over 400 grad student workers at the University of Alaska (mostly in Fairbanks) are also organizing with the UAW. 26 medevac pilots for Air Care voted 19-3 to join OPEIU. Singers with the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir are pushing for voluntary recognition with AGMA; their stated deadline passed this week. IATSE has made a formal request for card check to the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, where workers have been organizing for several months.

For Jacobin, Cody Melcher wrote about the UNITE HERE union drive at New Orleans’s Loyola University, and unionism at Catholic institutions more broadly. Elsewhere in that city, the independent Lowe’s union in New Orleans withdrew its petition for what sounds like a ridiculous legalistic reason, though it was always going to be a severely uphill fight.

Workers at the Amazon warehouse in Shakopee, MN are reportedly signing cards with the Amazon Labor Union, after years of organizing with the Awood Center, a workers center with ties to SEIU. 

The largest strike in the country got a little bit smaller this week, with University of California post-docs with UAW Local 5810 voting to ratify a contract and return to work; around 36,000 teaching assistants and researchers remain on strike, and are entering into mediation with the administration. Over at the New School in New York City, UAW Local 7902 has ended their 2,000-member adjunct faculty strike with a tentative agreement. Some 500 more adjunct faculty have gone on strike with AFT Local 6262 at the College of the Canyons, a public community college in Santa Clarita, CA. Meanwhile, grad workers with the UE at the University of Iowa (in Iowa City, IA) and New Mexico State University (in Las Cruces, NM) are both pushing for raises, and the latter for a first contract.

Marty Walsh is now apparently stepping in to try to resolve the 200-day, 1,000-member UAW Locals 807 and 180 CNH strike in Burlington, IA and Racine, WI; Warrior Met UMWA strikers in Brookwood, AL have been out three times as long, with no end in sight.

SEIU cargo handling and airport lounge workers for Swissport in at least three airports – Newark, Boston, and Chicago’s O’Hare – walked off the job for a day, while their counterparts at a dozen more airports held protests demanding Congress pass the “Good Jobs for Good Airports Act,” creating some baseline standards for the heavily subcontracted airport services workforce.

The musicians of the Fort Wayne (IN) Philharmonic are on strike with AFM Local 58, after their contract expired in September; the pandemic was not kind to classical musicians and they have faced widespread furloughs and job cuts.

Chemical workers at MonoSol in La Porte, IN with Teamsters Local 135 took the fight to Procter & Gamble headquarters in Cincinnati, as the 200 workers remain locked out having rejected a deal that would continue a grueling mandatory overtime regime.

Workers at building products company Oldcastle Infrastructure appear to be on strike in Elgin, IL with Laborers Local 681, but I haven’t found any press on it.

Some 300 UNITE HERE Local 226 members who work for Sodexo at the Las Vegas convention center voted unanimously to strike; 200 of their UNITE HERE Local 737 counterparts in Orlando, FL also voted unanimously to strike a couple weeks back, and New Orleans, Sacramento, and Detroit may be close behind. Elsewhere in the union, UNITE HERE Local 1 picketed outside of Chicago’s United Center against violations of the state’s new law against overscheduling, with some workers being scheduled up to 35 days in a row.

Some 200 UFCW Local 7 meatpacking workers for JBS in Denver voted to strike this weekend after three months of negotiations.

160 public works employees with Teamsters Local 320 in St. Louis County, MN are taking a strike authorization vote as they seek higher raises, bonuses, and stipends for cold weather gear; these workers struck in 2020 at around the same time of year, which is when they have their greatest leverage, as they drive the snow plows in northern Minnesota.

Red Cross workers with AFSCME 1205 and 1558 in Wisconsin have authorized a strike during the annual holiday blood drive if they don’t have an agreement by Thursday; for whatever reason these locals don’t appear to be part of the Coalition of American Red Cross Unions, which lists fifty local unions across nine internationals.

K-12: High school teachers at San Francisco’s Lowell High organized a sickout over what sound like colossal payroll issues. Across the country, in rural Sampson County, NC, school bus drivers called out in protest after teachers, but not other staff, got raises. Los Angeles educators rallied for a new contract, demanding twenty percent raises. Teachers in St. Johns County, FL, went “Red for Ed” at a school board meeting after having rejected a $1200 raise; the current average salary is under $47,000. Teachers in Juneau, AK are at an impasse with the district.

And to clear something up from the last newsletter, the Minnesota Nurses Association at Lake View Hospital in Two Harbors, MN is in fact not striking, as part of the broader drawdown from the MNA having secured a tentative agreement at the big hospital systems (though my understanding is Lake View still doesn’t have a deal).

Starbucks Workers United celebrated a year since their first store was officially certified (which, incidentally, is a key milestone for the union-busting campaign, as the legal window for decertification opens after a year, though my understanding is that the 548 unfair labor practice charges before the NLRB make a decert attempt unlikely to be legally permissible, though I am happily not a labor lawyer) with rallies across the country. Matt Bruenig put together a helpful overview of how far the movement has come in a stunningly short amount of time, and while we’re looking back at the past year, I’ll give myself the armchair quarterback permission to say: I’m increasingly convinced that both the doomsayers predicting they’ll never make headway and the boosters saying they’re at the edge of victory are both probably wrong; the thing is now too big to easily kill (the nearly 300 organized stores cover over 7,000 workers!) though it’s not close to big enough to force concessions on an economic basis (and the political and social basis needs more firepower than our politicians or broader labor movement seem to be willing or able to bring to bear). I think the most likely model here is, fittingly, the Fight for $15, a protracted campaign to change the common sense around service industry work and win local concessions, but with a shitload more legal leverage over the company, and much more workplace organization. But anyway, happy birthday Starbucks Workers United, it’s been amazing to watch you all build this thing.

For More Perfect Union, I helped with a video on the state of pilot unionism; it’s kind of remarkable how aligned the unions are in this moment, and how much leverage they appear to have. Last week’s news about Delta’s 34 percent wage offer over three years to ALPA is no longer the standard-bearer, as Spirit came out with the same percentage on average, but over just two years. Meanwhile, things appear to be going great for United’s CEO, who tried to talk to some picketing pilots and got a lesson in solidarity.

Over 1,000 members of the New York NewsGuild struck the New York Times for 24 hours; those journalists briefly joined the ongoing Fort Worth Star-Telegram strike and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike, which drags on, as does the UAW Local 2110 HarperCollins strike, which hit its one-month mark this week.

Illinois’s union neutrality laws have helped UFCW Local 881 organize tens of dispensaries across the state, but it hasn’t stopped big operator Curaleaf from stonewalling them in bargaining at at least one Chicago store. Cannabis has been one of the most quickly organizing industries, as its legalization in blue states in particular has often been accompanied by labor peace agreements; it will be interesting to see what sorts of standards the unions are able to extract beyond certification.

AFSCME Local 494 prison guards in Pontiac, IL are calling for more staffing after some guards were reportedly attacked.

And on the subject of strikes, this Labor Notes piece from the great Teamster negotiations expert Richard de Vries is worth a read, on the right to strike for non-union workers.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

The railroaders’ fight for paid sick days isn’t over yet, as dozens of members of Congress, led by Bernie Sanders and Jamaal Bowman, push for Biden to take executive action to grant seven paid sick days to railroad workers under an executive order covering federal contractors from 2015; the rail workers didn’t qualify, because why? You guessed it, the Railway Labor Act, apparently. In the meantime, SMART and BLET have announced a dozen or so rallies across the country for this Tuesday which are likely to be geared towards winning this executive order, but several members have pointed out to me that these actions are kind of conspicuous as after-the-fact mobilizations when the unions did very little to put members in motion when that sort of grassroots pressure might have had more of an effect on the outcome. (For more members’ feelings on these matters, see the “Internal Union Politics” section below).

The Teamsters won a huge pension victory this week, with the Biden administration announcing $36 billion to avert pension cuts for 350,000 Teamsters under the failing Central States Pension Fund. Organizing against these pension cuts were part of the big grassroots movement that groups like Teamsters for a Democratic Union have built off of over the past decade, often at odds not just with the companies and the federal government, but union leadership as well. I doubt it’s a coincidence that a week after shoving a contract down the throats of some 30,000 Teamsters, Biden moves money around to make good by the union.

On the state level, the Massachusetts Teachers Association is firmly putting the right to strike on their legislative agenda, an exciting prospect for public workers everywhere, who even in many blue states don’t have the basic legal right to walk off the job.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

For Labor Notes, I wrote about the slate of working railroad mechanics running for national union office in Machinists District Lodge 19, as part of the broader fallout from the rail negotiations. Ryan Grim took a deep dive into the BMWE internal politics that fed into the rail showdown, and how rank and file reformers have been organizing in that union for years; this one is really worth a read. Carey Dall, who Grim spoke with for the BMWE story, also wrote out his thoughts on the big picture here, also well worth a read: “No one else is coming to save railroad workers – not the AFL-CIO. Not the well-meaning DSA chapters, and not the self-styled left-wing commentators.  And certainly not the Rail Labor leaders.”

Kyle Bragg, president of 32BJ SEIU, one of our nation’s most prominent megalocals, is retiring.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 3,335 more graduate student workers, this time at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, are also unionizing with the UE (the union has increased its potential membership by something like 50 percent in the past year through grad worker organizing). 2600 RNs at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals in Madison, WI, having called off a recognition strike to see if the state board would grant them the right to unionize, are taking their effort to join SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin to the NLRB. 1200 medical interns and residents at Montefiore Medical Center in The Bronx, NY are organizing with CIR-SEIU. 250 healthcare support staff at Mercy Hospital in Fridley, MN are joining SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. 151 therapists and counselors at mental health startup Resilience Lab in NYC are organizing with AFSCME DC37. 150 workers who do HVAC manufacturing for Seasons-4 in Douglasville, GA are organizing with UA Local 72. 150 workers who do commercial wood framing construction for Wood Mechanix in Portland, OR are organizing with Carpenters Local 1503. 104 drivers for Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits in Farmers Branch, TX are organizing with Teamsters Local 745. 80 Starbucks workers at four stores in Fayetteville, AR, Skokie, IL, Sherman Oaks, CA, and Flower Mound, TX are joining the Starbucks Workers United movement; 15 more baristas at a Peet’s Coffee in Davis, CA are unionizing as well, with help from Starbucks activists, but joining SEIU Local 1021. 80 warehouse workers for wood products manufacturer Patrick Industries in Decatur, AL are organizing with RWDSU. 43 workers at Shannon Side Welding in Daly City, CA are unionizing with the Iron Workers, and 39 more construction workers at RNR Concrete in Napa, CA are doing the same. 36 school bus drivers for First Student in South Sioux City, NE are organizing with Teamsters Local 554; three mechanics in Memphis are joining Teamsters Local 667. 34 chemical production workers for Ascensus in Elma, WA are unionizing with Teamsters Local 252. 29 dancers at the Texas Ballet Theater in Fort Worth, TX are organizing with AGMA, as are 19 more dancers at Ballet Memphis. 22 transit workers for MV Transportation, operating the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority out of Springfield, MA are unionizing with UFCW Local 1459. 19 drivers for Stericycle (aka Shred-It) in Sharon, MA are joining Teamsters Local 25 (true Bird brains will recall the Teamsters struck and organized locations of the same company in Ohio and New Jersey last year). 18 PepsiCo warehouse workers in Santa Clara, CA are joining Teamsters Local 665. 16 software engineers at Oakland, CA texting company GetThru are unionizing with CWA. 16 LPNs at Madison House nursing home in Madison, CT are unionizing with SEIU 1199 New England. 12 building mechanics for utility First Energy in Western PA are joining Utility Workers Local 102. 12 more school bus drivers in Amarillo, TX, for DS Bus Lines, are joining Teamsters Local 577. Ten drivers for Maytag Aircraft in Fort Stewart, GA are joining AFGE Local 1922. Nine workers at Dryden Ambulance in Dryden, NY are joining IAFF Local 709. Nine maintenance workers at Hopkinson House condos in Philadelphia are joining Workers United. Eight workers at Potomac Holistic Cannabis Dispensary in Rockville, MD are joining UFCW Local 400. Eight AmeriGas terminal operators in Reading, PA are joining IBEW Local 777. Seven workers for Lowell Telecommunications in Lowell, MA are joining NABET-CWA. Six building maintenance workers at Seattle’s KOMO Plaza are joining Machinists District Lodge 751. Four landscapers at Portland, OR’s Reed College are joining Teamsters Local 305. 

NLRB election wins…: Some 3,000 grad student workers at Boston University voted 1,414-28 (that’s not a typo) to join SEIU Local 509 in one of the biggest large union election landslides ever; grad workers really want to form and join unions these days. 900 workers who make electric vehicle batteries for Ultium, a General Motors/LG joint venture in Warren, OH, voted in a landslide, 710-16, to join UAW Local 1112; aside from just being a big auto win in Ohio (no small feat), it’s also an important breakthrough for the UAW as they hope to organize the massively expanding electric vehicle supply chain, as it’s the first non-Big Three electric vehicle plant they’ve organized. 349 workers involved in PGA Tour telecasting based in St. Augustine, FL voted 135-52 to join the IBEW. 121 food service and catering workers at Homegrown in and around Seattle voted 59-11 to join UNITE HERE Local 8, after several pre-recognition strikes and actions. 56 workers at two stores in Elmhurst, IL and Whitehall, PA voted a combined 34-15 to join Starbucks Workers United. 37 hospice workers at the St. Charles Health System in Bend, OR voted 29-5 to join the Oregon Nurses Association. 32 baristas at four locations of La Prima Espresso Co. in Pittsburgh joined UFCW Local 1776KS in a 22-8 vote. 14 stagehands and techs for Theatre Squared in Fayetteville, AR voted 9-1 to join IATSE. 13 electricians for contractor Smith Electric in Oaklyn, NJ voted 8-5 to join IBEW Local 351. 11 workers at Atlantic American Fire Protection in Elgin, IL voted 10-1 to join UA Local 281. Ten telecom construction workers for Windstream Services in Bolivar, MO voted 8-2 to join IBEW Local 53. Seven firefighters and EMTs at the Roxana Volunteer Fire Company in Frankford, DE voted 6-1 to join IAFF Local 5121. Six building services workers in Chelsea in NYC voted 2-0 to join SEIU 32BJ. Five pharmacy techs at a Safeway in Bend, OR voted 4-1 to join UFCW Local 555. All five air traffic controllers at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in Belgrade, MT voted to join NATCA. 

…and losses: 78 workers building the Mammoth North solar installation in Bass Lake, IN voted 6-22 against joining Operating Engineers Local 150; for more on solar workers, check out Lee Harris’s latest at The American Prospect. 54 workers at SAAB’s new jet manufacturing facility in West Lafayette, IN voted 20-25 against joining Machinists Local 2018. 24 retail workers at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Prescott, AZ voted against joining UFCW Local 99, 5-18.

Decertifications and raids: SEIU Healthcare Minnesota narrowly defeated a decertification push among 165 hospital techs at Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby, MN, 65-51. 59 steelworkers at Latrobe Specialty Metals narrowly decertified USW Local 1537 in Franklin, PA, 26-29. 55 workers who make construction equipment parts for Pierce-Pacific Manufacturing in Portland, OR voted 8-18 to drop Machinists Local 1005. 35 bus drivers (I think) for DLC Transportation in Philadelphia voted 23-7-3 to join the dubious United Service Workers Union (IUJAT) over SEIU 32BJ; I’m not sure this one was actually a raid, but, as always, these filings are a little unclear. Three workers at Whitacre Rebar in Liverpool, NY voted 1-2 to drop Iron Workers Local 824. 

300 video game workers for Microsoft subsidiary ZeniMax are organizing a union with CODE-CWA. Workers with social services agency OnPoint in NYC announced that they’re unionizing with UNITE HERE’s New England Joint Board.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

The UAW megastrike at the University of California rages on, and though the postdocs and researchers (two of the three groups on strike) have tentative agreements, they’re staying out for now; as are several hundred faculty members who’ve chosen to honor the line. Meanwhile, 17 strikers were arrested in a sit-in as the union escalates tactics. On the other coast, 1800 New School adjunct faculty with UAW Local 7902 remain on strike, with federal mediators stepping in after Philip Glass couldn’t get the job done. The University of Michigan is also seeking mediation, since they refuse to engage in open bargaining with the 2300 grad workers of GEO, AFT Local 3550. Meanwhile, Edward Waters University in Jacksonville, FL isn’t bothering with any of those procedural moves, and is instead moving to simply un-recognize its faculty’s AAUP union (the linked piece from Andrew Pantazi is really worth a read, with several jaw-dropping details such as the longshoreman union leader who serves on the school’s board saying he supports workers having union rights only if their employers agree). At Rutgers, faculty and grad workers with AAUP-AFT rallied for a fair contract, as theirs is six months expired. And in blue collar higher ed, custodians with Teamsters Local 251 at Providence’s Rhode Island School of Design have authorized a strike by 95%.

Journalists and newspaper production workers in Pittsburgh remain on an open-ended strike, and Fort Worth, TX journalists started an Unfair Labor Practice strike of their own this week. Meanwhile, New York Times NewsGuild members plan to strike for 24 hours on Thursday if they don’t have a deal. Outside the Guild, IBEW Local 4 broadcast engineers at KSDK in St. Louis are taking a strike authorization vote.

The Minnesota Nurses Association served another ten-day strike notice covering some 15,000 nurses in the Twin Cities and Duluth, and pretty quickly won new tentative agreements, which still have to be ratified but the strikes have been called off in the meantime. Nurses at Lake View Hospital in Two Harbors, MN are the last remaining group not to have a deal; presumably they’ll still strike starting Sunday, though I haven’t found explicit confirmation of that. In Tarzana, CA, 700 nurses with SEIU Local 121RN have authorized a strike at the Tarzana Medical Center, and in Kalamazoo, MI, nurses at the Ascension Borgess Hospital are currently taking a strike vote. Meanwhile, at King’s Daughters Medical Center in Ashland, KY, management says they are nullifying the existing SEIU 1199 WV/KY/OH contract covering 500 workers as part of the University of Kentucky takeover of the hospital. Howard Brown Health in Chicago, whose staff recently unionized with the Illinois Nurses Association, is planning to lay off 100 workers – 15% of its staff – and is being met with protests.

800 dockworkers at the Port of Mobile, AL apparently remain on strike with ILA Local 1410, though I have seen very little coverage of it outside of Michael Sainato’s great work tracking updates.

Several dozen janitors with SEIU Local 87 at Twitter HQ in San Francisco struck this week, and in response, the company abruptly changed contracts (the vast majority of building services workers are contracted through third parties, not directly hired by the companies they service), probably in violation of local law.

1100 paper mill workers with Steelworkers Local 507 in Canton, NC have voted down their second contract offer in a row at Evergreen Packaging, raising the possibility of a strike. As an aside, between strikes in Washington, Alabama, and now potentially in North Carolina, I’d love an explainer on what’s going on with the paper mills these days, and why they keep provoking this level of worker activity.

The NLRB Union is raising the alarm not just about their existential funding issues but also management efforts to end telework, as if furloughs and constant underfunding weren’t enough to make staff want to quit. The telework fight at the EEOC, which led to FLRA charges, has apparently been resolved, per AFGE Council 216. State workers with CWA in New Mexico are similarly speaking out on telework policy changes.

In news from several blue collar rust belt fights, nearly 200 Teamsters Local 135 members are now locked out at chemical producer MonoSol in Laporte, IN after rejecting a contract that wouldn’t have addressed rampant forced overtime at the plant; you can donate to their solidarity fund here. In Bloomsburg, PA, around 270 workers who make auto insulation for Autoneum are on strike with Workers United Local 1700 (they’re not all baristas!). Members of Machinists Local 1802 who make dispensers for industrial adhesives at Nordson in Amherst, OH are back to work after ratifying a contract after two weeks on strike.

After authorizing a strike, Delta ALPA pilots have a contract offer from the company that includes 34 percent raises; members will have to vote on the deal, but the airlines seem to think it could move things at the other tables where things have stalled, including American (where the bargaining committee rejected a deal), United (where members rejected a deal), and Southwest (where TWU Local 550 dispatchers just held a rally and SWAPA pilots protested on Wall Street). At United, five unions (ALPA, AFA-CWA, IAM, Teamsters, and PAFCA) have formed a bargaining coalition, which is always promising but in practice can mean many different things.

Speaking of bargaining coalitions, workers at Disney in Kissimmee, FL rallied as their expired contract hit the two-month mark; the coalition of six unions involved (UNITE HERE Local 362, UNITE HERE Local 737, Teamsters Local 385, TCU-IAM District 1908, UFCW Local 1625, and IATSE Local 631) represents around 42,000 workers.

Amazon workers walked out in Joliet, IL with Teamsters cheering them on. Meanwhile in Staten Island, the NLRB used its most reliable enforcement tool to force management to read a public notice about how naughty they’ve been in flagrantly violating the law. The NLRB has also once again found Starbucks to be breaking the law, and must sit down to bargain with Starbucks Workers United (at one of the 300 or so organized stores).

Two transit strikes didn’t happen this week, with ATU Local 998 in Milwaukee coming to an agreement, and ATU Local 1447 in Louisville doing the same, after each authorized strikes. One transit local, ATU Local 1493 in Roanoke, VA, held info pickets for a new contract from First Transit, which operates the area’s Valley Metro.

A tentative agreement means a Covina, CA K-12 strike was narrowly averted. United Teachers of Richmond (CA) has hit an impasse in bargaining with the West Contra Costa County school district; the union is engaging in recurring “work to rule” days, and is talking about (avoiding) a strike. Educators in Buffalo, NY are also at an impasse in bargaining, as are newly-unionize teachers at San Diego charter school High Tech High. 2800 educators in Akron, OH are bringing in federal mediators to try to come to a deal with the district; they’ve been without since June, though the union has not yet served its ten-day strike notice. Teachers in St. John’s County, FL have rejected a contract offer with a piddling $1200 raise. Educators in Fairbanks, AK are also going into mediation as their impasse extends. Teachers in Joliet, IL have a tentative agreement, as do those in Keene, NH. Teachers in Scranton, PA ratified an early bird contract that will bring up starting salaries by 25% (just over $52k a year), though their current deal doesn’t expire until September; sounds like management really doesn’t want another strike. 

City workers in Bloomington, IN with AFSCME Local 2487 have a tentative agreement. Plant City, FL firefighters with IAFF are at an impasse, seeking a 36% increase over three years. County workers in Aitkin County, MN (AFSCME Local 1283) and Multnomah County, OR (AFSCME Local 88) have deals.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Joe Biden, with the help of the Democratic and Republican parties, imposed a contract on some 60,000 rail workers (those four unions which had rejected agreements: SMART-TD, BMWED-IBT, BRS, and the Boilermakers), denying them paid sick days or any other meaningful improvements to a critical industry that is nearing operational collapse due to financialized profiteering and mass worker exodus, by design. For that big picture view, I encourage everyone to return to Joe DeManuelle-Hall’s piece on the industry (Joe is the real Labor Notes rail guy, I just tweet more) from back in February. I won’t rehash everything I’ve written or said or every bit of coverage, but I spoke to Ross Grooters of Railroad Workers United, once for Labor Notes & Jacobin, and once with Chapo Trap House (joined by Deven Mantz), and also talked to some former Obama and Biden insiders. I guess the things I’d like to briefly emphasize here are: (1) Biden could’ve acted otherwise; the September kick-the-can deal could’ve included sick days, and his push for an imposed agreement could have as well. The economics here were really not at question; the carriers could easily afford the days, the shippers actively lobbied for the days, Congress doesn’t care one way or the other, and even the rail workers and unions seemed to be treating the days as a semi-symbolic proxy for the severe understaffing and overwork that’s killing rail workers (literally and metaphorically). And (2) the unions could’ve acted otherwise; they chose an inside strategy that relied entirely on Joe Biden doing the right thing, and refused to do anything – mobilize members, strike (two unions unilaterally moved strike deadlines without new TAs, several others moved them months down the line, losing all political leverage before the midterms), or work with progressives or others who might’ve made important allies when Biden twisted the knife. It’s not a surprise that Congress intervened; this is what has happened in every case since at least World War II where a contract dispute has gotten this far. But it was always a question of under what terms – would workers get a chance to walk, would the imposed deal be worse, the same, or better than the rejected deals, would it be directly imposed or arbitrated? The political punchline is Joe Biden sided with capital when the chips were down, no matter how many union halls he uses for photo ops. The union punchline is that if labor relies exclusively on the Democratic Party inside track, and won’t use its people power or think creatively politically, we’re doomed.

Politico took a look at the newborn Democratic trifectas in Michigan and Minnesota, and what labor hopes to gain from them. 

The Texas Supreme Court heard arguments in a case in which Houston firefighters (and presumably those across the state) collective bargaining rights are at stake.

And I haven’t watched it yet, but there’s no way this isn’t a great conversation – Mark Dudzic of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer went on the Valley Labor Report to talk about the Labor Party efforts of the 1990s and 2000s.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

There is an absolute earthquake underway at the UAW, as reformers sweep into office in that union’s first-ever direct elections for top officers. UAW Members United, the slate backed by reform caucus UAWD, challenged for seven of fourteen spots on the International Executive Board and won five of them outright; the other two (Region 9 Director, covering Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Western New York; and the freakin’ President, covering the whole union) will go to runoffs beginning in January. Looking at the anti-incumbent margins (hovering around 60 percent voting to “throw the bums out” as they say), it’s hard to imagine President Ray Curry hangs onto his seat, which means new leadership will be bargaining a Big Three contract that expires in mid-September, which means negotiations are likely to be a lot more aggressive. It’s hard to overstate how much of an earthquake this is; very few predicted such a decisive outcome, and democratic elections with new, fighting leadership at the top of the UAW has been a dream of the left labor movement for literally generations.

Obviously it’s a much smaller scale, but the throw-the-bums-out energy is not limited to auto workers; IATSE Local 52 has elected new leadership, with Mandie DeMeskey, who is married to IATSE’s international president, losing handily, in the first leadership change in the union since 2004. Which is not to say incumbents aren’t still winning the vast, vast majority of union leadership elections; IATSE Local 700 easily re-elected its leadership.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 3,000 grad student workers at the University of Chicago have formally filed to join the UE, as the union continues to pick up huge grad worker units. 1,000 HelloFresh workers at a warehouse in Newark, NJ are supposedly unionizing with the “United Construction Trades and Industrial Employees Local 621”; the last time one of these very dubious unions filed at a HelloFresh, they quickly withdrew the petition, and if I had to bet I’d say that’s what will happen here. 142 more grocery workers in Cedar Hills, OR are organizing with the independent New Seasons Labor Union. 75 workers who make chemicals for Nouryon in La Porte, TX are organizing with the Steelworkers. 73 workers at three Fresenius Dialysis Centers in San Diego, Ventura, and Fontana, CA are unionizing with SEIU UHW. 70 workers who make manufactured homes for Eagle River Homes in Ephrata, PA are unionizing with Machinists District 98. 65 more baristas at three locations in Houston, Kingwood, TX, and Ashburn, VA are joining Starbucks Workers United. 37 fast food workers at a Burgerville in Portland, OR are unionizing with the IWW. 32 skilled maintenance workers at Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital in Palos Heights, IL are joining Operating Engineers Local 399. 28 workers who work on F-16s for Kay & Associates in New Orleans are unionizing with IUE-CWA. 22 broadcasters at KVEA, an NBC/Telemundo station in Universal City, CA, are joining SAG-AFTRA. 12 aviation mechanics at Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, NC are joining the Machinists. Ten drivers for Overnight Express in Carson, CA are joining Teamsters Local 848. Ten case managers at Oroville Hospital in Oroville, CA are joining the Steelworkers. Nine workers at Blue Plains wastewater treatment facility in DC are joining Operating Engineers Local 99, and five auto mechanics at FBI headquarters in DC are doing the same. Four bus technicians at Sunrise Transportation in Bellwood, IL are joining Machinists Local 701. Three chaplains at Swedish Medical Center in Edmonds, WA are joining SEIU Healthcare 1199NW. Two maintenance workers who service Chase banks in Dedham, MA are joining Operating Engineers Local 877. 

NLRB election wins…: 98 First Student school bus workers in Amarillo, TX voted 61-9 to join Teamsters Local 577; the same local organized 17 drivers for Hallcon Corporation in Amarillo, Dalhart, TX, and Liberal, KS. 78 truck drivers for USPS contractor 10 Roads Express out of the Peoria, IL hub voted 53-10 to join APWU. 60 weed delivery drivers for Element 7 in South San Francisco voted 25-4 to join UFCW Local 5. 47 workers at Methodist Hospital of Sacramento voted 31-10 to join SEIU UHW. 45 workers for Keurig Dr. Pepper in Lenexa, KS and Warrensburg, MO joined Teamsters Local 838 in a 34-3 vote. 26 workers for cancer radiation provider IsoRay Medical in Richland, WA voted 14-11 to join UFCW Local 3000. 20 workers at Fresenius dialysis in San Juan, PR voted 11-6 to join SEIU 1199. 19 clerks at a Safeway grocery warehouse in Tracy, CA voted 16-2 in two votes to join Teamsters Local 439. 16 massage therapists and nail techs at a Marriott in Los Angeles voted 11-4 to join UNITE HERE Local 11. 15 more baristas at two Ultimo Coffee locations in Philadelphia voted to join Workers United, 8-4 in two votes. 15 RNs at Tri-Cities Community Health in Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland, WA voted 12-0 to join UFCW Local 3000. 14 Blizzard video game workers in Schenectady, NY voted unanimously to join CWA, in another win at the aggressively anti-union company. 13 DHL workers in Miami voted 9-2 to join Teamsters Local 769. All ten “communication operators” at behavioral health center PeaceHealth in Bellingham, WA voted to join SEIU Healthcare 1199NW. Six maintenance workers for food and beverage wholesaler Mendez & Co in Guaynabo, PR voted unanimously to join Teamsters Local 901. In an interesting small retail win, IUE-CWA Local 81408 organized four optometrists at a Visionworks in Plymouth Meeting, PA after a 3-1 vote.

Starbucks Workers United won one shop of 27 workers in Bellingham, WA, 15-6, and lost one shop of 27 workers in Puyallup, WA, 9-13. 

…and losses: 295 live performance techs and stagehands with Rhino California in San Diego voted overwhelmingly, 54-121, against joining IATSE Local 122. 35 sanitation workers at Waste Management of Washington voted 10-22 against joining Teamsters Local 589. 28 workers for military contractor BAE Systems in San Diego voted 3-9 not to join Machinists District Lodge 725. 27 subcontracted workers at the Seattle Passport Agency voted 9-13 against joining Machinists District Lodge 160. 16 workers for Auto-Chlor System in Kent, WA, which provides commercial kitchen cleaning services, voted 4-9 against joining IBEW Local 46. 15 cannabis dispensary workers at LivWell in Denver voted against joining UFCW Local 7, 3-10, and ten more at Good Day Farm in Affton, MO voted 2-5 against joining UFCW Local 655.

Decertifications and raids: On cue, just over a year after they organized, 33 freight drivers with XPO Logistics in Albany, NY are facing a decertification of Teamsters Local 294; it’s one of just three organized XPO hubs, a years-long target for the Teamsters but where they clearly haven’t won much more than a toehold. Not sure whether it’s a raid, but 18 interns and residents at LifeLong Medical Care in Berkeley, CA are unionizing with CIR SEIU but with SEIU UHW and AFSCME Local 206 (the Union of American Physicians and Dentists) listed as intervenors. 14 drivers for Tri-State Asphalt in Morris, IL voted 2-10 to decertify Teamsters Local 179. 13 cement truck drivers for Oldcastle APG in Greensboro, NC voted 4-9 to drop Teamsters Local 71. 

Outside the NLRB: OK, it’s not outside the NLRB, but I haven’t seen the filings yet, so I’ll put it here: Peet’s Coffee workers, apparently with the help of Starbucks Workers United, are unionizing as the barista union movement continues to explode. Dining workers at the University of Vermont have won a neutrality agreement as they seek to unionize with the UNITE HERE New England Joint Board. 90 staffers for the Academy Foundation (as in, the Oscars) won their union through a card check election with AFSCME Council 36 in Los Angeles. The staff of racial justice non-profit SURJ had their independent union voluntarily recognized. The staff of KIPP charter school in Columbus, OH, did not; presumably they’ll take it to the NLRB.

Finally, if you haven’t had enough Jonah Furman content for the week, I went on Dave Infante’s Fingers podcast to talk about Starbucks and food chain organizing and general labor stuff; it was a good time.

Education: The 48,000 University of California academic workers of UAW Local 2865, UAW Local 5810, and Student Researchers United have claimed the mantle of the year’s largest strike. Obviously there’s no way of knowing how long this thing will run, though the ends and beginnings of semesters are always chokepoints on higher ed strikes. Elsewhere in California, AFT Local 1493 at San Mateo County Community College are protesting stalled negotiations. In New York City, UAW Local 7902 adjunct faculty are also on strike at the New School. In K-12 education, Akron, OH educators have rejected the recommendations of a fact-finder, and could be moving closer to a strike. Teamsters Local 597 school bus drivers in Brattleboro, VT are set to strike on December 1st if they can’t get a contract. 500 educators in Covina, CA are inching closer to a strike as the district tries to push a two-tier health plan. In the wake of big gains in Haverhill and Malden, paraprofessionals in Peabody, MA have a new deal that apparently provides a 50 percent raise. DC teachers just won a tentative deal with 12 percent raises over four years, after three years without a contract.

Meanwhile, the rail strike is reaching its long-deferred “put up or shut up” moment, as the last unions announced the results of their votes, with four of the twelve unions – SMART-TD, BMWE, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, and the Boilermakers – without deals as their December 9th strike deadline fast approaches. It’s a minority of the unions, but they represent a majority of the workers at nearly 70,000. Besides, the consensus among the unions is that those that have a deal will honor the line if any of the other crafts walk. Whether they’ll get to that point is mostly up to Congress; Politico has the basic overview. But the basic options are: (1) the carriers and the unions come up with another set of agreements averting a strike, that then have to pass ratification votes; (2) the unions strike and Congress does nothing, and presumably the carriers get sick of losing all that money and come up with a new tentative agreement; (3) Congress passes the only bill on the floor, the GOP’s Burr-Wicker bill that imposes the PEB on the remaining unions; (4) the Democrats put out a bill that reflects the Walsh-brokered tentative agreement and imposes it on the remaining unions; (5) someone puts out a bill that imposes the Walsh deal plus paid sick days and/or other union demands; (6) they kick the can with a bill that extends the cooling-off period. The question is what will get to the floor, and what can Congress pass?

Elsewhere in big strikes, this month saw Starbucks Workers United’s “Red Cup Rebellion”; a coordinated day of strike action across 110 stores to coincide with the company’s “Red Cup Day,” one of the heaviest sales days of the year, which inaugurates the holiday season at Starbucks. The NLRB is also petitioning the federal government for a nationwide cease and desist against the company firing workers for their union support (which is already illegal, but our labor law is broken by design). Separate from the nationwide action, Starbucks workers in Buffalo and Memphis struck.

For Black Friday, Amazon workers and allies around the world protested, though as far as I can tell, only one of these actions in the US was a strike, in St. Peters, MO; it’s unclear to me whether these workers are affiliated with the Teamsters or the Amazon Labor Union or totally independent, but it looks like they’ve got a lot of organizational support from local labor and the Missouri Workers Center.

And elsewhere in key infrastructure strikes, about 800 ILA Local 1410 members at the Port of Mobile, AL are on strike against terminal operator CSA after promised federal mediation broke down (or never actually started); the dockworkers have been without a local agreement, while the national ILA is gearing up to negotiate its new national agreement with CSA’s parent company.

Warrior Met UMWA members marked their second Thanksgiving on the picket line, and Kim Kelly has a dispatch from Brookwood, AL. For UAW members at Case/CNH in Burlington, IA and Racine, WI, it was the first Thanksgiving on the line, and hopefully the last; Max Alvarez spoke with strikers there. If you’re in the giving spirit, I’ve heard that the Case workers could use some funds; chip in a few bucks to their solidarity fund here. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike also lurched on through the holiday, with no big breakthroughs as far as I can tell.

A few other blue collar strikes have popped up in recent weeks, with 130 workers at Nordson Industrial Coating Systems in Amherst, OH walking off the job with Machinists Local 1802 after their contract expired due to a stalemate over forced overtime; several dozen welders with Operating Engineers Local 501 struck aerospace parts producer Arrowhead Products in Los Alamitos, CA but are back on the job; and 100+ workers with IBEW Local 1464 who work on locomotives for Wabtec in Kansas City hit a month on the picket line this weekend.

And in what would’ve reportedly been the largest private sector nurses strike in US history, 22,000 California Nurses Association nurses at Kaiser won a 22.5% raise over four years to avert a two-day walkout. Elsewhere in healthcare unionism, UNAC/UHCP nurses at Maui Health System rallied for raises as they negotiate a new contract.

For Labor Notes, I wrote about what’s going on with (ALPA and APA) airline pilot negotiations at Delta, American, and United. I wouldn’t expect any imminent work stoppages, since airlines are covered under the now-familiar Railway Labor Act and despite the contract rejections and strike authorization, it’s early days in RLA bureaucratic hoop-jumping terms, and apparently things are getting a little less contentious, at least at Delta.

Transit workers with ATU Local 998 marched through downtown Milwaukee in preparation for what could be an open-ended strike; like many other transit systems, bus operators face violence from the public, and rampant understaffing. In Peoria, IL, city workers with AFSCME Local 3464 have opened negotiations for their contract which expires at the end of the year, and are looking for reinvestment in public services.

120 workers with Teamsters Local 117 at IKEA in Spanaway have authorized a strike in the face of a meager wage proposal from the company.

UNITE HERE’s campaign against massive hospitality contractor Sodexo escalated with two strike authorization votes among convention center workers, in Orlando, FL and Las Vegas, plus other possible job actions in New Orleans, Sacramento, and Detroit.

UAW Local 2110 workers at the Brooklyn Museum rallied for a first contract, having filed unfair labor practice charges against management in September. And speaking of museum labor, for Labor Notes, Liam Kelly took a look at the Philadelphia Museum of Art strike by AFSCME Local 397 last month.

Workers who formed New York state’s first legally-recognized farmworkers union at Pindar Vineyards in Southold, NY with RWDSU Local 338 also protested against an impasse in negotiations for a first contract.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

After many years of pleading for funding increases, the NLRB has announced that the agency will have to begin furloughing employees if they don’t get more funding basically immediately. Since the GOP took back the House, this has to happen before the end of the calendar year, and since there’s a “debt ceiling” deadline of December 16th, there’s basically two and a half weeks to get it done, the first week or so which will probably be consumed by dealing with the rail strike. If ever you wanted a demonstration of labor’s political weakness, this is probably it; at a time of existential importance for labor’s new organizing prospects through the Board (which, to be fair, is still not where the bulk of membership growth happens), the unions can’t even prevent the further dismantling of the legal infrastructure for labor relations through flat funding and attrition.

And speaking of federal agency dysfunction, Labor Lab came out with a great new report on LM-20 non-compliance, i.e. the extent to which union-busters and those who hire them break the law by not reporting on their activities in a timely fashion. More than 80% of LM-20 filings were delinquent in 2021 and 2022, in case you were looking for another way in which the deck is stacked against workers trying to organize.

If that weren’t enough, Rebecca Rainey has a report on the Mine Safety and Health Administration, where, you guessed it, underfunding and understaffing plus other agency dysfunction means existing mines aren’t getting inspected, and new mines that should be opened in the wake of all the recent federal infrastructure investment will likely be delayed.

But this basic non-functioning of the agencies intended to protect workers’ right to organize is of course not going to be enough for the GOP as they the House; the ghouls at Littler have a useful rundown of their wishlist – I mean, predictions – for a Republican House.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

We are just a couple days away from the vote count in the UAW’s first ever membership-wide election of national officers, which deadline will apparently not change after a judge appears to have rejected a suit to extend the voting period due to very low membership awareness of the vote. According to the federal monitor, just over 100,000 ballots have been received, out of around one million mailed. It’s extremely hard to guess what will happen in terms of outcomes, especially since this is the first vote of its kind in the union, but I’d be pretty surprised if we didn’t see a runoff for the Presidency in early 2023, seeing as it’s a five-way race with multiple candidates with widespread support. It would be quite the political earthquake if the incumbent Administration Caucus didn’t win re-election after 80 years in power, but even so, it won’t be a clean reform leadership, with only about half of the seats being contested. In the meantime, yet another story about UAW financial mismanagement has come out, from Dan Boguslaw at The Intercept, reporting on how the UAW strike fund is systematically underreported to the membership and invested in brilliant things like FTX-affiliated crypto VC funds, while leadership limits fund payouts to actual striking workers.

The IBEW will have new leadership in 2023 in far less dramatic fashion, with President Lonnie Stephenson announcing his retirement, and the executive board being reshuffled to fill vacancies. Speaking of the IBEW, the Business Manager of Hawaii’s IBEW Local 1260 was found guilty of embezzlement and other charges, including rigging a dues increase vote.

Teamsters for a Democratic Union has racked up another local win, with reform-aligned members in Teamsters Local 90 in Iowa sweeping into office with 80% of the vote.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 

Education: Yet another massive unit of grad workers, this time 3500 at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, are organizing with UE after the university denied voluntary recognition. At Tufts University in Medford, MA, resident assistants are also unionizing, and were also denied voluntary recognition. 134 K-12 educators at a KIPP charter school in Columbus, OH are filing to join the Ohio Federation of Teachers, following in the footsteps of St. Louis KIPP teachers who won their union last week. 56 First Student school bus workers in Dalton, GA are organizing with ATU Local 1212, and nine of their counterparts in Dayton, OH are joining AFSCME (feels like a fun time to note that the Teamsters have a national contract at First Student). 50 K-12 educators at Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School in Philadelphia are unionizing with AFT Local 6056.

Hospitals and healthcare: NYSNA is organizing 800 nurses at Mount Sinai South Nassau in Rockville Centre, NY. 360 hospital workers in two elections at Hospitals of Providence’s Sierra Campus in El Paso, TX are organizing with SEIU Texas. 90 nursing home support staff at Wadsworth Glen in Middletown, CT are unionizing with SEIU 1199 New England. 74 hospice workers for Sutter Care at Home in Sacramento are unionizing with NUHW. 71 nurse practitioners and physician assistants at the Geisinger Clinic in Scranton, PA are organizing with PASNAP. 63 therapists at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento are organizing with SEIU UHW, as are 24 more at San Francisco’s St. Mary’s Medical Center, both owned by Dignity Health. 25 nurse practitioners at Bangor, ME’s Northern Lights Acadia Hospital are joining AFT (though there may be a turf war happening with NNU). 15 pharmacy techs at USC’s Medical Plaza Pharmacy in Los Angeles are joining NUHW. Ten pharmacists at a Rite Aid in Corvallis, OR are forming the apparently independent “Pharmacy Technicians of Rite Aid Union.”

Food service and retail: 166 more Starbucks workers at seven stores are organizing with Starbucks Workers United in Las Vegas, Queens, Louisville, Brookline and Waltham, MA, Boulder, CO, and Alpharetta, GA. 81 workers at an Apple Store in St. Louis filed to join the Machinists but then withdrew their petition; if they can push through, would be the third unionized store, and the second one to go with the Machinists, as opposed to CWA. 35 baristas at Blank Street Coffee in Brooklyn are unionizing with UFCW Local 1500. 19 workers at Afuri Ramen + Dumpling in Portland, OR have formed the independent “Restaurant Workers of Portland.” 12 bookstore workers at Books-A-Million in Leesburg, VA are unionizing with UFCW Local 400. UFCW Local 400 is getting in on the coffee organizing wave with five baristas at DC’s La Colombe filing for an election.

Other filings: It’s not a new filing, but 900 workers who make electric vehicle batteries for Ultium, a joint GM-LG venture in Warren, OH, have gotten an election date for their vote to join UAW Local 1112, in a high stakes referendum on the union future of EV production. 260 workers at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul, MN are organizing with AFSCME Council 5. 159 workers for Block by Block in Boston, which runs those “Business Improvement District” staffing programs, are unionizing with Teamsters Local 25. 128 more New Seasons grocery workers in Portland, OR are organizing with the independent New Seasons Labor Union; 115 grocery workers at Lexington Cooperative Market in Buffalo, NY, having pushed for but not gotten voluntary recognition, have filed for an election with Workers United; and 64 bakery and deli managers across Hawaii’s Foodland grocery chain are joining UFCW Local 480, just in time for their potential strike?. 115 customer service workers at Las Vegas’s Bellagio are organizing with Teamsters Local 986. 110 workers for USPS freight contractor 10 Roads Express in Columbus are organizing with the APWU. 102 workers at Pepsi products company Acadiana Bottling in Youngsville, LA are organizing with Teamsters Local 270. 80 warehouse workers and drivers for Labcorp in Tucker, GA are organizing with Painters District Council 77 (I have no idea why them and not, say, the Teamsters).

Small shops: 36 dispensary workers at Sunnyside in Rockford, IL are joining Teamsters Local 777; 26 at Deep Roots in West Wendover, WV are unionizing with UFCW Local 711; 20 more at Pure Oasis in Boston are joining Teamsters Local 25. 33 workers for Wilkinson Mobile Boilers in Rockland, MA are unionizing with UA Local 537. 30 radio station workers at Charlotte, NC’s WFAE are joining SAG-AFTRA. 30 workers for Chellino Crane in Joliet, IL are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 150. 21 aircraft mechanics at the Elizabeth City, NC Coast Guard Station are joining IUE-CWA. 21 workers who do I don’t know what for federal contractor Akima in Fayetteville, NC, 18 workers for VA IT contractor VETS Veteran Enterprise Technology Services in San Diego, and nine for Leidos at SEAFAC in Ketchikan, AK are unionizing with the Machinists. 17 ironworkers at WC Welding in Fontana, CA are organizing with Iron Workers Local 509. 15 bowling alley employees at Bowlero in Royal Oak, MI are unionizing with GCC Local 25-M. 15 electronic court reporters in NYC are joining CWA. 11 subcontracted fire captains at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN are joining IAFF Local I-101. Nine workers at Westerly, RI’s Savoy Bookshop & Cafe are joining UFCW Local 328. Seven lab employees at the Ferndale, WA Phillips 66 refinery are joining the Steelworkers. Six freight clericals at USF Holland in Cincinnati are joining Teamsters Local 100. Five resident artists (?) at the Sloss Furnaces building in Birmingham, AL are joining the Boilermakers. Five mechanics at the Coffin Butte Landfill in Corvallis, OR are joining Operating Engineers Local 701. Four maintenance workers at Atlantis Health Care in San German, PR are joining Unión General de Trabajadores, SEIU Local 1199. Four air traffic controllers at Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County Airport are joining NATCA.

NLRB election wins…: Due to NLRB site quirks, I missed the big Wichita, KS win among 625 nurses at the Ascension Via Christi St. Francis hospital, where NNU won 378-194; this week, those nurses took their first action, protesting safety protocols after a gun was fired in the pediatric unit. 95 workers at San Francisco homelessness services agency Compass Family Services voted 63-21 to join OPEIU Local 29. 58 more student workers, resident assistants at NYC’s Barnard College, voted 47-2 to unionize with OPEIU Local 153. 56 drivers and warehouse workers for recycling company Ridwell in Seattle voted 37-3 to join Teamsters Local 117. 43 ski lift maintenance workers at Park City (UT) Mountain Resort voted 35-6 to join CWA. 34 journalists at Louisville’s Courier-Journal joined the Indianapolis NewsGuild in a 22-4 vote. 28 nurses at UMass Memorial Medical Center’s Hospital at Home program in Worcester, MA voted 23 to nothing to join the Massachusetts Nurses Association. 26 nursing home support staff at Pioneer Ridge in Lawrence, KS won their union in a very low turnout 5-3 vote, joining Teamsters Local 696. 24 workers at Vital Climbing Gym in Manhattan voted 13 to nothing to join Workers United. 14 freight truck drivers for K8E Trucking in Sacramento narrowly won their union with Teamsters Local 150 in a 7-6 vote. 14 workers for heating oil company Keyser Energy in Rutland, VT voted 11-3 to join Teamsters Local 597. 13 drivers for Nevulis Beverage distributors in Emmaus, PA voted 8-3 to join Teamsters Local 773. 12 workers at Deep Roots Piercing in Seattle voted 6-0 to join UFCW Local 3000. Seven deli workers at Roth’s Fresh Market in Salem, OR voted 5-1 to join UFCW Local 555. All four CymSTAR flight instructors in Omaha voted to join Machinists District Lodge 6.

Starbucks Workers United had mixed results, with four stores splitting 2-2 on joining the movement; 50 workers in Fayetteville, AR and Seattle voted 27-16 to join, and 50 workers in Seaside, CA and Apache Junction, AZ voted 18-26 not to.

…and losses: 317 nurses at Marietta Memorial Hospital in Marietta, OH voted 98-140 against joining Teamsters Local 637. 78 nursing home workers at Heartwood Extended Health Care in Tacoma, WA deadlocked 19-19 on joining SEIU Local 775. 63 dispensary workers at Zen Leaf in St. Charles, IL voted 22-31 against joining UFCW Local 881. 19 workers at fireproofing contractor Firestop Commercial in Henderson, NV lost their bid to join Insulators Local 135 in a 6-10 vote. 14 fiber technicians at Cumberland Electric in Clarksville, TN voted 4-10 against joining IBEW Local 175.

Decertifications and raids: Is nothing sacred? 210 workers at the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, CA are facing a decertification attempt against their union, BCTGM Local 125. 97 healthcare clericals at the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby, MN beat back a decertification attempt 41-16, sticking with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. 30 drivers for HD Supply in San Jose decertified Teamsters Local 853 in a 5-21 vote. Not sure it’s a raid or just two unions “filing” or the Carpenters just being listed because they’re obviously involved, but the staff at the Kent, WA Northwest Carpenters Training Center are unionizing with AFT with the Carpenters “intervening” (meaning either getting on the ballot, or they already rep these staffers, the latter seeming most plausible to me).

Outside the NLRB: Workers at the Amazon air hub in Hebron, KY (at the Cincinnati airport) have gone public with their organizing drive; from the looks of it, it’s not affiliated with the Amazon Labor Union or the Teamsters (publicly, at least). 330 library workers at the Enoch Pratt Free Library system in Baltimore voted in a landslide, 218-12, to join AFSCME Council 67. The Congressional Workers Union has racked up another win, with Rep. Chuy Garcia’s staff voting unanimously to unionize, and staff for Reps Tlaib, Pocan, and Takano all filing for elections. The Wisconsin state labor board says that UW Health does not have to recognize SEIU as the union of 2100 nurses at the healthcare system; the nurses nearly struck for recognition this fall, but agreed to take their case to the state labor board, and possibly the NLRB, instead.

In a promising sign, AFA-CWA, the Machinists, and the Teamsters announced a joint effort to organize (rather than fight over) three different groups of workers at Delta – flight attendants, ramp workers, and mechanics respectively.

Workers who tried to form an independent union at Lowe’s in New Orleans have filed unfair labor practice charges against the company after withdrawing their NLRB petition; it remains to be seen whether this mean the workers will regroup and take another crack at formal unionization.

The Washington Post looked at the state of public sector collective bargaining in Virginia, as several groups of workers move closer to winning legally-recognized union contracts in the wake of the 2020 state labor reform law. Workers in many jurisdictions (like Fairfax County Public Schools) are still fighting to win local ordinances.

Finally, in South Carolina, hundreds of workers gathered to found the Union of Southern Service Workers, an outgrowth of the SEIU Fight for $15 movement.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

Almost 50,000 academic workers with the UAW at the University of California system are set to begin an open-ended strike across the entire system starting on Monday morning; it will be the largest higher-education strike in US history, and the biggest strike in the country since the 2019 General Motors strike. 750 grad workers at Temple University in Philadelphia have officially authorized a strike with AFT Local 6290. On the higher ed non-academic workers side, Smith College dining workers with SEIU Local 211 have ratified a new contract, UNITE HERE Local 1 workers at Northwestern University are facing retaliation, and Sodexo dining workers at New Orleans’s Loyola University are also organizing with UNITE HERE.

And in other record-breaking California labor news, 21,000 Kaiser nurses with NNU are set to hold a two-day strike, one of the largest private-sector nurses strikes ever. 2500 Temple University Hospital nurses in Philadelphia with PASNAP won a contract, averting a strike. Around 400 nurses with SEIU 1199NW held informational pickets at two hospitals in Enumclaw and Burien, WA as they push for a contract with safe staffing provisions. Across the country, workers at Providence, RI’s Butler Hospital picketed for similar demands with SEIU 1199 New England.

After meeting with Marty Walsh, the BMWE’s negotiating committee voted not to extend their deadline for a rail strike, and then, in a re-vote, they voted to, actually, yes, extend it after all, lining up with the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen’s December 4th deadline, in yet another backdown from another rail union. This week will no doubt carry some big rail news, with both SMART-TD and BLET’s results expected to be announced on November 17th, and serious doubts about whether they’ll ratify their deals. 

Our other Railway Labor Act negotiations watch isn’t anywhere close to the rail impasse, but it’s not going particularly smoothly, either: ALPA pilots with United are picketing the United pilots training center on Tuesday, and FedEx Express pilots, also with ALPA, are filing for mediation. And it’s not just the pilots: APFA flight attendants are picketing across American Airlines bases.

Some 250 UAW Local 2110 members are officially on an open-ended strike at HarperCollins in NYC. 

Some 600 meat, deli, bakery, and seafood department workers across Hawaii’s Foodland grocery chain are taking a strike authorization vote with UFCW Local 480; their contract expired in April of 2021.

ATU Local 689 has authorized a strike against everyone’s favorite multinational transit contractor, Keolis, in Loudoun County, VA; and from the looks of it, in a very solidaristic move, Teamsters Local 533, who struck Keolis three times in 2021, are reopening several complaints against the company (Local prez Gary Watson should put this on his resume: “[Teamsters President Gary] Watson is beyond inflammatory at this point and I have suggested that legal review his statements on the grounds of actionable defamation,” said Rachel Gattuso, who has been hired by Keolis to promote the company in Reno.) ATU Local 618 has won a 25% pay raise to address a drivers shortage at the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority.

Educators in the Penns Manor school district in Indiana County, PA have taken a strike authorization vote; in Lawrence County, PA educators in the Mohawk Area School District are at an impasse and appear to have also previously authorized a strike. Negotiations in Bay County, FL are at a “standstill” according to the local news. Educators in Imperial Beach, CA rallied at the South Bay Union School District for a contract with class size limits and more special education teachers. After picketing at district HQ last month, Montgomery County, MD educators won open bargaining, and negotiations are set to begin soon. Newtown, CT teachers have a new contract; so do those in Dayton, OH.

The Starbucks Workers United strike at NYC’s roastery has entered its third week, and I thought this piece from industry outlet Restaurant Dive was worth reading on the bigger picture of why baristas are organizing, beyond each individual strike action. Oh, and Trader Joe’s bargaining isn’t going all that much better, with Trader Joe’s United filing charges in some of its first negotiating sessions with the company.

Amazon workers walked off the job twice this week in Eagan, MN, as the company forces scheduling changes; I assume these workers are connected with the Awood Center, a workers center in the Twin Cities area that organizes primarily with East African immigrants.

Teamsters Local 145 rallied outside city hall in Shelton, CT against union-busting from the town’s mayor, where city workers have gone four years without a contract. Public workers in New Jersey have been rallying against planned healthcare premium rate hikes of over 20%.

And though I really do not cover non-US labor developments (partly just because this project is already quixotic in its scope), there were just some great non-US pieces out at Labor Notes this week. Read about: the general strike threat in Ontario; workers fleeing China’s largest iPhone factory; and an update about Mexico’s exciting independent union movement.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

I don’t have a particular piece to cite here, but it remains wild that UNITE HERE seems to be the core tactical field team that has carried the Democratic Party to Senate majorities in both 2020 and 2022; and wild that there’s no real expectation that they’d get some particular legislation or political favor out of it, just because the favor is just not having a GOP majority itself. Maybe that will change, and they’ll cash in in some clearer way, but it’s pretty clear they provided the field margin in Nevada (and maybe Arizona, and maybe will do so in Georgia).

One political favor labor could ask is to save the National Labor Relations Board from what its staff union is terming “budgetary armageddon.” And it’s not just the staff union sounding the alarm; the NLRB Chair Lauren McFerran described the situation as akin to “Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory” and General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo talked about delays in case processing. This stuff is obviously poison for any new organizing strategy that relies on the NLRB. Who needs the GOP running the Board when you can just wither it away through flat funding?

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

There are just over two weeks until the ballots are counted in the UAW election, and the federally-appointed election monitor has found the incumbents illegally used an email list to contact 600 voters. Now, that may not sound like many, but with turnout currently standing at less than 9% (with, again, more than two weeks left to go in a mail-in election, but still) in a five-way-contested race for the presidency, it could end up mattering; and I think it’s fair to wonder what other resources might’ve been quietly misused for incumbent advantage. But we’ll see; I would be surprised if there weren’t a runoff for the top spot.

A federal judge has nullified the 2020 leadership election for Teamsters Local 668, a 6,000-member local based in St. Louis, around violations of federal law around preserving the secret ballot. Similarly, the Department of Labor entered into a voluntary agreement with Steelworkers Local 7600, representing 7,500 Kaiser Permanente support staff in Southern California, agreeing to rerun a leadership election from 2018.

Amid all the pilot labor activity, APA (representing American Airlines pilots) is considering a merger with ALPA (representing pilots at 40 or so carriers); APA originally broke away in the early 60s.

Amir Khafagy has the scoop on a group of IBEW Local 3 members who are suing their (former) union for $100 million for ending the disastrous NYC Spectrum strike without a membership vote.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 225 social services and healthcare workers for non-profit Comprehensive Life Resources in Tacoma, WA are organizing with SEIU Healthcare 1199NW. 100 First Student school bus drivers in Amarillo, TX are organizing with Teamsters Local 577. 59 grocery store workers at a third location of MOM’s Organic Markets in College Park, MD (this one has a pinball arcade in the back, very cool) have filed to unionize; interestingly, not with Teamsters Local 570 who has won two of the chain’s 22 locations, but with UFCW Local 400. 52 workers at the just-opened Saab Aerospace jet manufacturing facility in West Lafayette, IN are unionizing with Machinists Local 2018. 43 baristas in Columbus, OH are joining the Starbucks Workers United movement. 11 building engineers at Chicago’s Field Museum are joining Operating Engineers Local 399. Ten workers at HVAC contractor UD Contracting in Fort Knox, KY are joining UA Local 502; eight workers at HVAC contractor Multi Air Services Engineers in Seattle are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 302. Eight firefighters and EMTs at the Roxana Volunteer Fire Company in Frankford, DE are joining IAFF Local 5121. Five veterinarians at Eye Care for Animals in Chicago are joining Machinists Local 701 (who I thought only represented auto mechanics, but it’s a little late in the day for jurisdictional opinions). Four workers for Marathon Pipe Line in San Diego are joining the Steelworkers. 

NLRB election wins…: 348 physicians assistants at Montefiore Medical Center in The Bronx, NY voted to join the existing unit of SEIU 1199 in a 221-26 vote. 65 workers at a second MOM’s Organic Market, in Timonium, MD, voted 42-3 to join Teamsters Local 570, after another store unionized in Baltimore this summer. 59 Starbucks workers at three stores in Philadelphia, Arlington, VA, and Shavano Park, TX voted to join Starbucks Workers United in a combined 34-18 vote. 56 educators at a St. Louis charter school in one of the largest charter networks, KIPP, unionized with AFT Local 420 in a 34-17 vote. 49 knights, squires, trumpeters, and others at Medieval Times in Buena Park, CA won their bid to join AGVA, 27-18. 18 workers at Sunday Goods weed dispensary in Tempe, AZ voted 10-4 to join UFCW Local 99. Nine building engineers for Citi bank buildings across Northern California voted 7-0 to join Operating Engineers Local 39. The three employees of Alcorn Fence Company in Riverside, CA who decertified their union last year are now once again members of Iron Workers Local 509 after a unanimous vote.

…and losses: 131 workers at Titan Concrete across South Florida lost their bid to join Teamsters Local 769 by one vote, 54-55; there were eight challenged ballots so it’s possible this one could flip, but that’s got to be heartbreaking. Seven “budtenders” at Power Plant, a weed dispensary in Portland, OR, voted 2-3 against joining UFCW Local 555.

Decertifications and raids: I’m not sure that it’s a raid or if the latter was just trying to get on the ballot, but the independent Digital & Media Workers Union unanimously beat out SAG-AFTRA in a vote among five digital journalists at San Francisco radio station KCBS. Yet another Hasidic business, kosher grocery store Aron’s Kissena Farms in Queens, is seeking to decertify once-company-union Local 17-18 (now an affiliate of UFCW, and no longer a company union after an election a couple years ago in which the mostly-immigrant workforce took over their corrupt union, at which point the employers decided they weren’t enough of a sweetheart union to maintain their sweetheart deals).

Outside the NLRB: Workers at Buffalo’s Lexington Co-op Markets sought voluntary recognition with Workers United but were rejected by management; presumably they’ll take their case to the NLRB, like so many Starbucks Workers United members before them. 39 instructors for medevac helicopter company Air Methods voted 23-15 to join OPEIU through the National Mediation Board.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

Rail negotiation updates continue to trickle in, with the 6,000 members of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen voting down their agreement, joining the BMWE in rejecting the latest deal and preparing to strike. Meanwhile, the 5,000 members of Machinists District Lodge 19 narrowly voted to ratify their deal (52% voted yes, with 59% turnout). The thing I have stressed throughout is that although each union needs to ratify an agreement for it to officially be over, if just one of the unions strike it will likely provoke a national lockout/shutdown that will force Congressional action. Marty Walsh apparently wanted to make sure no rail workers accidentally voted Democrat in Tuesday’s midterm elections, so he went on CNN to tell them that Congress will preempt a strike. Obviously, rail workers know that in the event of a strike they are going to be forced back onto the job, the question is just under what terms; if Walsh says they’re going to be preempted, presumably that’ll be under the shitty deal that he helped broker and that at least the BRS has already explicitly rejected. Interestingly, the BMWE voted down a proposal to extend their cooling off period, and then days later re-voted (“vote til you get it right!”) and decided to extend it.

ILWU members at the Port of Oakland walked off the job for one day, which is in itself notable (though the Port of Oakland has a reputation for doing this sort of thing now and again) but far more notable because it was clearly connected to the delay in negotiating a contract for the entire west coast port system and its 22,000 longshoremen. That contract has been expired since July and seems to be under a total information blackout; apparently jurisdictional issues in Seattle between the Machinists and the ILWU are holding things up as the NLRB hears a case. But the bottom line is that the supply chain labor relations regime seems to be holding on by a thread.

The Steelworkers have reached a tentative agreement with US Steel, covering 11,000 workers across the country; things were looking pretty dicey for a minute as the company was apparently trying to avoid following the wage and benefits pattern set by competitor Cleveland-Cliffs, but skimming the summaries, it sounds like they came around on the fundamentals. We’ll see what the members think. Separately, steelworkers in Pueblo, CO ratified a new contract. 

Higher education: And speaking of massive union negotiations, around 48,000 higher education workers with UAW Local 2865, UAW Local 5810, and Student Researchers United are set to strike starting on Monday. This would be the largest strike since the 2019 GM strike, and the largest higher education strike in the US ever, as far as I can tell. Elsewhere in higher ed, Pomona (CA) College food service workers with UNITE HERE Local 11 struck for two days as they push for higher wages. In Philadelphia, AFT Local 6290 (aka the Temple University Graduate Students Association, or TUGSA) is taking a strike authorization vote. In Chicago, AFT Local 1600 (aka the Cook County Colleges Teachers Union had authorized a strike and set a strike date for 1500 members before getting a tentative agreement with the administration. Staff with Teamsters Local 320 will also not be striking, having reached a deal at the University of Minnesota. In NYC, UAW Local 7902, repping adjunct faculty at NYU, also authorized a strike and also reached a tentative agreement; their counterparts at the New School are actively gearing up for a strike. Part-time faculty at the University of Vermont are speaking out as contract negotiations drag on there as well.

K-12 education: In K-12, educators in Haverhill, MA approved their new contract after an “illegal strike.” In NYC, the UFT is rallying against job cuts for early childhood educators, and finally moving towards contract bargaining with the city under an expired deal. They’ve got Shelby County, TN educators beat, where competing unions can’t even agree whether they want to move towards “bargaining” in a state that has what sounds like a totally broken K-12 labor regime. In Ojai, CA, bargaining is at an impasse. In Pajaro Valley, CA, there was no official impasse, but seemingly in response to a tentative agreement, dozens of school bus drivers called out sick for multiple days; there was a sickout among San Francisco teachers in at least one school, too. In Brattleboro, VT, school bus drivers with Teamsters Local 597 went to the trouble of voting on strike action, setting December 1st as their deadline. Some 275 drivers with SEIU 1199 New England in several Rhode Island towns came close to striking but got a deal.

Transit: 150 Teamsters Local 952 maintenance workers for the Orange County (CA) Transportation Authority struck for four days, before “pausing” for election day (and, from the sound of it, because progress was being made at the table); I haven’t seen any updates after they met for negotiations today. Elsewhere in transit, drivers in Greensboro, NC (presumably represented by ATU Local 1493, but I haven’t been able to confirm that) walked off for a day due to so-called “misunderstanding” about changes to their healthcare coverage that appear to have been soothed enough to resume operations. In Louisville, after getting quite close to an “illegal” strike, ATU Local 1447 reached a tentative agreement with the local transit authority. In Milwaukee, workers with ATU Local 998 authorized a strike a month ago, but the county is apparently in financial trouble and workers are ready to quit.

Journalism & publishing: Lots of journalists are taking action on the job, from the ongoing Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike (which you can read all about from the NewsGuild members’ fantastic strike paper, and which strike was hit with another injunction to shock the conscience) to the one-day strike among 200 journalists across 14 Gannett newsrooms in New York, New Jersey, Arizona, and California. Meanwhile, three hundred Reuters journalists have authorized an open-ended strike, and journalists at the Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram have launched a strike fund. SAG-AFTRA journalists at KUOW in Seattle picketed their employer. In the kind-of similar field of publishing, 250 publishing workers at HarperCollins with UAW Local 2110 plan to walk off the job tomorrow (November 10th), their second strike this year.

Healthcare: Healthcare union fights continue to pop up around the country. Around 1800 nurses with NNU at the Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland, CA struck for five days. Another 850 nurses and others at Fountain Valley (CA) Hospital authorized a strike with NUHW. 250 hospital techs and support staff with AFT Local 5099 at Windham Hospital in Willimantic, CT struck for two days over rising insurance costs. AFGE Local 1224 appears to have won without striking at all, with just the threat of a rally apparently moving the VA Hospital in Las Vegas to grant a raise. Rhode Island hospital workers with UNAP don’t appear to be so lucky, and have authorized a strike at two hospitals and a home health and hospice provider; though UNAP did win a first contract at Springfield Hospital in Springfield, VT. The Illinois Nurses Association is filing an unfair labor practice charge against Ascension St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, IL after understaffing left four ER nurses responsible for over 50 patients, prompting a walkout. A rare (independent) physicians union in Santa Clara County, CA reached a deal after authorizing a strike. While the Mayo Clinic is busy decertifying its unions, they were apparently forced to reach a deal with their food service workers with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota in Rochester, MN. 

Starbucks: And it wouldn’t be a newsletter without some Starbucks Workers United strikes; workers at the important NYC roastery have now been on strike for two weeks, provoked initially by unsafe conditions, bed bugs, and mold, but obviously not unconnected to the company’s scorched earth approach to the union. Workers also walked out in Pittsburgh, Santa Fe, NM, and Seattle. And in case it wasn’t clear just how precedent-setting Starbucks’s union-busting behavior is, Apple has now excluded their unionized stores from company-wide benefits.

Manufacturing: Bargaining is back in session for Cedar Rapids, IA company Ingredion, where BCTGM Local 100-G members have been on strike since August. Progress, I guess. In East Alton, IL, some 1,000 members of Machinists Local 660 have authorized a strike against copper products manufacturer Wieland. The Machinists Weyerhaeuser paper mill strike in Washington ended after six weeks, with some mixed feelings. IBEW Local 1464 is on strike at Wabtec in Kansas City but I can find almost nothing on it. IUE-CWA workers rallied at GE HQ in Schenectady, NY as they prepare for national negotiations next year, while the company undergoes a split into three separate companies, with some uncertainty on the union side for what that’ll mean for workers.

Airlines: It’s been a big couple weeks for pilot labor, with ALPA pilots at Delta authorizing a strike, ALPA pilots at United rejecting a tentative agreement, and APA pilots at American rejecting a deal before even sending it to the membership. There are no immediate updates at the fourth-largest airline, Southwest, though the independent SWAPA did file for federal mediation (part of the Railway Labor Act process, under which airlines are covered) back in September. Things seem to be going smoother for the Machinists customer service agents at Southwest, who have a new tentative agreement for 8,000+ members after they rejected the last one.

In Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Virginia, CWA call center workers for federal contractor Maximus struck for one day, but an important one: the first day of open enrollment for the ACA, an obviously heavy traffic day for these call centers. In a similarly well-timed action, Laborers Local 363, representing Minneapolis Parks and Recreation workers, planned to strike on election day, which would obviously snarl things, before reaching a TA.

Iowa public sector unions were once again forced to go through the sadistic ritual of recertification – in which a majority of all workers in every single dinky bargaining unit has to reaffirm in a vote that they want to remain under a collective bargaining agreement or it’s dissolved, which aside from being dumb and unfair on its face also requires these unions to spend a ton of time and resources on frivolous but existential votes – and 95% of them voted to continue to exist. I believe in the statistics discipline they call that a superdupermajority. On the flip side, it means that dozens if not hundreds of workers lost their union for no good reason.

Rep. Andy Levin’s staff has ratified the first Congressional Workers Union contract.

Over 100 staffers for SEIU Local 2015 in California are on strike.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Nothing massively consequential happened this week in terms of national or local electoral politics, so let’s just move on… But seriously folks, what can I say about the midterms? On the outright labor union side of things, Illinois appears to have passed an amendment constitutionally banning open shop (“right to work”) laws and enshrining collective bargaining, but the details of whether it’s actually passed are complicated; Tennessee went in the other direction, voting 70% to enshrine the open shop in the state constitution. Michigan has a new Democrat trifecta for the first time in decades, so everyone in that big union state is now wondering about repealing “right to work” there as well. I have a hard time getting overly stirred up about any of these RTW moves, because I’ve been convinced that it’s primarily an effect, rather than cause, of union weakness, though of course it’s not a good thing. Outside of these state-level issues, unless the Democrats suddenly find their backbone in a lame duck session to pass the PRO Act or at least not impose a shit rail deal, or if somehow in the final tallying they keep the Senate and House, labor is likely to pivot to its perennial “ah, well, nevertheless” stance and wait another decade or two before trying to tinker with our broken labor laws, if the Democrats are in the mood to play along.

One local ballot measure of note that I haven’t seen much attention on is SEIU UHW’s continuing efforts to raise the private healthcare minimum wage to $25/hr across California, with at least two cities, Duarte and Inglewood, CA, holding votes on Tuesday; from preliminary results I can find, it looks like Duarte voted it down, but Inglewood passed it. SEIU is going for a statewide measure, but I have no clue whether that’s likely to pass through the legislature or get kicked to a statewide ballot or what.

On the local (non-midterms) level, there is an insane healthcare fight happening in New York City’s municipal labor unions right now, where they’re trying to force retirees onto the privatized Medicare Advantage plan, but a judge blocked the City from imposing a penalty for those retirees who refuse, so they have to get the city to pass a law allowing such a penalty, without which the city says they’ll lose a bunch of money, which the unions have hitched their wagon to in a deal on healthcare cost savings, so somehow this means that active city workers will be on the hook for healthcare premiums… all of which just sounds like a total mess, and if someone has a better piece to read on it, I’d be grateful.

In a jaw-dropping ruling, a judge has ruled that Starbucks is entitled to see Workers United’s communications with journalists as part of discovery in a case against Starbucks. I hope they get to read my texts to various SBWU folks that are like “wow, fuck Howard Schultz” and so forth.

The NLRB wants to repeal a Trump-era rule that made it harder for unions to block decertification elections.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

For Labor Notes, I wrote about the nascent reform efforts in the massive UFCW, and the showdown that could ensue at the 2023 convention and beyond; in the shadow of a massive merger (the first step of which was blocked, but who knows about the larger deal) that could rock the union, there are new, Teamsters for a Democratic Union- and Unite All Workers for Democracy-inspired efforts to switch to direct elections of top officers, massively invest in coordinated bargaining and new organizing, and form a rank-and-file caucus.

And speaking of the UAW, Shawn Fain of the Members United opposition slate spoke to Bloomberg about their campaign to unseat the forever-incumbent Administration Caucus from national leadership in that union. Meanwhile, the election monitor found that at least one incumbent inappropriately retaliated against the opposition challenger. The vote count is at the end of the month; as of today, only 83,000 votes (less than 9% of those mailed) had been received per the election monitor’s site. In a five-way race for the presidency, I think it’s likely that at least that spot (and maybe the VPs, where eight members are running for three spots) will see a runoff in early 2023.

I also had the pleasure of attending my third Teamsters for a Democratic Union convention, which was, as always, inspiring and galvanizing, especially in the Teamsters United era of the IBT. You can read a write-up from In These Times here.

The president of AFSCME Local 2620, representing California state psychologists and social workers, has been suspended by the national union for supposedly retaliating against members for criticism; she says she’s being retaliated against for exposing financial irregularities.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: In a true sign of the times, 4,000 grad student workers at Yale are filling for an NLRB election with UNITE HERE Local 33, a union drive that’s been going for decades, and has had entire books written about how the union will never file at the NLRB (OK, that’s not really a fair description of the Getman book, which is definitely worth reading, but seriously, for many years there was a huge chunk of the labor movement that wouldn’t touch the Board). 900 workers at the Warren, OH Ultium car battery plant are organizing with the UAW, in a promising sign of life for the electric vehicle transition. 200 workers who make auto parts for Inteva Products in Bluffton, IN are unionizing with the UAW. 91 workers at Florida City Gas and Power & Light in Miami are organizing with IBEW. 83 workers at Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY are organizing with AFSCME Local 1000. 75 subcontracted custodians at the Atlanta airport are unionizing with Workers United. 70 workers at board game retailer Noble Knight in Fitchburg, WI are unionizing with CWA. 70 workers who print book jackets for Coral Graphics in Hicksville, NY are unionizing with GCC Local 1. CWA Local 1400, aka the Alphabet Workers Union, is organizing 58 YouTube Music employees in Austin, TX who are subcontracted, under a joint employer standard. 49 welders for big grain company GSI in Assumption, IL are unionizing with Laborers Local 477. 45 workers who make aerospace parts for LMI in St. Charles, MO are unionizing with Machinists Local 778. 45 freight truck drivers for DLC Transportation in Philadelphia are unionizing with the dubious IUJAT Local 455. 38 sanitation workers at WIN Waste Innovations in North Andover, MA are unionizing with IBEW Local 326. 

Healthcare: 367 hospital workers at Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton, PA are organizing with PASNAP. 212 hospital techs and support staff at West Anaheim (CA) Medical Center are organizing with either NUHW (who currently reps some other techs at the hospital) or NNU (who currently represents some RNs at the hospital), and it may in fact be a raid but I can’t tell for sure from the filing and basic online research. 183 workers at ten Satellite and Fresenius dialysis clinics across California are unionizing with SEIU UHW. 25 home healthcare workers for UMass Medical in Worcester, MA are unionizing with the Massachusetts Nurses Association. Seven RNs at Salmon Brook nursing home in Glastonbury, CT are joining SEIU Local 1199 New England.

Teamsters: 180 workers at Domino Sugar in Yonkers, NY are unionizing with Teamsters Local 456. 80 production workers at Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics in Taunton, MA are organizing with Teamsters Local 653. 59 workers who make dairy ingredients for Dairy Farmers of America in Dalbo, MN are unionizing with Teamsters Local 471. 50 appliance delivery drivers for HD Supply in Kent, WA are organizing with Teamsters Local 174. 21 dispensary workers at Sunnyside Dispensary in Buffalo Grove, IL are unionizing with Teamsters Local 777. 13 maintenance workers at DHL in Miami are unionizing with Teamsters Local 769 (presumably joining the national master contract there). Seven customer service reps for Transdev in Tulare, CA are joining Teamsters Local 517. Seven workers for construction supplier FBM in Herculaneum, MO are unionizing with Teamsters Local 682. Six physical therapists at HealthPro Heritage in Schaumburg, IL are joining Teamsters Local 743. Six mechanics for Puerto Rican beer distributor Mendez & Co in Guaynabo, PR are joining Teamsters Local 901.Three mechanics for beer distributor Centrex in West Greenwich, RI are joining Teamsters Local 251.

Coffee workers: 124 workers at five stores in NYC, Chicago, Glenview, IL, Hillsboro, OR, and Whitehall, PA are organizing with Starbucks Workers United. 33 baristas at four locations of La Prima Espresso in Pittsburgh are unionizing with UFCW Local 1776. 11 baristas at The Daily Press in Brooklyn, NY are joining Workers United. Eight workers at the Lady Killigrew Cafe in Montague, MA are joining UFCW Local 1459, but five others at Tokava cafe in Jamaica Plain, MA are going with UNITE HERE’s New England Joint Board.

Other small shops: 26 workers at regional theater TheaterSquared in Fayetteville, AR are joining IATSE. 24 retail workers at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Prescott, AZ are unionizing with UFCW Local 99. 21 workers at Versiti Blood Center in Traverse City, MI are joining SEIU Healthcare Michigan. 20 subcontracted paratransit workers for All Transit in Arverne, NY and 16 paramedics for Hunter in The Bronx, NY are both joining the dubious Amalgamated Local 22 (no, I don’t know what if any IU it’s affiliated with, and the phone number links to the uninformative site of a differently-numbered amalgamated local but my best guess is it’s one of the mostly-only-on-paper dues collection vehicles that have persisted in the tri-state area). 19 workers who make Pan’s Mushroom Jerky in Portland, OR are unionizing with UFCW Local 555. 19 workers at a Marriott in downtown Los Angeles are unionizing with UNITE HERE Local 11. 16 staffers at housing non-profit UHAB in NYC are unionizing I think with RWDSU. 15 electricians for contractor Smith Electric Company in Oaklyn, NJ are joining IBEW Local 351. 15 stunt performers for the Fantasmic! show at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA are unionizing with AGVA. 12 staffers at the non-profit Center for Rural Affairs in DC are joining an independent union. 12 workers at ClearChoice Dental Implants in Chandler, AZ are unionizing with UFCW Local 99. Nine building services workers at 40 Bond Street in Manhattan, NYC are joining SEIU Local 32BJ, as are eight more at 49 Chambers Street. Ten telecom construction workers for Windstream in Bolivar, MO are unionizing with IBEW Local 453. Ten workers in Newsday’s multimedia department in Melville, NY are joining GCC Local 406-C. Seven building services workers at the T. Rowe Price building in Owings Mills, MD are joining UA Local 486. Six more Verizon wireless workers have filed for a union election with CWA in Oswego, IL. Four pipefitters at automation manufacturer John Henry Foster in Eagan, MN are joining UA Local 455. 

NLRB election wins…: 400 I think casino workers for Evolution US LLC in Southfield, MI voted 129-105 to join the UAW, which if that surprised you I’ll have you know the UAW claims over 10,000 “gaming” workers (meaning more than 1 in 40 UAW members work in casinos). 157 workers who sell and repair Coway air & water purifiers in and around Los Angeles voted 69-31 to join the independent California Retail and Restaurant Workers Union (a new union that has worked closely with the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance to organize elsewhere). 77 workers at the Columbus (OH) Museum of Art voted 46-2 to join AFSCME Council 8, joining the AFSCME museum organizing wave. 53 cannabis workers at a dispensary in South Beloit, IL voted 41-3 to join Teamsters Local 777, continuing their turf war with UFCW Local 881; the latter won 13-0 among 22 workers at a dispensary in Posen, IL; 10 more at Bloom Medicinals in Springfield, MO voted 6-3 to join UFCW Local 2. 54 workers at Chicago’s Newberry Library became the latest cultural workers to join AFSCME Council 31, 35-11. 52 cement workers for Corliss in Sumner, WA voted 38-10 to join Teamsters Local 174. 45 drivers for Aramark Uniform in Houston voted 31-0 to join Teamsters Local 988. 31 drivers for produce company Imperfect Foods in Clackamas, OR voted 15-13 to join UFCW Local 555; Teamsters Local 162 lost an election last July at this facility, but it was part of a combined vote with six other locations. 56 workers at three stores in Chicago, Albany, NY, and Philadelphia joined Starbucks Workers United in a combined 32-8 vote. 31 hotel workers in Midtown, NYC voted 22-7 to join the Hotel Trades Council (UNITE HERE). 27 workers at mental health clinic Hopewell in Athens, OH voted 14-8 to join AFSCME Council 8. 19 retail workers at a Goodwill in St. Louis have unionized, 7-4, with UFCW Local 655. 19 workers for SPIN, one of those scooter app rental companies in La Jolla, CA, voted 15-0 to join Teamsters Local 542. 19 staffers at youth homelessness non-profit TGTHR in Boulder, CO voted 7-3 to join UFCW Local 7. 18 workers at the Academy House Condos in Philadelphia voted 16-1 to join AFSCME Local 1739. 17 workers at the Rolling Hills Zoo in Salina, KS voted 9-4 to join SEIU Local 513. 16 distillery workers for Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey in Denver joined UFCW Local 7 in a 12-1 vote. 15 construction workers for contractor 3, LLC based in Kearny, NJ voted 2-0 to join the Laborers. 13 home health RNs for Mid-Hudson Valley StaffCo in Poughkeepsie, NY voted 10-0 to join SEIU 1199. 11 workers at Madison, WI screenprinting shop Crushing It LLC voted 6-0 to join Painters Local 770. All 11 custodial workers for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR voted to join IATSE Local 154. Nine logistics workers at ITS ConGlobal in Kansas City voted 2-0 to join Teamsters Local 41. Seven subcontracted workers at a water treatment facility in Renton, WA voted 4-0 to join Machinists Lodge 160. Five pharmacists at the New York Eye & Ear Infirmary voted 4-1 to join SEIU 1199. Five building services workers at 380 W. 12th Street in NYC voted 4-0 to join SEIU 32BJ. All four RNs at the Kimberly Hall South nursing home in Windsor, CT voted to join SEIU 1199 New England. Two First Student mechanics in DeKalb, IL voted to join Machinists Local 701. Both flight simulator techs at Delaware Resource Group in Omaha voted to join Machinists District Lodge 6. 

…and losses: We’ll start off with three blows against the independent union wave: 274 workers at a Philadelphia Home Depot voted against forming the fifth-largest private employer’s first union, in a 51-165 vote. The 185 Trader Joe’s workers in Williamsburg, NYC voted 66-94 against joining the independent Trader Joe’s United (who have already won at stores in Hadley, MA and Minneapolis). And this third one isn’t an NLRB loss per se but it fits the theme: the Amazon Labor Union has withdrawn its petition to organize a warehouse in Ontario, CA. 162 workers who make Spirit AeroSystems airplane parts for Schenker in Wichita, KS voted 63-80 against unionizing with the Machinists. 78 workers at Pepsi in Tumwater, WA voted 14-32 against joining Teamsters Local 252. 68 concrete workers for Knife River in Stockton, CA voted 29-35 against joining Teamsters Local 439. 54 workers who make antifreeze for Prestone in Alsip, IL voted against joining the UAW in a 16-35 vote. 48 hospital techs at Presbyterian Healthcare in Espanola, NM  The independent Millworkers United lost their election among 39 workers at Pacific Architectural Wood Products in Portland, OR, 17-21. 37 paramedics for Sierra Medical Services Alliance in Northern California voted 8-21 against unionizing with the Steelworkers. NUHHCE District 1199C lost a rerun of an election they won in May among 34 workers at Luther Woods nursing home in Hatboro, PA. 22 barge and tugboat workers for Moran Towing in Savannah, GA voted against joining Masters, Mates, & Pilots, 6-16. 16 techs at Kia of Duluth, MN voted 6-7 against joining Machinists District Lodge 77. 15 workers for contractor Mike Gowen Mechanical in North Little Rock, AR voted against joining UA Local 155, 3-9. 11 chemical workers at Ecolab in Marlton, NJ voted against UFCW Local 152, 3-4. Eight workers at a landfill in Imperial, CA voted 1-6 against joining Teamsters Local 542. Five electrical workers for Kansas City contractor PAR voted 1-3 against joining IBEW Local 53, and five sprinklerfitters for ABJ Sprinkler in Glassboro, NJ deadlocked 2-2 on joining UA Local 669. Five Envision Hospice workers voted 1-2 not to join the Machinists District Lodge 751 in Federal Way, WA. 

In three separate votes, the independent Restaurant Workers United lost two and won one at Austin, TX pizza chain Via 313; of the 92 eligible voters, 21 voted for the union, and 32 voted against. 

Decertifications and raids: In two votes among 248 workers for PepsiCo in Medley, FL, 166 drivers dropped Steelworkers Local 7609, 56-70, while 82 production and warehouse workers stuck with the union, 57-22. 43 school bus drivers for STA in Sandy, OR beat back a decert attempt, sticking with Teamsters Local 206, 20-11. 37 workers who make telephone poles for Brooks Manufacturing in Bellingham, WA narrowly decertified the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, 11-12. 17 Waste Management sanitation workers in Muncie, IN decertified Teamsters Local 135 in a 6-10 vote. 11 workers who process limestone at a quarry in Nokomis, IL decertified Laborers Local 1084 in a 1-9 vote. Three meat delivery workers for Smithfield Direct in Indiana unanimously dropped UFCW Local 700, and three electricians at Saint Paul, MN’s University of Saint Thomas also unanimously dropped IBEW Local 110.

Outside the NLRB: 1500 student workers at Pullman, WA’s Washington State University won their union with the UAW through the state public sector labor board. Over 1200 medical residents at The Bronx’s Montefiore Medical Center are organizing with CIR SEIU. Music supervisors who work with Netflix are looking to join IATSE; they had pushed for voluntary recognition, but now plan to take it to the NLRB; IATSE Local 700 had better luck with management at Saturday Night Live, where post-production workers joined the union through card check. Over 100 workers at the Mariners stadium in Seattle won voluntary recognition with UFCW Local 3000, as did 200+ Zum school bus drivers with Teamsters Local 174. The staff of New York grassroots organizing non-profit VOCAL NY won voluntary recognition with UAW Local 2325. Workers at Pizza Lupo in Louisville also won voluntary recognition (this link actually has several good Louisville labor updates) with the independent Restaurant Workers United

Activision Blizzard continues to be a dark horse candidate for most anti-union employer of the past couple years, going hard against their Diablo quality assurance staff (12 year old me would think that’s the coolest job on the planet, for what it’s worth) who are trying to unionize with CWA in Albany, NY.

Finally, an analysis at NBC News shows that the pattern of companies illegally shutting down to evade unions is real, and we should all take it existentially seriously for this new organizing wavelet.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

The largest strike in country, the 10-week, 2,000-worker mental healthcare strike by NUHW members at Kaiser in Northern California, has come to an end with a contract, finally, apparently mediated by the mayor of Sacramento.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike has spread to the NewsGuild, who went out on a ULP strike on Monday, and launched their own strike paper (a NewsGuild tradition); the dispute started with CWA and Teamsters workers who do the physical printing and related work, but now that it’s spread to the journalists, management likely has a much bigger headache to deal with.

700 workers who make electrical components for military contract Amphenol in Sidney, NY struck for four days with Machinists Local 1529, winning a contract that apparently eliminates a two-tier pay system established in 2013.

My Labor Notes coworker Luis Feliz Leon has a great deep dive into last week’s walkouts at Amazon, and gets into the nitty gritty of how workers are using leverage across the company’s different distribution facilities and chokepoints to strategize. On a similar theme, Peter Olney and Rand Wilson sketch out what a restive peak season might look like this winter as workers gear up for more action at both Amazon and UPS.

I’ve said it before, but Starbucks increasingly appears to be going for a slow-motion kill shot against Workers United; this Twitter thread from the union is worth a read, but the gist is that the company made a big show of offering bargaining dates, but in response to over 150 stores trying to take them up on it, the company has increased its store closures and firings, and has only met with a whopping three stores. Workers continue to strike, like in Ladue, MO and Portland, OR, to sue the company, like in Anderson, SC, and push the state to take action like in New York City, plus continuing to organize new stores (see filings below).

In Alabama, the WestRock paper mill lockout of 500 Steelworkers continues; the Working People podcast has the story. (And speaking of paper mill workers, Machinists at Weyerhaeuser in Washington are gearing up for another ratification vote that could end their weeks-long strike, after rejecting the most recent offer). Further south, several hundred longshoremen with ILA Local 1410 in Mobile, AL were set to strike, but had a last minute deal through federal mediation that has, for now, “postponed” the action, per Michael Sainato.

Around 400 municipal workers in Santa Cruz, CA struck for four days with SEIU Local 521 before reaching a tentative agreement; it sounds like the strike got pretty heated, with trash collection halted and one striker being arrested. 

Transit workers with ATU Local 1447 in Louisville have authorized a potentially “illegal” strike (public employees aren’t authorized to strike in Kentucky, but, as my friend Chris Brooks would say, they’re not God’s laws) by 95% as they push for a 3-year contract with 21.5% raises.

And speaking of “illegal” strikes, educators in two school districts in Massachusetts struck and won this week, despite the law. In Malden, MA, workers struck for a day and won a new contract, while in Haverhill, MA it took a little longer, with a judge granting an injunction against the strike, but educators still holding out, coming out with a deal late Thursday. Elsewhere in K-12 unionism, contract negotiations in Elizabeth, NJ are at an impasse.

The Haverhill injunction took the form of fines on the union; further south in Plympton, MA, striking members of Teamsters Local 653 faced sharper state aggression in the form of arrests as they blocked trucks at a Sysco facility. Sounds like it was worth it, as the union overwhelmingly ratified a new agreement with $11 an hour raises over five years (which is something like a 39% increase to the base rate). And speaking of Teamster ratifications, 18,000 workers at Costco ratified the first “national” master agreement at the company; I only put national in quotes because that makes it sound like it covers the whole chain, when only something like 10% of Costcos are organized.

Dining workers at Pomona (CA) College have authorized a strike with UNITE HERE Local 11 for higher wages; UNITE HERE Local 23 has finally ratified a deal with the contractors at the US Senate cafeteria to bring workers up to a $20 minimum wage.

Staten Island Ferry workers with MEBA are still without a contract, their last one having expired in 2010, and are hoping a judge’s decision will bring wages up to this decade.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

The Prince William County, VA school district has become the latest Virginia jurisdiction to pass a collective bargaining ordinance, but union activists are decrying it as weak, both in terms of holding formal elections and in the actual “bargaining” it allows for.

From the New Yorker, a dive into the Wisconsin Senate race, and organized labor’s role in it. Mandela Barnes is “trying to run a campaign that draws on the spirit of labor,” yet another progressive valiantly huffing and puffing on the embers of organized labor, especially in states like Wisconsin, which has lost over a third of its union members over the past ten years, and has fallen from 17th to 27th in union density by state.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

UAW members are officially voting in the first-ever direct elections for national officers in the union. It’s very unclear how many members will vote; in last year’s referendum that led to this election, turnout was around 14%. And because the Constitutional Convention rejected ranked-choice voting, there are likely to be run-off elections in 2023 for at least the top spot, where five candidates (the incumbent Ray Curry; the Members United reform challenger Shawn Fain; the very-active-on-Facebook Brian Keller; the “World Socialist Web Site” candidate Will Lehman; and UAW Local 163 leader Mark “Gibby” Gibson) are challenging for one spot; and probably for at least one Vice President, where eight candidates are vying for three spots. You can read up on all the candidates here. In Region 9A, where UAW Members United candidate Brandon Mancilla is going up against incumbent Administration Caucus candidate Beverly Brakeman, some members aren’t receiving ballots.

The 65,000 members of ALPA have a new president after a contested election; some context here.

And as part of the extended fallout from the ongoing contentious rail negotiations, Reece Murtagh, a local chairman out of Machinists Lodge 696 out of Richmond, VA is planning to challenge incumbent Kyle Loos for the presidency of Machinists District Lodge 19, the 6,000-member district of rail machinists, around 4,000 of whom work on the freight railroads covered under the ongoing negotiations.

The 42,000-member NYSNA has voted to affiliate with NNU, which I believe makes NNU the country’s second-largest healthcare workers union behind SEIU (and now fully ahead of AFT).

Members of NABET-CWA Local 41 in Chicago are suing the national union over a trusteeship imposed in September against local officers who were elected in March. 

Hamilton Nolan has another great column over at In These Times, this time on the UFCW international’s mealy-mouthed response to the proposed Kroger-Albertsons megamerger, and that union’s general weakness. Sometimes it’s worth saying plainly what’s plain.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 

Big & medium-sized shops: A whopping 3,000 grad student workers at Boston University have filed to join SEIU Local 509, which isn’t news (they announced their intentions last week and have been organizing publicly for a couple months) but is still a big fat petition. 135 wind turbine technicians for GE Renewable Energy in Schenectady, NY are organizing with the Utility Workers, an encouraging sign for those of us concerned that the green transition is going to be heavily non-union. 57 RAs at Barnard College in NYC are unionizing with OPEIU Local 153, another instance of undergraduate student workers organizing. 53 more workers at two shops in Bellingham and Puyallup, WA have filed for elections with Starbucks Workers United.

Teamsters: 161 school bus drivers for Student Transportation of America in Florissant, MO are joining the Teamsters, and six more for First Student in Delta Junction, AK are joining Teamsters Local 959. 120 workers at Packaging Corporation of America in Kingsburg, CA are organizing with Teamsters Local 431. 74 paratransit drivers for Owl Transportation in Maywood, IL are organizing with Teamsters Local 727. 63 workers at whiskey maker Woodford Reserve in Versailles, KY are unionizing with Teamsters Local 651. 34 concrete truck drivers for United Materials in Lancaster, Orchard Park, and Springville, NY are unionizing with Teamsters Local 449. 41 sanitation workers for GreenWaste in Santa Clara, CA are joining Teamsters Local 350, and 30 more at Waste Management in Bremerton, WA are organizing with Teamsters Local 589. 11 more drivers at Sysco in Grand Rapids, MI are joining Teamsters Local 406; the union organized the vast majority of this facility last year, six years after first filing in 2015. Four AmeriGas Propane drivers in Cortland, OH are joining Teamsters Local 377.

Small shops: 27 skilled maintenance workers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH and 10 helicopter mechanics (I think) at Fort Hood, TX are joining the Machinists. 23 workers at Serenity detox facility in Union, NJ are joining (or forming) the Alliance Frontline Workers Union, which I’ve never heard of and I can’t find anything on. 21 dancers at the St. Louis Ballet are unionizing with AGMA. 17 LPNs at West River Rehab in Milford, CT are joining SEIU 1199 New England. 16 food service workers at the Franklin Institute science museum in Philadelphia are unionizing with UFCW Local 1776, and 15 more baristas at two more locations of Ultimo Coffee also in Philadelphia are joining Workers United. 15 sales and service reps for industrial dishwasher company Auto Chlor in Kent, WA are unionizing with IBEW Local 46. 14 “digital optimization team” workers for news giant Gannett in Louisville, KY are joining the Indianapolis NewsGuild. 13 therapists at a CommonSpirit facility in Sacramento are joining SEIU UHW. 10 dispensary workers at Trulieve in Framingham, MA are unionizing with UFCW Local 1445. Five workers at the Valley View Medical Clinic in Pleasant Hill, IA are joining UFCW Local 431. Five air traffic controllers at the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in Belgrade, MT are joining NATCA. 

NLRB election wins…: 119 workers at a second New Seasons grocery store in Portland, OR have joined the independent New Seasons Labor Union in a 62-14 vote. Teamsters Local 104 eked out a narrow victory among 113 sanitation workers at Republic Services in Phoenix, 47-44. In Charlotte, NC, 61 drivers for US Foods voted 28-24 to join the Teamsters. 61 nursing home workers at Shenandoah (PA) Senior Living voted 39-17 to join SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, and 29 more nursing home workers at Arc of Southington in Plantsville, CT voted 15 to zip to join SEIU 1199 New England. 39 workers at two more shops, in Easton, PA and Denison, TX, voted to join Starbucks Workers United, 24-7 all told. 17 workers at a CVS in Calexico, CA voted 8-3 to join UFCW Local 1167, and both pharmacists at the CVS in Santa Ana, CA voted to join UFCW Local 324. 17 workers for Maytag Aircraft in Fort Worth, TX voted 10-0 to join the Machinists; five more for CAE on the Air Force base in Little Rock, AR voted unanimously to do the same. 15 ticket agents at a bus station in Delaware Water Gap, PA voted 7-6 to join ATU Local 1119. 11 social workers at Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria, CA voted 10-zero to join SEIU UHW. Ten staffers at literary non-profit Hugo House in Seattle voted 8-1 to join Machinists District Lodge 751. Eight maintenance engineers at a Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, CA voted 3-2 to join Operating Engineers Local 39.

…and losses: The Amazon Labor Union lost handily in its third election, at a fulfillment center in Castleton, NY, with 949 workers voting 206-406 against unionizing; the union came out with a statement calling it a “sham election” due to rampant employer interference, and says they’ll be asking the NLRB for a bargaining order rather than a re-run. Whatever you think of the results, at some point the unions will need to call the question on rampant union-busting; if we’re not going to pass the PRO Act, working the NLRB is one of the only other regulatory pathways available. 76 nurses at the Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Ontario, OR voted 16-44 against joining the Oregon Nurses Association. 53 workers at three shops voted against joining Starbucks Workers United, for a combined vote of 15-22 in Seattle (this was a rerun the union had already lost in the first round), Breckenridge, CO, and Abington, PA. 38 sanitation workers for Republic Services in Imperial, CA voted against joining Teamsters Local 542, 11-15. 15 dispensary workers at Strawberry Fields in Pueblo, CO voted 7-8 against unionizing with UFCW Local 7. 14 workers at Chicago’s Eurostars Magnificent Mile Hotel deadlocked 6-6 on joining UNITE HERE Local 1. Ten workers for Jet Pulverizer, who I think make machines that pulverize powders and similar, in Moorestown, NJ voted 3-6 not to join UFCW Local 360. Nine workers at Ozinga Ready Mix Concrete in Mokena, IL voted 1-7 against joining Operating Engineers Local 150. All five technicians at an Acura dealership in Escondido, CA voted against joining Machinists Local 1484.

Decertifications and raids: Another big decertification went through at the Mayo Clinic, this time among a unit of 106 support staffers and techs who voted 12-64 to drop Steelworkers Local 11-00578 in Austin, MN; nearly 500 nurses at Mayo Clinic in Mankato and a couple dozen more Mayo Clinic workers in St. James lost their unions over the summer. 76 workers at an industrial healthcare laundry facility, Hospital Central Services in Camden, NJ, left Workers United in an 11-46 vote. In a filing that should set off huge blaring sirens for everyone in the labor movement, 30 workers at a Starbucks in Nichols Hills, OK have apparently filed to decertify Starbucks Workers United, a store which was only officially organized in May; I’m not a labor lawyer, but I thought de-certs weren’t valid within the first year, and plus the amount of open ULPs at this store and nationally mean this petition will almost certainly be thrown out but it’s a sign of what’s to come at stores across the country as the employer continues its scorched earth campaign. 27 concrete workers at Regional Ready Mix in Rochelle, IL voted 7-1 to stick with Operating Engineers Local 150, and 24 Operating Enginers Local 399 members at Northwest Community Healthcare in Arlington Heights, IL voted 12-8 to do the same. Four subcontracted chemical workers at a USALCO plant decertified Steelworkers District 13, 1-3.

80 tech workers for ActBlue have won union recognition with CWA Local 1400 (CODE-CWA) after a card check process.

Workers who produce TV commercials have won a neutrality agreement through IATSE with the employers’ association; they’ll still have to win a union, but agreeing on ground rules can be an important part of that process.

Finally, for More Perfect Union, I wrote about a group of workers at a Chipotle in Lawrence, KS, who are organizing a union, with help from EWOC; management (likely illegally) threw out their union petition, so they’re drawing up another and filing an unfair labor practice for good measure.

The BMWE, the third-largest rail union, has voted down its tentative agreement from the national freight rail carriers, and put a strike back on the table for as soon as November 19th. Nobody could’ve seen this coming! Unless of course you were talking to railroad workers. The interesting thing about the timing (except for the fact that it is of course still pointedly after the midterms) is that we’ll likely hear vote results from the two bigger unions, BLET and SMART-TD, 1-2 days before the November 19th deadline, and based on the details of their tentative agreements that came out after Biden did his victory lap, I just can’t see them both ratifying, especially now that the BMWE has shown some defiance. The BMWE workers for the most part aren’t even subject to the worst of the work-life balance issues, plus there’s a borderline poison pill in the BLET/SMART-TD TAs in its creation of “self-supporting pools” which adds a whole other layer of scheduling uncertainty for the operating crafts. I’m not just being a crank about it, you can read about it in the New York Times. Elsewhere in rail votes, SMART-MD (SMART’s mechanics division, about 2,000 members or so) and the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers (a 32BJ SEIU-affiliated craft group, also small) both voted to ratify their deals this week. So the count is now five unions to one in terms of who’s ratified or rejected, but it only takes one to force a national strike, and the BMWE is at least as big as the other five that have accepted, combined.

Amazon workers walked off the job in San Bernardino, CA, Stone Mountain, GA, and Joliet, IL this week; in the fractured landscape of Amazon organizing, each of these are separate independent group teamed up with local workers centers or union-backed organizing groups, but none formally affiliated with an existing union (though these relationships and connections are in pretty active flux, is my understanding, so maybe they’ll all come under one union umbrella, or maybe they won’t).

Starbucks Workers United struck in Buffalo, Knoxville, TN, Brooklyn, and Independence, MO, while the company continues to close unionized stores in places like Chicago and Colorado Springs, despite having set bargaining dates. 

300 building services workers in the Twin Cities struck for two days with SEIU Local 26 in response to unfair labor practices from the building contractor they work under, as they seek union recognition. Elsewhere in the Twin Cities, 1500 University of Minnesota workers with Teamsters Local 320 officially authorized a strike, which could start as soon as this Friday (the union legally had to file a ten-day notice). And while we’re on the topic of higher education, 125 librarians at the University of Washington in Seattle held a one-day strike as they seek a first contract after having organized with SEIU Local 925. And both UAW Local 2865 and Local 5810, representing graduate student workers and postdocs, respectively, at the University of California system, are moving towards strike authorization votes as their contracts expire; if both of these unions walk, it could mean upwards of 30,000 workers on strike.

And in our primary schools, educators in Malden and Haverhill, MA have embarked on two illegal strikes (teacher strikes are illegal in Massachusetts) after contract negotiations broke down. In Haverhill, a judge has issued a temporary restraining order, trying to force the teachers back to work, but it’s unclear if they’ll comply.

The AFSCME Local 397 strike at the Philadelphia Museum of Art has come to an end after 19 days on the picket line. Elsewhere in Philly, members of UAW Local 1069 voted to ratify their contract with Boeing by 75% after having authorized a strike.

Three unions – CWA Local 14842 (aka Mailers Local 22), Teamsters Local 205/211, and GCC-IBT Local 24M/9N – have been on strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for over a week, and are calling on the public to cancel their subscriptions. Notably, the NewsGuild is not (yet) on strike, despite very, um, active labor-management relations there over the years. Elsewhere in newspaper unionism, Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher by daily circulation, announced big cuts, which is just something I’d keep an eye on, considering how actively Gannett journalists have been organizing over the past few years.

BCTGM Local 100G members who’ve been on strike at Ingredion in Cedar Rapids for over two months took their case to the company’s corporate headquarters outside Chicago.

Hundreds of paper mill workers with three Steelworkers locals at WestRock in Cottonton, AL remain locked out; The Valley Labor Report spoke with one of the local presidents. Meanwhile, Jacksonville, FL WestRock workers held an informational picket, and the company announced it’s cutting over 100 jobs in St. Paul, MN.

In Syracuse, Sysco workers with Teamsters Local 317 are back on the job after a couple weeks on strike, ratifying a new contract that apparently brings up wages by $6-$7 an hour. Things outside Boston with the 300 members of Teamsters Local 653 on strike at Sysco since the first of the month are going decidedly less smoothly, with a massive police presence and arrests reported this morning.

I thought this piece on the SEIU Local 87 & USWW strike at Meta that was settled last week is worth a read; as more office work goes remote, the knock-on effects for building services workers could be quite drastic indeed. SEIU represents something like 225,000 of these workers, who are often low wage and heavily subcontracted. If real estate capital really faces falling profits nationwide, these fights are likely to become more frequent and more existential.

The NUHW mental health strike at Kaiser in Northern California officially crossed its two-month mark; Sarah Hughes has the story at Labor Notes. 450 doctors for Santa Clara County, CA’s public healthcare system have authorized a strike with what I believe is an independent union, Valley Physicians Group; doctors unions are rare, and doctors strikes are rarer. Over 2200 workers at two PASNAP locals at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia have voted to authorized strikes, while the 6,000-plus member strike threat by CWA Local 1168 and 1199 SEIU at Kaleida in Buffalo has ended in a contract ratification.

There are three active transit strike threats, in Orange County, CA (Teamsters Local 952); Milwaukee (ATU Local 998); and Louisville (ATU Local 1447). 

In Lordstown, OH, workers at the GM-Ultium joint venture electric car battery plant are still waiting and seeing whether UAW Local 1112 can get a deal without a recognition strike, which workers authorized by over 90% in September.

And I don’t usually cover corporate moves per se, but the Kroger-Albertson’s merger deal is a big deal for labor; the grocery leviathan would leapfrog UPS to become the largest private sector employer of union members, at something like 460,000 workers, well over 400,000 of whom would be UFCW members across a stunning ~500 contracts. The union released a statement, as did the Teamsters (who representing around 18,000 of these workers).

And Sarah Jones at New York Magazine has taken a look at the looming Teamsters strike threat at UPS, with the money quote from David Levin of Teamsters for a Democratic Union: “There’s a scenario where UPS workers mobilize and they take strike action and that affects 6 percent of GDP, and they win a good contract and that would be a huge labor victory,” explained David Levin, a staff director at Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a grassroots organization that supported O’Brien and his Teamsters United slate during the recent election. “But I think a much bigger dream is that next August 1st, 350,000 UPS workers go on strike to take on issues that are affecting them and Amazon workers and other workers in this growing sector.” Should the union prove itself to be in fighting shape, workers everywhere will take heed, or so Levin hopes. “So you have an upsurge and a fight back, not just at UPS, but at Amazon, too. And that’s the kind of thing that is historic and a game changer,” he said. [I hope to see some of you at the TDU Convention this month!]

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Lauren Kaori Gurley has a profile of the great hope of union lawyers everywhere, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, where she comes from and what she might deliver. And while it’s hard not to feel like this is all just moving too slowly before our wannabe Volcker does his wannabe Volcker shock, it is worth noting that an NLRB judge did hit Starbucks with a Gissel bargaining order this week.

Speaking of labor boards, federal union leaders from AFGE, IFPTE, and NFFE are in Labor Notes calling for the confirmation of Ernest DuBester for another term at the head of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, as the agency languishes with a split partisan composition as the Democrats just can’t seem to check this one off their to-do list.

And on the state level, the Washington state supreme court is reviewing a Spokane, WA law mandating open bargaining that AFSCME Local 270 is objecting to.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

The UAW election is officially in full swing, with ballots mailing out to some one million active members and retirees. For The Call, Jane Slaughter and Barry Eidlin break down what’s at stake in the vote, and why the showdown between the eternally incumbent Administration Caucus and the UAWD caucus, a driving force behind the “one member, one vote” movement, is so significant.

It was a really bad week for some former Teamsters head honchos, namely Ron Herrera (former candidate for IBT Secretary-Treasurer and head of Teamsters Local 396) and John Coli (former Central Region Vice President and head of Teamsters Local 727). Herrera was at the heart of the leaks that took down some Los Angeles city council members after they were all heard making extremely racist remarks; he has now resigned as head of the LA AFL-CIO. Meanwhile, over in Chicago, the feds are asking a judge to give Coli 19 months in prison for extortion. And while we’re on the general topic, Honolulu Civil Beat has a deep dive on the charges against a former IBEW Local 1260 president; would love to read that guy’s book.

Elsewhere in Teamsters politics, a big local has new, reform-minded leadership, with the challengers in Indiana’s Local 135 winning more than two to one.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: A fifth Amazon facility has filed for a union election, this time covering 800 workers in Moreno Valley, CA, organizing with the Amazon Labor Union, bringing the ALU outside of New York state. 286 more grocery workers at two New Seasons stores in Portland, OR are seeking to join the independent New Seasons Labor Union. 180 warehouse workers for UNFI in Rocklin, CA are organizing with Teamsters Local 150. 172 workers in New Orleans are seeking to form the first-ever Lowe’s union, and are also going with an independent union, inspired in part by the Home Depot workers in Philadelphia. 133 workers at Homegrown fresh food provider in Seattle, where workers struck this summer, (plus 22 workers at Catapult in Renton, WA, the company’s distro arm) are unionizing with UNITE HERE Local 8. 65 more grocery workers at a second MOM’s Organic Market in Timonium, MD are seeking an election with Teamsters Local 570 (I briefly covered their campaign at the first store that unionized, in Baltimore, here). 51 dispensary workers at Zen Leaf in St. Charles, IL are joining UFCW Local 881; 15 more at LivWell in Denver are joining UFCW Local 7. 50 auto parts workers at the Lear Corporation in Detroit are organizing with UAW Local 155. 37 workers at two stores in Green Bay, WI and Royal Oak, MI are joining Starbucks Workers United. 42 school bus drivers for NRT Bus in Marlborough, MA are joining Teamsters Local 170. 41 lift mechanics for Vail Resorts in Park City, UT are unionizing with CWA. 34 MFA grad workers at Brown University in Providence, RI are seeking to join the existing grad workers union there, AFT Local 6516. 25 staffers at the International Center for Journalists are unionizing with the Washington Baltimore News Guild. 25 firefighters at General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, CT, the biggest supplier of submarines to the US Navy, are unionizing with the Southeastern CT Fire Professionals Union (which I assume is an IAFF local but I can’t quite pin it down by that particular name), and with a few other trades listed as “intervenors” but I don’t know if that means they’re trying to block the election or they’re just involved because they rep other workers there. 14 workers at scrap metal outfit Cousins Metal Recycling in Oceanside, NY are joining the totally reputable and legit and real “Amalgamated Transit Workers Local 854”. Another 12 workers at Half Price Books, this time in Wichita, KS, are unionizing with UFCW Local 2, as that regional campaign rolls on. 11 instructors at the California Truck Driving Academy in Fontana, CA are joining Teamsters Local 63; there’s some poetry there. Ten drivers for beer wholesaler Nevulis Beverages in Emmaus, PA are joining Teamsters Local 773. Nine workers at Brooklyn, NYC bar Oddly Enough are forming an independent union. Nine gas workers at Dominion Energy in Magna, UT are joining the Steelworkers. Three workers at Alcorn Fence Company in Riverside, CA are seeking to re-join the Iron Workers after they decertified the union last May (but only one worker voted).

NLRB election wins…: Around 100 Apple store workers in Oklahoma City voted 56-32 to join CWA, the second store to unionize (and the first with CWA; the other store organized with the Machinists outside of Baltimore). 71 workers for lighting company Schoolhouse Electric in Portland, OR voted 31-24 to join IBEW Local 48. 58 support staff at Rosewood nursing home in Rensselaer, NY voted 41-6 to join SEIU UHW. 56 hospice workers for Sutter Care at Home in Alameda, CA voted 25-12 to join NUHW; eight more at Envision Hospice in Federal Way, WA voted 7-1 to join Machinists District Lodge 725. 43 Starbucks workers at two stores in Santa Maria, CA and Bloomfield, MI voted a combined 21-6 to join Starbucks Workers United. 21 workers for Gatwood Crane Service in Naperville & Arlington Heights, IL voted 17-1 to join Operating Engineers Local 150. 19 medical techs at McLaren in Lansing, MI voted 10-7 (in two votes) to join OPEIU Local 459. Ten linemen with the Ralls County Electric Cooperative in New London, MO voted 8-2 to join IBEW Local 2, and seven more at Danube, MN’s Renville-Sibley Cooperative Power Association voted 6-0 to join IBEW Local 160. Seven lab techs at Dairy Farmers of America in Sharpsville, PA voted 4-0 to join Teamsters Local 261. All five porters at Yves Condominium in Manhattan, NYC voted to join 32BJ SEIU. All three cardiology specialists at Woodland (CA) Memorial Hospital voted to join SEIU UHW. Three Lockheed Martin clericals at the Air Force base in Fort Walton Beach, FL voted 2-1 to join Machinists District Lodge 75. 

…and losses: 111 warehouse workers and driver for Ryder Logistics in Hazelwood, MO voted 21-32 not to join Teamsters Local 688. 46 sanitation workers with Prairieland Disposal in Wauconda, IL voted against joining Teamsters Local 301, 15-29. Eight technicians at the Aria Resort & Casino in Vegas deadlocked 4-4 on joining Operating Engineers Local 501. 

Decertifications and raids: I don’t usually cover decertification filings but 225 workers at the Tillamook County Creamery Association in Tillamook, OR could be facing a vote on whether to drop Teamsters Local 58. It looks like the “Plastic Workers Union Local 18 of the Novelty & Production Workers” are raiding a shop of 97 members of Teamsters Local 781 at Accurate Metal Fabricating in Cicero, IL. Eight workers at HD Supply Facilities Maintenance (I don’t really know what they do, they seem to be an appliance wholesaler and/or staffing agency?) in San Jose, CA dropped Teamsters Local 853 in a 3-4 vote.

I don’t have a particular news article to link here, but thousands of Iowa public sector union members are currently voting in “recertification” elections, under a 2017 law that says unless a majority of workers in a given bargaining unit (not just dues-paying members) affirmatively vote each year to keep their union, the union is decertified and contracts nullified. Last year, 17 unions lost their certification.

For More Perfect Union, I covered the formation of yet another independent union, this time among three hundred customer service workers at T-Mobile.

AFSCME Council 31 is not stopping at the Art Institute in their push to organize Chicago’s cultural institutions, with workers at the Field Museum announcing their union drive. Personally, I will not rest until the Adler Planetarium is wall-to-wall organized.

Outside Albany, Amazon workers are now voting on their union drive, which will certainly get a lot of press attention as it’s Amazon Labor Union’s third actual vote. Amazon worker Sarah Chaudhry wrote for Labor Notes about why she’s organizing.

Elsewhere in big tech-ish company organizing, UNITE HERE subcontracted cafeteria workers at Waymo, Google’s self-driving car project, have announced their union drive (part of a lot of activity across the country at food service mega-contractor Sodexo.)

Finally, grad student workers are on the march across New England, quite literally in the case of UNITE HERE Local 33 at Yale; and figuratively at Dartmouth (where student workers are rapidly signing up to join the UE) and Boston University (where SEIU Local 509 has formally called for union recognition). 

The rail negotiations that just three weeks ago were national headlines have slowed to a trickle of news, by design, but are not yet over. This week’s small update is that a fourth of the dozen rail unions has voted to ratify their tentative agreement, with the ATDA voting by 64% to accept the deal. Three more unions should announce their results next week, with the BMWE being the big one (and one of the more likely to reject it, though members have lots of different opinions on what they expect to see). Members are still raising questions about the process so far, with at least one local chairman in the Machinists District Lodge 19 writing a scathing letter to that union’s leadership about their process.

In Alabama, the week saw two big work stoppages, one outside this newsletter’s normal purview, with male prisoners across the state refusing to work to push for reforms of life sentencing, parole, and time served. The other is a lockout of 450 Steelworkers members at WestRock’s Cottonton, AL paper mill; the workers rejected a contract offer with an eye-watering $28,000 ratification bonus, as they hold out for penalties on excessive overtime. This week also marked 18 months on the picket line for UMWA strikers at Warrior Met; Erick Wills wrote about it for Labor Notes.

Mill workers outside of Alabama made news this week as well, as 1100 Weyerhaeuser Machinists in Longview, WA voted to reject a new offer from the company, continuing their weeks-long strike.

Education: In higher ed, the Clark University Teamsters Local 170 grad workers won a tentative agreement after five days on strike; University of Chicago grad workers are pushing once again for union recognition, this time with the UE (they were previously affiliated with the AFT). The Cook County College Teachers Union in Chicago has authorized a strike at the city’s public colleges, and I assume the UAW Local 7902 adjuncts at New York University in NYC will announce the same, as their strike vote ended Friday – ditto for the 1500 blue collar Teamsters Local 320 members at the University of Minnesota. AFSCME Local 3650, better known as the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers in Cambridge, MA are under an indefinite contract extension as their contract expired at the end of September. Teamsters Local 2010 has a new tentative agreement for 11,000 clericals at the University of California system. In K-12 negotiations, workers are at an impasse in negotiations in Neshaminy, PA and Medford, MA, and have been working without a contract for nine months in New Castle, PA. In Montgomery County, MD, the district refuses to allow open bargaining, so negotiations can’t even agree on ground rules; not a good sign for a smooth round of bargaining.

About 530 Teamsters remain on strike at Sysco in Syracuse, NY and Plympton, MA, with Freightwaves speculating it could be a long fight. No movement in AFSCME Local 397’s strike at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, either; you can donate to the latter’s strike fund here. Elsewhere in mid-Atlantic AFSCME art museum organizing, workers at Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum are trying to win an election, but management apparently won’t agree to a non-NLRB process that would allow security guards to be part of the unit.

The NewsGuild, Teamsters Local 205/211, and GCC-IBT Local 24M/9N struck the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this week in response to unilateral changes to healthcare and the fact that workers haven’t had a contract for over five years, and haven’t seen a raise in sixteen years.

Around 1,000 Milwaukee transit workers with ATU Local 998 have voted to reject management's "best and final" contract offer by 97%, and have authorized a strike.

Some 2,000 UAW Local 1069 members at Boeing in Philadelphia may or not be close to a strike; there’s been zero coverage that I’ve been able to find, but having spoken to members, the union did authorize a strike in August, and the contract has now officially expired, and the local’s website even lists picket locations, all of which point to a level of seriousness worth keeping an eye on.

Around 250 janitors for Meta in the Bay Area are on strike with SEIU Local 87 and SEIU USW, against increasing layoffs (and thus increasing strain on the remaining workers). Of course, 2,000 NUHW mental healthcare workers at Kaiser in the area (and about 50 more in Hawaii) remain on strike after nearly two months. Elsewhere in northern California, members of IFPTE Local 21 and SEIU Local 1021 held a “strike school” in Solano County, CA, as county workers prepare to strike perhaps as soon as their contracts expire on October 21st. In nearby South San Francisco, 120 city workers with AFSCME Local 829 ratified a TA after having authorized a strike.

Starbucks Workers United struck in Buffalo again in the wake of a ridiculous firing, in Houston against the national firing wave, in Ithaca, NY and Columbia, SC for the company’s unilateral decision to drop COVID isolation pay, and Amazon workers in the Inland Empire, CA have started a strike countdown to the company’s so-called “Prime Day” on October 10th.

Steelworkers negotiations with US Steel at the company’s mines in northern Minnesota are not going well, to put it lightly; or, as a union rep told the local news, “we’re in the middle of a contract war.” The workers want the pattern set by Cleveland-Cliffs as negotiations were settled in recent weeks. The local reporter graciously accepted the union’s explanation of the popular “FDB” acronym being used as standing for “Fair Deal Burritt,” as in, US Steel CEO Dave Burritt, not as in some other “F Dave Burritt” acronym. Elsewhere in the USW, 400 workers at Graphic Packaging in Domino, TX with Steelworkers Locals 1148 and 1149 authorized a strike against two-tier pay back in June over a contract that expired back in April, but the union says a strike is still not imminent.

12,000 Kroger workers with UFCW Local 1059 across Ohio voted, and voted, and voted, and finally they got it right, ratifying a contract yesterday whose major selling point appeared to be that you wouldn’t have to keep voting. The union also made sure to combine a question to re-authorize a strike (which members already voted to do two weeks ago) with your vote on the contract, and invoked the UFCW constitution’s rule that unless 2/3rds of voting members reject the contract, the strike is not authorized. The workers I’ve been in touch with say they’re demoralized by the extremely weak contract and deflating process by which it was finally passed. Sigh.

Elsewhere in large grocery contracts, something like 17,000 Teamsters will be voting on the first-ever national Costco contract (though that achievement maybe overstates it, as it’s just joining the west coast and east coast contracts, as I understand it). I would expect it to be less controversial than the Ohio Kroger contract, but god knows I’ve been wrong before.

Yet another airline contract has been submitted for federal mediation, this time that of ALPA pilots at FedEx Express. This is somewhere between checking a box and declaring light impasse, but worth tracking. Elsewhere in airports, UNITE HERE Local 100 info picketed at Newark airport’s Lufthansa lounge.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Dave Jamieson at the Huffington Post has a very useful piece breaking down what’s at stake in Glacier Northwest, the case the Supreme Court just announced it plans to hear during this session. In the most dire reading, we could be headed towards a scenario in which private sector unions are liable for damages incurred by an employer during a strike, which depending how you slice it would basically make effective strikes impossible, since the vast majority of the leverage workers hold is in inflicting economic pain on employers. But it’s early days yet, and as always, it depends how narrowly or broadly the court rules. Not something I’d like to bet the future of all private sector strike activity on, though.

But if you can’t wait six to nine months for bad news, may I offer up the Missouri state supreme court’s ruling that reverses a decision to undo some of the worst of an anti-union law? My understanding is that this reintroduces the repeal of just cause for state employees.

The NLRB ruled this week that dues checkoff provisions should be considered part of the status quo that can’t be unilaterally changed once a contract expires.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

The Valley Labor Report had researcher Chris Bohner on to talk about his fantastic report, Labor’s Fortress of Finance. Bohner’s report is one of the rare wide-ranging deeply-researched critical takes on the labor movement as a whole that both activists and leadership alike should take a long hard look at. You can find it here.

The UFCW reform effort “Essential Workers for a Democratic UFCW” has launched a new website with lots of resources on their diagnosis of what the union’s getting wrong and a slate of resolutions they hope to pass at the 2023 convention.

In the wake of the trusteeship of AFSCME Local 1549 in NYC, the 1600 911 dispatchers in the local are looking to break away. Props to The City for this kind of coverage; it’s the kind of union inside baseball that doesn’t get much attention but I obviously find fascinating.

NEW ORGANIZING

Big picture, the NLRB released its report on its past fiscal year, which just ended, and I think it’s worth emphasizing where we’re generally at: new filings are up 53% over last year, and ULP filings are up 19% from last year, so it’s really true that we’re in the middle of a local uptick in NLRB activity. But those are very local upticks; there were more new filings in 2016 than in the past year, and that was no high-water mark. I think one way to think about what’s happening is that pre-pandemic we were at the beginning of a rising tide of union activity (2018, with the mass teachers strikes, was the striking-est year since 1986, and October 2019 had far more workers on strike than in so-called “Striketober” of 2021) that was interrupted by COVID and is now resuming; I recall C.M. Lewis making this argument on Twitter but can’t track down our original back and forth about it. Maybe the biggest takeaway from the NLRB report is that they’ve lost half their field staff in the past 20 years, and have had stagnant funding for the past nine; if we’re going to route new union activity through an administrative bureaucracy, it being under-resourced is going to become an existential problem.

New election filings at the NLRB: 625 RNs at Ascension Via Christi St. Francis in Wichita, KS are organizing with NNU. 250 workers who make electric switch products for ABB in Albuquerque are organizing with IBEW Local 611. 220 workers for live production staffing agency Rhino Staging in San Diego are unionizing with IATSE Local 122. 213 workers at the Maria Regina Residence nursing home in Brentwood, NY are organizing with 1199 SEIU, as are 23 workers at New Jewish Home Sara Neuman nursing home in Mamaroneck, NY. 200 technicians involved in PGA Tour golf tournament telecasts are organizing with the IBEW. 102 staffers at San Francisco homeless services non-profit Glide Foundation are unionizing with OPEIU Local 29. 80 home health care aides with Schofield Home Health Care in Kenmore, NY are unionizing with 1199 SEIU. 70 truck drivers with USPS freight contractor Ten Roads Express out of Peoria, IL are organizing with APWU. 54 high school educators at a KIPP charter school in St. Louis are unionizing with AFT Local 420. 50 EMTs for Bangs Ambulance in Ithaca, NY are organizing with CSEA Local 1000. 50 workers at Seattle recycling startup Ridwell are unionizing with Teamsters Local 117. 49 natural gas inspectors with STORTI in NYC and Northern New Jersey are unionizing with CWA. 44 Starbucks workers at two more stores, in Seaside, CA and Fayetteville, AR, have filed for elections with Workers United. 42 school bus drivers for Dattco in New Haven, CT are unionizing with UFCW Local 371. 40 hospice nurses for the St. Charles Health System in Oregon are organizing with the Oregon Nurses Association. The 36 photo editors for the Wall Street Journal are unionizing with NewsGuild Local 1096. 29 staffers at San Antonio arts non-profit Say Si are unionizing with United Professional Organizers. 23 staffers at behavioral health non-profit Zepf Center in Toledo, OH are joining SEIU 1199 WV/KY/OH. 19 stagehands at the Englert Civic Theatre in Iowa City, IA are unionizing with IATSE Local 690. 17 workers at the historic Allandale Farm in Brookline, MA are forming what looks like an independent union. Five building services workers at Chelsea, NYC’s Jardim condo complex are joining 32BJ SEIU. Three mechanics for Reyes Fleet Management in Stockton, CA are joining Teamsters Local 439. Two respiratory service techs at the US Army Post in Redstone Arsenal, AL are joining Operating Engineers Local 320. 

NLRB election wins…: 101 school bus drivers for First Student in New Britain, CT joined Teamsters Local 671 in a 53-40 vote, as did sixteen more in Manchester, CT, 5-0. 78 truck drivers for wholesale beverage distributor Republic in Houston voted 55-12 to join Teamsters Local 988. The Michigan Nurses Association logged an impressive 51-0 win among 70 RNs at the Upper Peninsula’s Bell Hospital in Ishpeming, MI. 60 mostly clerical workers for the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers in Ewing, NJ voted narrowly to join CWA, 29-27. 46 workers at Communication Service for the Deaf in Syracuse, NY also pitched a no-hitter, winning 34-0 to join CWA. 11 oil terminal operators for Vopak in San Pedro, CA voted 7-1 to join Teamsters Local 848. Eight workers at construction equipment dealer Sunbelt Rentals in Taylor, MI voted 7-0 to join Operating Engineers Local 324. Seven massage therapists at Elements Massage in Denver voted 4-0 to join UFCW Local 7. Six workers for Lyons Fire & Safety in Danville, IN voted 3-1 to join UA Local 669. Six maintenance workers at PNC banks in Indiana voted 5-1 to join Operating Engineers Local 399. All five rigger jump masters (no I don’t know what that is) at the STRAT Hotel in Vegas voted to join IATSE Local 720. Both subcontracted data entry clerks at the Intelligence Community Campus in Bethesda, MD voted to join Operating Engineers Local 99. 

…and losses: SEIU Local 509 narrowly lost an election among 99 workers at Communitas, who provide services for adults with disabilities, in a 44-51 vote. In the week’s only Starbucks Workers United tally, 24 workers in Seattle deadlocked 4-4. 17 workers at Ironwood Fabrication in La Habra, CA voted 4-7 not to join the Iron Workers. 14 workers at a Ford dealership in DeKalb, IL voted 2-11 against joining Machinists Local 701. 13 workers at gluten free bakery Natural Decadence in Eureka, CA voted 4-5 against joining UFCW Local 5. Nine workers at an electric vehicle automaker Lucid Motors showroom voted 1-6 against unionizing with UFCW Local 135. The eight meat department workers at Albertson’s in Lewistown, MT voted 1-5 against joining UFCW Local 1889. 

Decertifications and raids: 161 mental healthcare workers for Telecare in Long Beach, CA stuck with SEIU UHW in a 83-37 de-cert vote. 51 workers who make gypsum building products for Gold Bond (no connection to the powder as far as I can tell) in Burlington, NJ decertified Steelworkers Local4-380 in a 14-28 vote. Unclear whether it’s a raid or just a turf war, but 39 employees subcontracted out from I believe CT Transit in Hamden, CT voted 17-9 (and one sole anti-union vote) to join Teamsters Local 443 over ATU Local 281. 30 workers for Covanta Plymouth Renewable Energy in Conshohocken, PA stuck with Operating Engineers Local 542, 21-5. 

Staff at the Pineapple Street podcast production company are asking for voluntary recognition with WGAE.

Charlottesville, VA is the latest public sector jurisdiction in Virginia to pass a collective bargaining law, combined with a raise for bus drivers. In Alexandria, VA where a similar ordinance was passed a year and a half ago, nearly 200 city workers are now members of AFSCME Local 3001. Elsewhere in the public sector, the National Park Service is facing a complaint from AFGE that management illegally initiated the decertification of a unit of workers along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and North Carolina.

At the National Mediation Board, 320 ramp workers for Sun Country Airlines at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport filed to join Teamsters Local 970, and 11 dispatchers for charter airline Omni Air voted 10-1 to join TWU.

But our “next PATCO” is increasingly unlikely to come from the federal government. Instead it’s unfolding in the harsh light of day, during a midterm election season in which Democrats are under the existential threat of further losing even more of the US working class, at the biggest-name companies with the most prominent organizing drives. Amid a spate of fires, and safety walkouts in response, Amazon has suspended nearly 100 workers with the Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island, NY; Starbucks is firing Workers United leaders with abandon; Google is firing workers for affiliating with the Alphabet Workers Union; GE has fired a pregnant woman for trying to unionize with IUE-CWA in Auburn, AL; Apple is busting unions before they are born; as is Chipotle. The thing about PATCO is there wasn’t a specific policy change, but rather a re-setting of norms amid mass firings in the public sector that emboldened private sector bosses to take their kill shots against unions across industries, inaugurating the mass de-unionization wave that defines our contemporary labor movement. This time around, CEOs aren’t looking for a bat signal, but are taking increasingly illegal actions against workers and making sure, step by step, that they can get away with it. If we don’t have an answer for this illegal behavior that leads to short-term gains and protections for a broad number of workers, whether through worker activity or political intervention, there’s not much point in filing hundreds or thousands of new NLRB petitions. A union that can’t win won’t be a union for long.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

The country got within 20 hours of the first national freight rail strike in three years, with 120,000 workers ready to walk (or, just as likely, get locked out by the carriers) before Marty Walsh tweeted that it was all over. The main upshot is that it is not. But it is deferred, at least until mid-October or, more likely, December 9th. Where we stand is whatever happened in that room with Marty Walsh, Joe Biden, the heads of SMART-TD and BLET (and maybe the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen? Unclear) and the heads of the freight rail carriers, they managed to kick the can past the midterms, past the major harvests, and into December. Just this past week the Machinists District 19 announced a new TA as well, delaying their September 29th strike deadline all the way to December as well, and the IBEW announced that their members voted to ratify their deal, making them the third of the dozen unions to sign a deal. The biggest wildcard is the BMWE, the third-biggest union involved, whose vote results will be announced on October 10th, but who as far as I’ve seen haven’t announced whether they’re joining up on the December 9th strike deadline or if they’d consider walking earlier. In terms of the content of these TAs, there was nothing you could reasonably call “sick days” added, with just some very limited medical time off allowed (with 30 days notice, has to be a routine or preventative visit, and has to happen on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday) and no penalizations for hospitalization or surgery (which believe it or not is a new addition). It’s hard to see these all passing ratification, considering where members were at before the new TAs were announced and how little additional benefits are in the new deals, is my personal sense of things. Shout out to AP reporter Josh Funk for compiling all the voting deadlines, if you’re wondering when there may be news.

12,000 Kroger workers in Ohio with UFCW Local 1059 voted down their third tentative agreement and authorized a strike, which compelled Kroger to add literal pennies to the wage scale on offer. Workers will vote again this week, until they get it “right,” presumably; members tell me the union has now combined the contract ratification vote with another strike authorization vote, and is invoking the 2/3rds rule of the UFCW constitution (you can read it here, Article 23(D)5) that states unless 2/3rds of members vote no, they won’t strike. Meanwhile, around 800 Kroger workers in South Bend, IN with UFCW Local 700 approved a contract with Kroger, avoiding a re-run of the local’s difficulty in ratifying a deal in Indianapolis. 

In the big long strikes department, Mel Buer of the Real News went on the Valley Labor Report to give an update on the UAW Local 807 & 180’s forever-strike at CNH in Burlington, IA and Racine, WI. Meanwhile, the UMWA strike at Warrior Met in Brookwood, AL drags on (what’s another hundred days here or there) and in I guess good news, the NLRB has downgraded the financial penalty the union has to pay the company back down to the $400,000 range as opposed to the $13 million they were recently assessed, per Warrior Met strike reporter extraordinaire Kim Kelly. At Ingredion in Cedar Rapids, striking members of BCTGM Local 100G marked their two-month anniversary on the line with no apparent movement at the table.

The Teamsters have found themselves in a mini-strike wave at Sysco, with some 200 workers with Local 317 in Syracuse, NY walking out this weekend, and another 250 have walked out in Boston with Local 653; when the latter group walked off, the union extended the picket line to 250 workers with Local 104 in Tolleson, AZ, where there’s been a low-grade labor dispute boiling since at least August, with at least one shift disrupted by a worker walkout. There isn’t a master Teamsters contract at Sysco, but the Teamsters can extend these localized strikes to raise the temperature at the employer as a whole as various local agreements expire or the employer commits unrelated unfair labor practice charges, plus it’ll be interesting to see what, if any, impact the activity has on new organizing at Sysco locations; there have been seven union election filings at Sysco locations in the past two years alone.

Airlines and airports: In San Francisco, 1,000 airport food service workers with UNITE HERE Local 2 struck for three days and apparently won a $5 an hour raise and free family healthcare. Meanwhile, outside the airports, the Southwest Airline Pilots Association has asked for mediation (a formality under the Railway Labor Act but technically an escalation nonetheless) and picketed at airports, as did the Southwest flight attendants with TWU Local 556, who also asked for mediation in July. Delta pilots with ALPA are one step ahead of both of them, having initiated a strike authorization vote. And for all the UPS hubbub on the ground, their 1700 aircraft mechanics with Teamsters Local 2727 have quietly reached a new two-year TA, though still subject to ratification.

Public sector: Some fascinating and unusual public sector strike activity, with non-union public workers in Selma, AL’s cemeteries, Lowndes County, AL’s highway department, and workers in Hinds County, MS all striking. Thanks to the Valley Labor Report for covering the Alabama strikes, and to the ILR Labor Action Tracker for putting the Mississippi strike on my radar. In more conventional public worker activity, SEIU Local 521 city workers almost but didn’t strike in Santa Cruz, CA.

Over 1,000 mill workers for Weyerhaeuser in Longview, WA have been on strike with Machinists District Lodge W24 since mid-September; 100 more Machinists with Local 2018 who manufacture pipes for Elkhart Products in Elkhart, IN have been on strike for a couple weeks against what one worker described to a local reporter as “the worst contract I have ever seen.” Across the country, another wood mill (though not Machinists) owned by WestRock in Russell County, AL is facing down a strike of 450 workers with Steelworkers Locals 971, 1471, and 1972. 

And speaking of potentially-striking USW members, 1,100 Steelworkers at Constellium in Ravenswood, WV are facing down a strike deadline (source = workers who’ve reached out to me, and I haven’t seen any reporting on it) as workers have voted down a contract over sick days (currently, the workers get none) and subcontracting; apparently a last, best, and final offer is being presented by the company before the strike deadline but only changes the wage offer. 2,000 Steelworkers for Cleveland-Cliffs mines in Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula have ratified a four-year deal; 12,000 other Cleveland-Cliffs workers are still voting on their separate contract, with results expected October 12th. We’ll see whether that moves anything over at US Steel, where the company has filed unfair labor practice charges against the union while 11,000 workers work under a contract extension since September 1st, during which time the company has apparently not responded to the union’s proposals. Bargaining is set to resume this week.

It wouldn’t be a newsletter without some Starbucks Workers United strikes – like the one in Atlanta, or the one in Ladue, MO, or the one in Raleigh, NC, or the 64-day strike workers just won in Boston. Meanwhile, the company is nowhere near done breaking the law, and has now forced out Jaz Brisack, one of the campaign’s most public leaders. In the meantime, the company now says it wants to bargain, giving a three-week window for bargaining at all 240-some stores that have won a union vote, which on the one hand sounds like progress and on the other hand sounds like they are trying to blitz the union with their army of corporate lawyers, maybe force some unfair labor practice charges, not actually, you know, settle an agreement that workers can live with.

And hell, why not some Amazon shop floor action as well, in classic spots like Staten Island, NYC, plus newcomers like Stone Mountain, GA and St. Charles, MO. More to say on Staten Island in particular, but some dust is settling as I finalize this week’s edition, so will kick to next week.

Workers with UAW Local 9 Brewery Workers began info pickets after having voted down a contract in September and having authorized a strike over the summer, but I haven’t seen any updates in the past couple weeks.

With all the healthcare union activity, one would think we were living through, like, a historic pandemic and massive nursing shortage. Last we checked in, the Minnesota Nurses Association was launching a massive three-day 15,000-worker strike, which ended without a contract (as expected) and negotiations still drag on after six months, per local reporting. In Northern California, 2,000 mental health workers at Kaiser with NUHW rejected a contract offer to end the strike and remain on the picket line. In other mental health worker news (and other Minnesota news), over 100 workers for Allina with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota are on a 3-day strike, while their counterparts at M Health reached a last-minute tentative deal, averting a strike. CWA Local 1168 and SEIU 1199 have a tentative agreement for 6,000 workers for Kaleida in Buffalo, while the 6,000 Michigan Nurses Association members who’d authorized a strike at the U of M not only have a deal but have ratified it. 1400 healthcare workers who were set to strike for five days with SEIU UHW at KPC Health in Southern California ended up settling, 30 Illinois Nurses Association nurses at Howard Brown Health in Chicago also got a last-minute deal to avert a strike. Nursing home workers at Sunnyside nursing home in Fresno, CA held a one-day strike with SEIU Local 2015, and workers with IFPTE Local 20 at Sutter Health in Santa Rosa, CA also struck for a day, as their contract has expired. Some 1800 workers with 1199 SEIU at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore are apparently geared up for a strike (though this local reporting mentions October 1st, and I haven’t found any updates for the past ten-ish days). Two PASNAP-represented units at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia held info pickets as their contracts expired at the end of the month.

180 members of AFSCME Local 397 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art are on an open-ended strike that includes such radical demands as raising the minimum wage to $16.75. The Philly workers are the latest of at least a half dozen museums that have organized across the country over the past year into AFSCME and UAW. 

K-12: One of the biggest conventional local union contracts in the country has expired with little fanfare, as NYC’s 120,000 UFT members watch Eric Adams using his “swagger” to refuse to bargain and implement massive budget cuts. It’s all connected to broader municipal union negotiations and retiree healthcare, which was dramatically changed this year and means retirees (and future retirees, i.e., everyone) face uncertain but certainly ballooning costs. Elsewhere in K-12 unionism, though, things have mostly trended towards cease fire; the Seattle teachers strike has ended, as has the Ridgefield, WA strike. Peoria, IL educators ratified a contract after a strike threat, and San Francisco teachers have a TA, but some say more is needed.

Higher ed: Higher ed seems to be a little bit more restive, with some 150+ grad workers with Teamsters Local 170 at Clark University in Worcester, MA striking for a first contract, having won their union a few months back. 1500 blue collar workers with Teamsters Local 320 at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis are set to strike on October 10th if they don’t have a 

deal by then.

At Labor Notes, Luis Feliz Leon looked at UNITE HERE Local 355’s strike threat at a big hotel in Hollywood, FL, and how just the credible threat is sometimes enough to get the goods. Sometimes, as CWA member Thomas Ham writes for Labor Notes, you need more than a threat, even if it’s over something as everyday as first-aid kits.

The expiration deadline of the contract covering 50,000 USPS workers with NPMHU (a Laborers affiliate) came and went with a brief bargaining update, and nothing in the two weeks since. There’s no threat of a strike here, but would be curious to know what exactly is holding things up, and how members feel about it, as that’s a large contract.

Despite the information blackout, the Wall Street Journal says all is not quiet on the western ports, as ILWU negotiations for 22,000 longshore workers drag months beyond their expiration date, and some localized disputes are cropping up, with workers weighing a picket in Seattle, skipping a shift in Tacoma, and refusing some work in Los Angeles. This Container News report has some more detail on the Seattle issue, but rumor is that there’s just a generalized slowdown, something that’s hard to report on but in step with longshore union culture. I’m not saying there is or there isn’t, but if you’re in the know and want to tell me one way or the other, I’m all ears.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Lee Harris has a fantastic and wide-ranging piece at the American Prospect on the shift to a green economy, unions’ role in it, and the Democratic Party.

At Vox, Rachel Cohen looks at the two big state labor referenda on the November ballot, in Illinois and Tennessee. I’m sure there are many local labor referendums, but one that stuck out to me was the San Diego building trades’s effort to repeal a ban on project labor agreements (which, in their best form, enforce prevailing wages and the hiring of union labor) in the city.

After what felt like an unprecedented amount of Democratic Party leadership pressure on Gavin Newsom (where was this heat for, like the PRO Act? I mean, it’s good, but man I guess they really hate Newsom), California now has a Farmworkers-backed labor reform bill that gives farmworkers card check (but also caps the number of elections at 75 per year? And other quirks).

Meanwhile, the Teamsters have shown that their union PAC, the DRIVE (Democratic, Republican, and Independent Voter Education) Fund still lives up to its name, with the Teamsters Ohio Conference endorsing prominently evil GOP Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. It’s worth noting that, like all brave union political directors, the Ohio Conference waited until DeWine was a lock to make a move, and also worth noting that according to one official of the Ohio Conference, “the conference’s major purpose was to supplement the salaries of officials in less prosperous locals.”

Rebecca Rainey and Ian Kullgren at Bloomberg looked at UNITE HERE’s midterm electoral campaign, which I thought was interesting both for its tactical combination of door-knocking and on-the-spot job fair, but also in the wake of the union’s probably decisive canvassing program in the 2020 elections.

And it’s not a union bill per se, but I thought, apropos of a massive hurricane, it’s worth highlighting Representative Cori Bush’s new bill to protect workers during climate disasters.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

OK, there were a lot of union conventions over the past few months, and for most of them I couldn’t find much business of substance beyond resolutions in support of this or that unobjectionably good thing and re-election by acclamation of various union gerontocrats, but there were some notable highlights from ATU’s convention last month, where the union doubled and expanded strike pay and committed to open bargaining and internal organizer trainings, nuts-and-bolts reforms that can meaningfully impact worker power on the job and in the union.

Citing financial mismanagement at the local, AFSCME has trusteed the 17,000-member Local 1549 representing 17,000 clerical workers in NYC city government, representing over 10% of the massive District Council 37.

NEW ORGANIZING

Note: because this is a three-week edition, I left out some of the smallest of the small filings. Believe it or not, I do have some basic considerations for brevity.

New election filings at the NLRB: 

Big units: 1,000 more grad workers at MIT in Cambridge, MA are joining the UE; 4,000 others at MIT already voted yes in April, but this unit is the “fellows.” Elsewhere in Massachusetts higher ed, 500 grad student workers at the Worcester (MA) Polytechnic Institute are organizing with the UAW; further west, 78 residential advisors at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA are unionizing with UFCW Local 1459; elsewhere in higher ed, 668 non-tenure-track faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago have officially filed for an election (after announcing the campaign in May) with AFSCME Council 31, joining hundreds of others who’ve unionized at the Art Institute and its School over the past year. In Erlanger, KY, 900 DHL workers are officially unionizing with Teamsters Local 100, having filed a petition after openly organizing for some months. 550 workers for Utility Line Construction Services in Region 10, headquartered in Indian Trail, NC, are organizing with IBEW Local 379. 360 workers for virtual gambling platform Evolution (no, I don’t understand how there are 360 of them or what they do exactly) are unionizing with the UAW. As I covered for More Perfect Union, 274 workers in Philadelphia are forming an independent union at Home Depot, the first ever at one of the country’s largest employers. 240 physician assistants at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NYC are joining the existing 1199 SEIU unit there. A third Trader Joe’s store has filed to join the independent Trader Joe’s United, this time covering 185 workers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; the filing comes just days after one of the lead worker organizers was fired. Read Eric Blanc’s interview with Jaz W in Jacobin. Relatedly, 125 workers at another location of New Seasons in Portland, OR are joining the independent New Seasons Labor Union. Having announced their campaign last month, 180 workers at GE Aviation in Auburn, AL have formally filed to unionize with IUE-CWA. 180 hotel workers at St. Louis’s Union Station Hotel are organizing with UNITE HERE Local 74. 142 more Starbucks workers at eight stores have filed to join Workers United over the past three weeks, in 17 in Chicago, Elmhurst, IL, Seattle, Albany, NY, Arlington, VA, Santa Clara, CA, Easton, PA, and Shavano Park, TX. 111 workers at a homeless shelter, Compass Family Services, in San Francisco are organizing with OPEIU Local 29. 

Medium units: 89 school bus drivers for First Student in New Britain, CT are unionizing with Teamsters Local 671. 75 concrete production workers in Selkirk, NY are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 158. 65 nursing home workers at Divine Rehab in Toledo, OH are unionizing with SEIU 1199 WV/KY/OH; 60 more at Heartwood in Tacoma, WA are joining SEIU Local 775; 56 workers at Allina’s Courage Kenny Rehab in Golden Valley, MN are organizing with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa; six more at Whitney Rehab in Hamden, CT are joining UFCW Local 371. 65 dispensary workers at Element 7 in South San Francisco, CA are unionizing with UFCW Local 5; 64 at RISE in Henderson, NV are joining Local 711; 25 at Chicago’s Windy City Cannabis are unionizing with Local 881; nine at Good Day Farms in Affton, MO are joining Local 655; and seven more at Jenny’s Dispensary in Bend, OR are joining Local 555. 64 workers at the Newberry Library in Chicago are unionizing with AFSCME Council 31. 61 workers at independent bookstore McKay Books in Knoxville, TN are unionizing with CWA. 55 workers for construction materials company Knife River in Stockton, CA are organizing with Teamsters Locals 439 and 150 (both are listed on the filing, probably working together); 17 inventory clerks at a Safeway in Tracy, CA are also joining Teamsters Local 439. 50 workers who make antifreeze and related products for Prestone in Alsip, IL are unionizing with the UAW. 45 workers at Presbyterian Hospital in Espanola, NM are organizing with NUHHCE District 1199NM (AFSCME), 39 therapists at CommonSpirit Methodist Hospital in Sacramento are joining SEIU UHW, and 11 clericals at Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, PA are joining NUHHCE District 1199C (AFSCME). 42 workers at Pacific Architectural Wood Products in Portland, OR are forming an independent union, Millworkers United. 35 strawberry farmers for Bowery Farming in Kearny, NJ (I don’t get it either) are unionizing with UFCW Local 888. After the big win at the local Heine Bros chain, 35 more baristas at Sunergos Coffee in Louisville, KY are joining (oddly enough) the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers (primarily a railroad union), which is somehow an affiliate of 32BJ SEIU (primarily a janitorial and doormen union); 28 at Ultimo in Philadelphia are joining Workers United, as are 10 more baristas at Little Dog by the Met in Brunswick, ME. 32 A/V workers at Houston’s Wortham Center are joining IATSE Local 51. 31 food service workers at Eglin Air Force Base, FL are unionizing with OPEIU Local 4873. 26 workers at the Utica, NY zoo are joining CSEA Local 1000 (AFSCME). 

Small units: 16 workers tasked with decommissioning the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Generation site in Plymouth, MA are joining the Laborers (and maybe some are joining the Carpenters and Iron Workers, though the listing is ambiguous). 15 tree trimmers for Lewis Tree Service in Farmington, NH are joining IBEW Local 1837. 14 distillery workers at Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey in Denver are unionizing with UFCW Local 7; the local is also organizing eight workers at oil change chain Grease Monkey in Broomfield, CO. 18 workers at the Fairfield Inn & Suites in Times Square, NYC are unionizing with the UNITE HERE Hotel & Trades Council in two elections; 16 hotel workers at the Hampton Inn in Glen Allen, VA are joining “Hotel Workers United” which I have no idea if that’s a UNITE HERE front or an independent thing or what; and seven clericals for Interstate Management Company, which I think is a hotel/motel operations contractor, are joining UNITE HERE Local 1 in Chicago. 15 mechanics at a Kia dealer in Duluth, MN are unionizing with Machinists District Lodge 77. 11 workers for demolition company Dyno Nobel (yes, that Nobel) in Ishpeming, MI are joining the Steelworkers. 11 workers at Deep Roots tattoo shop in Seattle are joining UFCW Local 3000. Eight facilities workers at Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas are joining Operating Engineers Local 501. Eight meatcutters at various Roth’s Fresh Markets stores in Oregon are joining UFCW Local 555. Five digital journalists for KCBS radio in San Francisco are joining what appears to be an independent union, the Digital and Multimedia Workers Union. Five warehouse workers for construction equipment dealer Ziegler in Columbus, MN are joining Operating Engineers Local 49. Four sprinklerfitters for contractor TP Mechanical in Dayton, OH are joining UA Local 669. Four school bus drivers for First Student in Fairhaven, MA are joining UFCW Local 1459 (which is jurisdictionally odd). Four hospice workers in western Washington are joining Machinists District Lodge 751. 

NLRB election wins…: 727 nurses at Ascension Seton Hospital in Austin, TX have won the biggest hospital union in Texas, joining NNU in 385-151 vote; Texas Observer has the story. In one of the biggest manufacturing NLRB wins in the 21st century (I haven’t dug into all the stats, but I’m pretty sure this is in the top 10), 692 workers at Bobcat in Bismarck, ND voted 348-288 to join the Steelworkers; it’s the biggest NLRB win in the state since at least 2007, as far as the NLRB’s site goes back. The Starbucks Workers United campaign added 236 members after ten stores voted a combined 93-28 to unionize in Houston, San Antonio, and New Braunfels, TX, Louisville, Albuquerque, Albany, NY, Springfield, OR, Greeley, CO, Westlake, OH, and Mount Pleasant, MI. 217 non-tenure-track faculty and librarians at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY voted 102-54 in two votes (full-time and part-time) to join SEIU Local 200. 182 workers who make electrical transformers for VTCU in Pocatello, ID voted 66-45 to join Operating Engineers Local 302, the biggest NLRB win in the state since 2019. 180 workers at homelessness services agency Step Up On Second Street in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and San Bernardino narrowly won their union with SEIU Local 721, 56-43, in a rerun of an election the union lost in May. 168 workers for Accent Controls at three naval bases in Southern California voted 81-1 to join the Machinists District Lodge 725. 121 workers at the Dia Art Foundation in NYC, the Hudson Valley, and at the Lightning Field in New Mexico voted a whopping 101-6 to join, you guessed it, UAW Local 2110. 103 workers at Las Vegas construction contractor Black Iron Reinforcing voted 33-26 to join the California District Council of Iron Workers. Another 103 workers at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA joined AFSCME Council 93, 38-9. 87 school bus driver for NRT Bus in Framingham, MA voted 39-36 to join Teamsters Local 170. 73 workers for Alcatraz Cruises in San Francisco voted 52-11 to join the Inlandboatmen’s Union (ILWU), and 13 more at P&R Water Taxi in Honolulu voted 6-5 to do the same. 69 workers for Diversified Gas & Oil in West Virginia voted 44-21 to join the Steelworkers. 55 workers at the Oakland (CA) Zoo voted 46-4 to join Teamsters Local 853. 46 workers at a Rise dispensary in Effingham, IL voted 28-8 to join UFCW Local 881, but Teamsters Local 777 isn’t out of the Illinois weed game yet, as 42 dispensary workers in Schaumburg voted 39-1 to join; and 17 dispensary workers at Zen Leaf in Phoenix voted 9-1 to join UFCW Local 99. 45 coffee workers at several locations of Brewing Market in Boulder, CO voted 30-5 to join BCTGM Local 26. 42 crisis intervention workers (these are police alternatives for mental health and other crises, I believe) for White Bird Clinic in Eugene, OR voted 36 to zero to join Teamsters Local 206. 39 “doughnuteers” at Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, OR voted 16-6 to form Doughnut Workers United. 35 drivers for Bueno Beverage Company voted 17-15 to join Teamsters Local 948. 34 A/V workers for the Minnesota United Soccer Club in Golden Valley, MN voted 18-9 to join IATSE. 19 workers for military contractor Sonoran in Enid, OK voted 14-0 to join the Machinists. Another location of retail chain Half Price Books has unionized, with 17 workers voting 9-8 in Louisville to join UFCW Local 227, as that union drive quietly rolls on. 14 mountain bike patrollers for Mountain Capital Partners in Durango, CO voted 6-0 to join CWA Local 7781. 13 painters for Specialty Finishes in Seattle voted 6-0 to join Painters District Council 5. 13 social services workers at Jefferson Franklin Community Action Corporation voted 4-3 to join Teamsters Local 610; seven workers at a similar organization, Central City Concern in Portland, OR, voted 6-0 to join AFSCME Council 75. Twelve workers at a Tuality Healthcare clinic in Hillsboro, OR voted 7-0 to join AFSCME Council 75 and seven endoscopy techs at PeaceHealth in Springfield, OR voted 6-1 to join SEIU Local 49. Eight social workers at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital in Williamsville, NY voted 5-3 to join CWA. Eight A/V techs at several job sites for big hotel and conference center contractor Encore Group voted 4-1 to join IATSE Local 611. Seven concrete truck drivers for IMI in Scottsville, KY voted 6-1 to join Teamsters Local 89. Seven building services workers for a condo complex in Hell’s Kitchen, NYC voted 5-0 to join SEIU 32BJ. Six workers who do telecom work for a subsidiary of the East Central Oklahoma Electric Cooperative in Okmulgee, OK voted 5-1 to join IBEW Local 1002. Six staffers for energy efficiency non-profit Energy Wise in New Orleans voted 4-1 to join IBEW Local 130. All six diesel engine workers at Cummins in Horseheads, NY voted to join the Machinists. All four air traffic controllers at the Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, WI voted to join PATCO (not the AFSCME PATCO but the OPEIU-affiliated PATCO, I believe, that is in an “alliance” with the Teamsters (?); I know people have schooled me on this before, I just, for all my obsessive attention to detail, have not been able to keep this one straight, and the most active/relevant air traffic controllers unions is NATCA anyway). Four workers who make hydrogen peroxide for Evonik in Tonawanda, NY voted 3-0 to join International Chemical Workers Local 76C (UFCW). Four building operations workers at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA voted 2-1 to join Teamsters Local 776. 

…and losses: 302 workers who make Morningstar veggie burgers for Kellogg’s subsidiary Worthington Foods in Zanesville, OH voted overwhelmingly, 82-141, against joining the BCTGM. 73 Starbucks workers at three stores in Burbank, CA, Lafayette, LA, and Easton, PA voted a combined 23-30 against joining Workers United. 72 RNs at Sharon Hospital in Sharon, CT voted 23-33 against joining AFT. 70 drivers for convenience store supplier Core-Mark in Wilkes-Barre, PA voted 12-38 against joining Machinists Local 1363. 54 dispensary workers at 8 CBD Kratom shops in Manhattan, NYC voted 6-7 against joining UFCW Local 2013. 43 workers at Ethan Crossing drug rehab center in Springfield, OH narrowly lost their vote to join AFSCME Council 8, 20-21. 30 workers who operate a wastewater treatment plant in Hoboken, NJ voted 9-19 not to join IBEW Local 1158. 19 freight truck drivers for CPC Special Logistics in Rockford, IL voted 5-10 against joining Teamsters Local 325, and nine US Foods drivers in West Wareham, MA voted 3-5 against joining Teamsters Local 59. Nine workers for Eversource Energy in Berlin, CT voted 4-5 against joining IBEW Local 420. Seven transit supervisors subcontracted out from CT Transit in Stamford, CT deadlocked 3-3 on joining Teamsters Local 191. Six electrical workers and warehouse workers for Alpha Technologies which does I’m not sure what in Tempe, AZ voted 2-4 against joining IBEW Local 640. Four sprinklerfitters for Foothills Fire Protection in Scottsdale, AZ voted 1-3 against joining UA Local 669.

Decertifications and raids: 475 subcontracted airport ground services workers for JetStream in Charlotte, NC are at the center of what looks like a turf war between the Machinists and SEIU 32BJ; it looks similar to the dynamic playing out in Newark for contractor Swissport, where, again, the Machinists filed and 32BJ “intervened” (though that latter term can be deceiving; that’s how the Board lists a union that’s getting raided or trying to get on a ballot on someone else’s petition or occasionally a union assisting in a drive). 160 workers who make excavator buckets for Werk-Brau in Findlay, OH stuck with Iron Workers Local 851 against a decert attempt, 46-20. 95 workers who build manufactured houses for Wisconsin Homes in Marshfield, WI stuck with the Machinists in a failed decert vote, 45-37, while 67 steelworkers at PCC Structurals in Portland, Clackamas, and Milwaukie, OR voted 17-46 to drop the Machinists. 53 public safety officers and drivers at the William D. Backus Hospital in Norwich, CT decertified their independent union, 13-34. 42 janitors for subcontractor Eurest/Compass working at I believe Johnson & Johnson HQ in New Brunswick, NJ are organizing with 32BJ but either being raided by or raided from the dubious Novelty and Production Workers Local 1931. 20 school bus drivers for M&J Bus in Suffield, CT voted 9-7 to keep their union, UFCW Local 1459. 19 workers at a Volvo truck parts distribution center in Reno, NV voted 9-6 to remain with the UAW. 19 workers who I believe do textile manufacturing for M. Chasen & Sons in Irvington, NJ voted 7-4 to stick with UE Local 155. 

Outside the NLRB, I wrote about how Geico workers in Buffalo are organizing their independent union, against harsh and maybe illegal employer resistance. At In These Times, Hamilton Nolan looked at the independent union phenomenon writ large, and what it means about the existing unions. And if an insurance union isn’t exotic enough for you, how about a bank union? Workers at Wells Fargo and a 1400-employee credit union in New York are also organizing. 

Elsewhere outside the NLRB, the first three US Congressional offices staff voted to unionize in Reps. Andy Levin, Ilhan Omar, and Ro Khanna’s offices. In Cottage Grove, MN, 342 school support staff voted 303-10 to join Teamsters Local 320, and 502 aircraft mechanics for Spirit Airlines voted 245-59 to join AMFA (h/t to @UnionElections on both of those, as I don’t always keep up with non-NLRB vote counts). 

Lots of higher ed news, even beyond the NLRB stuff above: Boston University grad workers have gone public with their big campaign to organize with SEIU Local 509; grad workers at Duke in Durham, NC have dropped cards in their campaign to join SEIU, which was inconclusive after their last vote in 2017; and the UE signed up over 1,000 University of Chicago grad workers in a single day (all credit goes to me, for having worked for like seven weeks on the 2017 AFT organizing drive at the U of C, which, um, planted the seeds, or something).

Two exciting union efforts are looking to grow their ranks, with a date set for the next Amazon Labor Union election outside Albany, NY and the workers who unionized the first Chipotle union in Lansing, MI looking to spread their movement across the fast food chain with the help of EWOC.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

The Minnesota Nurses Association has launched one of the largest nurses strikes in US history, as 15,000 workers walked off the job for the first of three days. NUHW’s 2,000 mental healthcare workers have now been on strike for a month in Northern California and a smaller group in Hawaii. A couple thousand nurses who were set to strike for recognition with SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin at the University of Wisconsin health system in Madison, WI got a governor-brokered deal that sounds like it doesn’t grant recognition but refers it to a legal process and non-binding talks in exchange for not striking (which sounds extremely fluffy and question-begging to me, but I’m way out of the loop on this one). Nursing home workers with SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania settled a contract after a week on strike.

Education: If it weren’t for the Minnesota nurses, the Seattle teachers strike would be the largest in the country, as a fourth school day passes with over 6,000 educators on the picket line. Strike fever appears to have spread over a good chunk of Washington state, with strikes popping up in Ridgefield, WA, Eatonville, WA, and Tumwater, WA. In higher education, the 500 members of Eastern Michigan University’s AAUP-AFT local struck and won a tentative agreement (helped by a judge refusing to grant an injunction against them).

Dwarfing both of those is the potential work stoppage on the freight railroads, as negotiations covering 115,000 workers go right up to the deadline, which isn’t really a deadline but is being treated as such, in large part because, as has become especially clear in the past week or so, the primary “threat” behind a rail work stoppage is a lockout, not a strike? Why do I say that? Let us count the ways. Ten of rail unions officially have tentative agreements based on Biden’s Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) recommendations. Of the two that don’t, only one has publicly authorized a strike by membership vote, and that was two months ago, and there’s been no other widespread picketing or strike assignments or anything else that would signal a serious plan to walk. The GOP has already written a bill to impose the PEB recommendations in case of a work stoppage, which recommendations the employers were extremely quick to praise when they came out in August. Oh, and the carriers have basically already started locking down, with service reductions on pretexts of safety (BLET and SMART-TD put a statement out against this “corporate extortion”), which has had a knock-on effect on Amtrak (not part of the negotiations but of course impacted by rail operations), all of which should not be allowed since we’re still legally in a “cooling-off period” but seems to be not even registering with the rail unions’ supposed allies at the top of the Democratic Party, with Steny Hoyer saying just that “obviously a railroad strike at this point in time would be extraordinarily detrimental to our economy and the American people,” with no mention of a lockout (or any of the issues workers are facing, such as uncapped rising healthcare costs, zero sick days, inhumane scheduling issues, and rapidly deteriorating working conditions), and saying that Congress will intervene to avert a strike which basically neuters the last best option remaining for rail workers. Apparently the Biden admin is spooked and making frantic calls.

UAW: Around 1,000 autoworkers at the Stellantis Casting Plant in Kokomo, IN struck for three days with UAW Local 1166 over terms of the local agreement (as opposed to the national contract, which expires next year) having to do with safety and working conditions; the ratified agreement includes everything from installing air conditioning to taking union input on plant layout to cleaning the microwaves in the break room. Meanwhile, workers at the new Ultium car battery plant in Lordstown, OH have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a recognition strike, after 85% of workers signed cards to join UAW Local 1112. Ultium is a GM joint venture with LG, and in May, the UAW said the company rejected a card check agreement. Recognition strikes remain by far the exception rather than the rule (both in terms of being an uncommon type of strike, and uncommon method for new organizing) but the UAW won a sizeable recognition strike last year at a Stellantis joint venture auto parts plant in Michigan, so they may go for it, and may pull it off. Elsewhere in the union, UAW Local 2300 members at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY voted down a contract offer, as did Molson Coors workers in Milwaukee with Brewery Workers Local 9 (I assume their UAW affiliation is from some decades-ago merger0.

Workers who’ve been on strike at DHL in Pawtucket, RI since June were arrested for exercising basic first amendment rights– er, ‘disorderly conduct’ – including a leader of Teamsters Local 251. In June, armed guards from the company threatened union leaders with a baseball bat.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Elizabeth Warren and Brad Sherman (in the House) have introduced a bill to eliminate section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, which is to say ban state-level “right to work” laws. This was one of the many attractive components of the PRO Act, but hasn’t been much talked about. I say this every time right to work comes up in the newsletter, but my sense is it’s better understood as a tailing indicator of union weakness rather than a determinant, but ending right-to-work is also a widely-felt signature demand among millions of union members, so would be a really good tool to rally the base if they were to pass it, say, before a very close and consequential election, but it also might upset a small business owner who was never in a million years going to vote for Tim Ryan anyway, so I assume the Democrats won’t go all-in. Or we could just do “force the vote” on the PRO Act.

The House Education & Labor Committee will hold a hearing on corporate union-busting featuring leaders of Starbucks Workers United and the fantastic Kate Bronfenbrenner, one of the best analysts of NLRB elections and new organizing data. It’s a welcome move, though we all still deserve to get to watch Howard Schultz squirm on TV.

The NLRB has proposed a new joint employer rule (this would make it so that parent companies, and especially those who subcontract or franchise out operations, would be liable for the employment behavior of their underlings) which is very welcome, though my sense is this is a long process that could take longer than the political support it has at the Board, as happened under Obama when that Board made a similar move.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

The AFL-CIO has gained an affiliate in the MLBPA, which I guess was not already affiliated (though the NFL and Women’s Soccer unions are). But the federation could lose an affiliate if the merger that the APA and ALPA are considering goes through (ok I don’t think they would leave, especially since ALPA is much bigger and is in the AFL but I needed the symmetry for this section).

And there’s nothing exactly to report yet, but a new reform effort has launched (on social media, but there are real people behind it; I’m working on a story on it now, so if you’re a member and have thoughts, I’d love to hear them) in the UFCW ahead of their April 2023 convention; they’re calling for one member, one vote, and other union democracy reforms which, if successful, could be a major shakeup in one of the country’s largest unions.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 700 (!) poultry plant workers at Peco Foods in West Point, MS (!) are organizing with UFCW Local 1529; it will be the second-largest vote in the state in at least the past 15 years (as far as easily-accessible online NLRB records go back), only behind the ill-fated UAW drive at Nissan in 2017. 160 industrial laundry workers for Cooperative Laundry in Kearny, NJ are unionizing with Teamsters Local 560; I believe this is the same facility where Workers United lost an election in early 2021, and worth noting that Workers United filed a ULP on the same day that the Teamsters filed for an election this week? Odd. Curious if anyone has the back story. 115 cement truck drivers for Titan Concrete in Fort Lauderdale, FL are unionizing with Teamsters Local 769; another 55 concrete workers at Lehigh Hanson, one of the companies that was part of the massive Seattle area concrete strike, are organizing in Sumner, WA with Teamsters Local 174. 110 workers at Northridge Health and Rehab in New Hope, MN are organizing with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. 99 hospital techs at Whittier Hospital in Whittier, CA are unionizing with NUHW. The museum organizing wave has spread to Columbus, OH where 97 Columbus Museum of Art employees are organizing with AFSCME Council 8. 

Smaller shops: Here’s an odd one: the 59 staff members of the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers, an employers’ group in Ewing, NJ, are unionizing with CWA. 44 sanitation workers at Prairieland Disposal in Wauconda, IL are organizing with Teamsters Local 301. 25 Starbucks workers in Abington, PA and 15 in Breckenridge, CO have filed to join Workers United, and the seven Starbucks workers in a Fred Meyer (so, technically Fred Meyer employees, despite the green aprons and so forth) in Anchorage, AK are joining UFCW Local 1496. The 37 employees of the Wall Street Journal’s photo department are unionizing with the Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees (NewsGuild CWA Local 1096). 38 dispensary workers at Windy City Cannabis in Homewood, IL are joining UFCW Local 881, 16 dispensary workers at Strawberry Fields in Pueblo, CO are unionizing with UFCW Local 7, and six more at Power Plants in Portland, OR are joining UFCW Local 555; eight deli department workers at Roth’s Fresh Markets in Salem, OR are also joining UFCW Local 555. 36 EMTs in Susanville, CA are organizing with the Steelworkers. 30 social services workers at Arc of Southington in Plantsville, CT are unionizing with SEIU 1199 New England. 27 workers at IsoRay, a cancer treatment provider in Richland, WA, are joining UFCW Local 3000. 20 workers at Gatwood Crane Service in Arlington Heights, IL are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 150. 18 cooks and housekeepers at Pioneer Ridge nursing home in Lawrence, KS are unionizing with Teamsters Local 696. 15 warehouse workers for medical equipment supplier Landauer Medstar in the Bronx, NY are joining IBEW Local 1430, and 15 building services workers nearby at 200 Amsterdam on the Upper West Side are joining SEIU 32BJ. Nine workers at screen printing shop Crushin’ It Apparel in Madison, WI are unionizing with Painters Local 770. Nine subcontracted clerical workers at Fort Sill, OK are joining Operating Engineers Local 351. Six meter techs for People’s Gas in Pikeville, KY are joining the Utility Workers.

NLRB election wins…: 121 workers at the New Seasons grocery store on Division Street in Portland, OR voted 62-17 to join the independent New Seasons Labor Union, proving that independent unionism is the future of the labor movement. 106 nursing home workers at SKLD in Bloomfield Hills, MI narrowly won their union with SEIU Healthcare Michigan in a 25-21 vote. 83 healthcare workers for Cape Regional Physicians Associates in Cape May County, NJ voted 38-27 to join UFCW Local 152. Just one Starbucks had their union vote last week, in Roseville, MN, where 28 workers voted 7-5 to join Workers United. 23 workers at the Everett, WA Daily Herald voted 18-0 to join the Pacific Northwest NewsGuild. In Ferndale and Bellingham, WA, 18 workers at Cadman, the concrete company that was part of the epic Seattle-area concrete strike, voted 9-5 to join Teamsters Local 231. 15 workers for Japanese goods importer Jalux in San Jose, CA voted 7-5 to join UFCW Local 5. Seven subcontracted clericals for CT Transit (but employed by HNS Management) in Hartford, CT voted 5-0 to join ATU Local 425. 

…and losses: 95 workers at the New Seasons grocery store on Tacoma Street in Portland, OR voted 29-33 against joining the independent New Seasons Labor Union, proving that independent unionism has no future in the labor movement. UA Local 525 got trounced, 1-14, in an election among 21 plumbers at Las Vegas contractor Universal Plumbing & Heating. 14 clericals at the huge Kroger warehouse in Memphis voted 3-6 not to join Teamsters Local 667, who represent the rest of the warehouse workers there. All four workers at fire department equipment supplier Fire Service in Naperville, IL voted against joining Machinists Local 701. Two building maintenance workers in Philadelphia aren’t joining SMART Local 19 after the one who voted voted no.

Decertifications and raids: 53 nursing home workers at Pine Creek Care Center in Roseville, CA dropped Teamsters Local 150 in a low turnout 3-11 vote. 48 workers at the Omaha Steel Castings Company in Wahoo, NE held onto their union, Iron Workers Local 853 in a 13-9 vote (wahoo indeed). 16 mechanics for Waste Management of Kentucky in Louisville dropped UAW Local 3058, 4-7. Six publicists at ABC in NYC decertified NABET-CWA Local 16, 0-3. 

But this is just one of those weeks where most of the most exciting new organizing news happened outside the NLRB, especially at big employers. Amazon workers in the Moreno Valley, CA announced their intention to unionize with the Amazon Labor Union. A local reporter in Buffalo broke the news that workers are forming an independent union in a 2600-worker unit at GEICO, and today those workers filed ULPs against the company for sending union-busting emails. And speaking of ULPs at large non-union employers, Target workers in Pueblo, CO have filed charges against the company for interfering with their union organizing efforts. Oh and the MLBPA announced they had gotten something like 6,000 union cards signed among minor leaguers, and the bosses decided they’d better voluntarily recognize them. UNITE HERE’s organizing of 4,000 subcontracted Google dining workers during the pandemic in 23 cities was made public, and, not satisfied with taking on our shadow technological state, they went for the financial overlords as well, with UNITE HERE Local 100 picketing at the Federal Reserve in NYC for a contract. Michael Sainato has the story of VFX film/tv workers who are seeking to unionize with IATSE (part of the long tail of the near-miss IATSE strike of last Striketober). Over 500 media workers won recognition with the New York NewsGuild as part of the company-wide Conde Nast Union after a private card check vote. And this one is NLRB, but not officially recorded yet; baristas at 17 Heine Bros coffee locations in and around Louisville won their election to join 32BJ SEIU (actually I think technically the Kentucky-based National Conference of Firemen and Oilers, which is an old craft rail union (yes, part of the potential national rail strike) that is for some reason affiliated to 32BJ which at one point was a building services union in New York City). The staff of ActBlue is unionizing with CODE CWA, and is requesting voluntary recognition.

And to take us out on a beautiful note, read Eric Blanc’s interview with the workers who organized the first-ever Chipotle union in Lansing, MI with Teamsters Local 243. Lots to learn here.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

Healthcare: Over 2,000 mental healthcare workers at Kaiser in Northern California remain on strike into their third week with NUHW, and has spread to the 50 NUHW mental healthcare workers in Hawaii as well, while the California Nurses Association picketed Kaiser across the state as their contract negotiations heat up. Meanwhile, 15,000 members of the Minnesota Nurses Association have set a strike date for September 12, and are planning to walk off the job for three days (unlike the Kaiser strike, which is open-ended); over 7,000 healthcare workers and related at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, OR have authorized a strike by an overwhelming margin; and 6,000 more with the Michigan Nurses Association have authorized a strike as well; while at least 1500 nurses with SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin at UW Health in Madison, WI are planning to strike for re-recognition, September 13-16, another casualty of Act 10 that has been unresolved since 2014; and 1,000 healthcare workers for Kaleida in Buffalo are taking a strike vote with CWA Local 1168 and 1199 SEIU this month. Around 700 workers at 14 nursing homes are on strike with SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania as of Friday morning.

The other 2,000-strong strike in California, that of Frontier telecom workers with CWA District 9, ended with an agreement on subcontracting, as my colleague Luis Feliz Leon reported at The Real News.

The next two biggest strikes are still on, with no particular end in sight. The New York Times woke up to the Warrior Met UMWA strike in Brookwood, AL, breaking the news just 500 days late (and with shockingly no reference to the independent reporters like Kim Kelly and the https://mobile.twitter.com/LaborReporters/with_repliesValley Labor Report who’ve been all over the story since 500 days ago), but to their credit did feature a fantastic interview with Braxton Wright, a striking coal miner; other news from the strike is that the company is attempting to fire 40 of the strikers, obviously testing the waters here. Meanwhile, the UAW CNH strike in Burlington, IA and Racine, WI hasn’t seen any real movement, as far as I can tell; if you want to read some depressing things about it, check out the comments this industry website got back in a survey to farm equipment dealers. You’ll see in that former link too that the ten unions who were going to strike American Ordnance at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Middletown, IA reached a last-minute tentative agreement and kept churning out large-caliber ammo. And elsewhere Iowa, over 100 workers on strike with BCTGM Local 100G at ingredient maker Ingredion marked a month on strike in Cedar Rapids, IA; the biggest sticking point sounds like the $500 health insurance premium hike the company wants to impose.

K-12: As school starts up amidst a national teacher shortage, a decade of teacher union strike activity, and the extreme disruption of the pandemic, no one should be surprised that the K-12 strike has come back with a vengeance. In Columbus, OH, 4,500 educators struck the state’s largest district for four days, and won a contract with 4% annual raises (they had proposed 8%) and guaranteed air conditioning, which had been a flagship demand. Teachers in Kent, WA are entering their second week on strike, primarily over class sizes, while teachers in Ridgefield, WA, on the Oregon border, have authorized a strike of their own, and those in Port Angeles, WA, on the state’s northern edge, plan to strike next week, and, oh yeah, the 6,000-strong Seattle union is taking a strike vote. Non-union school bus drivers in Franklin County, TN struck for two days after being denied a $10,000 raise that was already in the budget; by Thursday, the county commissioner reinstituted the raise. 2,000 Philadelphia school district workers with SEIU 32BJ, primarily bus drivers, custodians, and maintenance workers, authorized a strike but got an agreement before their August 31st deadline. Peoria, IL’s 850 educators have authorized a strike as well. And not K-12 unionism in the conventional sense, but the staff of the Maryland State Education Association held a protest against management (in this case, the union leadership) for failure to bargain a staff contract.

Higher education: With the school year starting in higher ed as well, there’s been plenty of campus labor activity: SEIU Local 500 struck very effectively for a week at DC’s American University, and won a contract for 600 staff. Teamsters Local 320, representing 1500 workers at the University of Minnesota, picketed for a $20 minimum wage on the first day of school, as did adjunct faculty with the Steelworkers at Pittsburgh’s Point Park University. AAUP-AFT Local 4996 at the University of Alaska filed an unfair labor practice charge with the state labor board for the administration’s attempt to impose a final offer. At Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, MI, the union rejected a contract offer from the administration, calling for higher raises.

Starbucks Workers United has not stopped going on strike, and are likely holding a “sip-in” this weekend at a store near you. I interviewed their national field director, Daisy Pitkin, for Labor Notes about their strategy, as things continue to escalate even as Howard Schultz formally leaves as CEO (though I still hope he has to record a video about his crimes). Meanwhile, in the past couple weeks, Starbucks workers have struck in Minneapolis, Chicago, Buffalo (twice), Seattle and Everett, WA, and the two remaining locations in Ithaca, NY (the third having been likely illegally closed).

Workers at local sandwich chain Homegrown in the Seattle area are unionizing with UNITE HERE Local 8 and multiple locations have gone on strike, over driver-facing surveillance cameras, lack of A/C, and sick pay, plus to get the company to recognize their union after delivering a majority petition. Elsewhere in the state, my coworker Caitlyn Clark wrote about how port truck mechanics in Tacoma, WA doubled their pay by going on strike with the ILWU.

80 building services workers at a Fort Lee, NJ housing complex, Horizon House, went on strike with 32BJ SEIU after working under an expired contract since May.

Nine ready-mix drivers for SRM Construction in Centreville, IL struck for 12 days (I think; details are spotty) before winning a tentative agreement.

The biggest maybe-strike threat in the country by far is that of the national railroad bargaining; Joe DeManuelle-Hall had a very useful update on the situation for Labor Notes; the upshot is we are once again in a “cooling-off” period which ends September 16, but the rank and file does not seem to be cooling off much at all. The question is whether that anger will be officially channeled into a work stoppage. So far, five (the American Train Dispatchers Association, IBEW, and the three unions affiliated with the Machinists, namely the Transportation Communications Union, the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, and Machinists District 19) of the thirteen rail unions have announced tentative agreements based on the Presidential Emergency Board recommendations, which is to say, nine have not. Yet. The BLET (affiliated with the Teamsters) already authorized a strike before the Presidential Emergency Board was convened, and the BMWE (also a Teamsters affiliate — isn’t rail union jurisdiction fun?) has sent out strike authorization ballots but hasn’t announced results. Yet. The latest is that the National Mediation Board is apparently ordering negotiators for the carriers and the unions to travel to DC on Wednesday for help reaching agreements, and I don’t know what to make of that except that it doesn’t exude confidence that an agreement would otherwise be worked out.

Lots of Steelworkers contract updates in the past couple weeks; the 5,900-worker Goodyear/Bridgestone contract that came down to the wire was ratified by the membership; 800 workers with USW Local 7687 at BAE in York County, PA came within hours of striking, but got a last-minute deal; I’ve seen exactly zero reporting on it, but some 500 workers with USW Local 6163 at ATI in Millersburg, OR have authorized a strike, which is particularly notable since ATI was the site of a five-month-long strike in Western Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts last year, so I wouldn’t be shocked if this one came to fruition; and, the really big one, Cleveland-Cliffs and the USW reached a tentative agreement covering 12,000 workers that is now up for a ratification vote, though the union isn’t sharing any details publicly or, from chatter I’ve seen, much with the members.

Again, not much coverage on this one, but city workers with AFSCME Local 829 in South San Francisco, CA are talking about striking, from preschool teachers to 911 dispatchers. Workers with UNITE HERE Local 355 at the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, FL (a Hilton hotel) are taking a strike authorization vote, and the union posted an awesome 11-second video on Twitter, and after a very long campaign, UNITE HERE Local 11 won union recognition at Los Angeles’s Chateau Marmont. 165 workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art who organized almost two years ago with AFSCME District Council 47 have unanimously authorized a strike for their first contract. Kroger workers in the Columbus, OH area with UFCW Local 1059 have voted down a contract offer for the second time since July (I hesitate to link to the above with its link to sectarian nonsense but it’s the only source I’ve seen on it).

SAG-AFTRA has just reached two new deals relaxing employer rules on “exclusivity” (meaning when an actor who’s a regular on a show can do other work) both with the AMPTP and as part of a full contract ratification (that passed a membership vote by 89%) with Netflix.

Teamsters Local 118, which represents police in Wayne County, NY, has declared impasse and is taking its case to the state’s labor board.

IBEW Local 304 in Topeka, KS picketed at energy company Evergy in protest of pay disparities and the company’s work from home policies. IBEW Local 363 in the Hudson Valley, NY continues to protest out-of-state hires on a big warehouse building project.

Union negotiations at the VA are not going well, apparently, as AFGE is calling for the agency secretary to remove the administration’s lead negotiator.

The MEBA members who operate the Staten Island Ferry won a favorable ruling from a judge but apparently the City Comptroller still has to actually implement the raise in question, which they’ve gone without since 2010.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Politico had an exclusive look at how GOP leadership plans to target the NLRB and Department of Labor in oversight hearings if it takes back control of the House in the midterms, as it’s slated to do. I spoke to Chris Lehmann about it for a broader piece he did on the Democrats and class politics in The Nation.

Lots of labor activity has happened in the California legislature in the past couple weeks: a much-touted SEIU-backed fast food “sectoral bargaining” bill passed after years of effort (I’m of two minds on this sort of thing in the absence of strong worker organization, and this measured thread from Brian Callaci on the bill is worth consideration); the UFW-backed bill to allow vote-by-mail in farmworker union elections passed the legislature, but is sitting on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk, which is egregious but not shocking, and now Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are publicly leaning on the Governor to sign it, which is interesting from the perspective of intra-party politics (and, like, the UFW is not a big union); the state’s legislative staff was denied the right to legally form a union, to boos and hisses from the staff; and though their deal to trade seismic safety updates to hospitals for a $25 minimum wage for healthcare workers collapsed, SEIU-UHW is apparently still pursuing legislation for a statewide increase for those workers.

Charlie Crist, Democratic nominee for Florida Governor, thus going up against the much-hyped Ron DeSantis, has chosen the president of United Teachers of Dade, the 30,000-member K-12 union, as his running mate. I find this primarily notable because of how seldom union leadership is tapped for political candidacies, and how odd it is that it would happen among Florida teachers of all labor groups.

A judge has granted class-action status to a group of 22,000 Teamster retirees in New York who are suing the federal government over pension cuts; I don’t follow this stuff all that closely but the Teamster retiree movement has been very active, and is a huge issue for labor that doesn’t get much attention.

Apparently Black business interests in Seattle are opposing a piece of city legislation on the table to create what sounds like a soft version of a hiring hall, backed by UFCW Local 3000. Interesting snapshot of the politics of labor and race in the emerging legal weed industry.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

One of the best pieces of labor journalism I’ve read this year is Tyler Jett’s latest series for the Des Moines Register about the Congolese immigrant worker who recently won the top spot in UFCW Local 441 in a landslide election; but the story is about so much else: meatpacking workers in the pandemic, protection unions in the industry over decades, and how immigrant workers and new leadership can change the labor movement.

In two big shake-ups in Western Conference Teamsters politics, Ron Herrera, just recently the incumbent-backed candidate for the second slot in the union and current president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, has abruptly resigned his spot at the head of Teamsters Local 396; I’ve seen rumors but no actual reporting on what’s behind the move. And in New Mexico, the top officers of Teamsters Local 492 have resigned in the wake of financial investigations and the IBT moving all film work in the local’s jurisdiction over to Local 399.

NALC has just mailed (naturally) ballots in its elections for national officers; I don’t know much about the race but people who do have told me that at least the challenger for the top office is a perennial candidate who’s not expected to win.

The Vermont AFL-CIO has named a new Executive Vice President, and committed at their Convention to fight for abortion rights legislation.

NEW ORGANIZING

Recent election filings at the NLRB: 120 workers for DB Schenker, who do contract work building airplanes for Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, KS, are organizing with the Machinists. 94 more Apple store workers have filed for a union election with CWA in Oklahoma City, which is very exciting, after the efforts in Atlanta (CWA) and NYC (Workers United, I think?) petered out and the Towson, MD (Machinists) store won but nobody immediately followed their lead. There have been rumors of a big CWA drive at Apple but post-Atlanta there had been no public signs of life as far as I’d seen, so Oklahoma City could be the start of a big re-launch. I accidentally neglected to list new filings at Starbucks last week, so may have made it seem like there weren’t any, which is not the case, though things are still a lot slower than they have been over recent months. Over the past three weeks, 96 workers at six stores filed to join Starbucks Workers United in Boston, Portland, ME, Washington, DC, Hayward, CA, Victor, NY, and Santa Fe, NM. 65 warehouse workers for Pepsi in Tumwater, WA are organizing with Teamsters Local 252. 36 staffers at Columbus-based Ohio Disability Rights Law and Policy Center are joining OPEIU Local 792. 35 journalists at the Louisville Courier-Journal are the latest Gannett employees to file for an election with the Indianapolis NewsGuild. More baristas outside of Starbucks are unionizing with Workers United, specifically 30 workers at Elixr Coffee in Philadelphia. 30 pipefitters and welders building a Google data center for contractor Bernhard in New Albany, OH are unionizing with UA Local 189 after a judge found the company illegally refused to hire union supporters. 28 dispensary workers at Sunday Goods in Tempe, AZ are joining UFCW Local 99 and 21 dispensary workers at Columbia Care in Riverhead, NY are unionizing with RWDSU Local 338. 26 workers at the Pittsburgh Community Broadcast Corporation are joining SAG-AFTRA. 18 staffers at what I think is a social services non-profit, Western Massachusetts Training Consortium, in Northampton, MA, are joining UAW Local 2322. 17 subcontracted workers at the SeaTac airport are unionizing with Machinists District Lodge 751. 15 massage therapists at Massage Luxe in Crete Coeur, MO are joining Teamsters Local 610. 14 workers at Chase House, a residential home for adolescents in Boulder, CO are unionizing with UFCW Local 7. 11 oil terminal operators for Vopak in Long Beach, CA are joining Teamsters Local 848. 11 workers at the Burlington House nursing home in Cincinnati are unionizing with SEIU 1199 WV/KY/OH. Nine utility workers for Eversource in Berlin, CT are joining IBEW Local 420. Eight mechanics and drivers for Sunbelt Rentals in Taylor, MI are joining Operating Engineers Local 324. Six “utility vegetation management” (I think this might be the latest name for tree trimmers? But not sure) workers for ACRT and three more for Davey Tree Expert in Holtsville, NY are joining IBEW Local 1049. Six lab techs at DFA Dairy in Sharpsville, PA are joining Teamsters Local 261.

NLRB election wins…: I missed this one a few weeks back, but 173 workers at Equitas Health Center at several locations across the state unionized with Ohio Federation of Teachers, 62-45. 169 Starbucks workers in six stores in Berkeley, CA, Wilmington, NC, Springfield, MO, Allison Park, PA, Roseville, MN, and Greenbush, NY voted a combined 69-30 to join Starbucks Workers United, with three stores losing their union votes, in Garden Grove, CA, Warwick, RI, and Scottsboro, AL, in a 9-9, 9-9, and 8-8 deadlock, respectively, St. Charles, MO losing 4-11, and San Pablo, CA losing 3-11. 160 transit workers for Via (which used to be a rideshare app is now a ‘micro-transit’ app) voted 57-35 to unionize with ATU Local 1177 in Norfolk, VA; Joe DeManuelle-Hall, who covers transit for Labor Notes, provided some useful context to this win on Twitter. 116 workers at REI in Berkeley, CA unionized with UFCW Local 5 by 56-38, another promising national retail shop win, following the UFCW-affiliated RWDSU winning the first toehold in the company in NYC in March. It’s not quite the “next Starbucks,” but two for two ain’t bad; just 175 more locations to go. 89 workers for the Delta Natural Gas Company in Kentucky joined the Utility Workers in a 50-27 vote. 81 healthcare workers for John Muir Health in Concord, CA voted 50-22 to join SEIU-UHW. 75 workers at MOM’s Organic Market in Baltimore voted 58-5 (a landslide) to join Teamsters Local 570, the first union shop in the 29-store regional chain (I interviewed one of the workers as part of this story, if you’re interested). 63 workers who I think make animal feed for Land O’ Lakes in Madera, CA voted 38-13 to join Teamsters Local 517. 47 transit workers for contractor MV Transportation in Ypsilanti, MI voted 18-3 to join the ATU. 43 workers at Brooklyn Bowl (but in Philadelphia) voted 23-0 to join IATSE Local 8. 36 lead nurses at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR voted 27-6 to join the Oregon Nurses Association, and 38 hospital techs at St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton, OR voted 24-10 to do the same. 38 more workers for Card Kingdom in Seattle, but this time at their card game bar Mox Boarding House, have unionized with CWA after their big warehouse voted to do so recently with UFCW Local 3000; they won their union 25-1. The first Chipotle in the country has unionized with Teamsters Local 243 in Lansing, MI, with 21 workers voting 11-3; obviously another hugely exciting retail breakthrough, with a lot of potential, as the Fortune 500 burrito company operates nearly 3,000 locations. It’s also a much-needed shot in the arm after the company closed the first location that filed for a union vote in Maine. 18 workers for Maytag Aircraft at Fort Hood, TX voted 15-0 to join the Machinists. 18 workers at the state of Colorado’s subcontracted emissions testing service, Air Care Colorado, voted 9-6 to unionize with UFCW Local 7 in Denver. At least 14 (it’s unclear) workers at the Eagleview nursing home in Pittsgrove voted on unionization in two separate votes; the cooks voted it down, 0-2, but the RNs voted 6-4 to join UFCW Local 152. All 13 digital editors at Newsday in Melville, NY voted to join GCC-IBT Local 406-C. 12 workers who I believe do lead paint inspections for Inspection Experts at several locations in Tennessee voted 8-1 to join Operating Engineers Local 369. Nine charter bus drivers for Battle’s Transportation in Philadelphia voted 5-0 to join the “United Independent Union” which I don’t even have a snarky thing to say about, but in transit, unions you’ve never heard of that emphasize their “independent” quality are often company-friendly unions that help employers avoid real unions. Eight dispensary workers for Mayflower Medicinals in Allston, MA voted 3-0 to join UFCW Local 1445. Seven Verizon retail workers in Portland, OR voted 4-1 to join CWA; this small shop is a big deal as the telecom giants continue the long transition away from landline work to retail wireless, and very few of these stores have organized. Six workers for Japanese food supplier Mutual Trading Co. in Poway, CA voted unanimously to join Teamsters Local 630. 

…and losses: Workers at two big sawmills voted against joining the Machinists in pretty big margins; 154 workers at a Weyerhaeuser sawmill in Eugene, OR voted 39-73 against the union, and 128 workers at a Resolute Forest Products sawmill in El Dorado, AR voted 15-52 against unionizing. Lumber products in the West and Northwest were a historic bastion of the most radical parts of the labor movement once upon a time, but that was a century ago. 108 grocery workers at New Seasons Market in Hillsboro, OR voted 37-60 against joining UFCW Local 555, which, just saying, is the second time in a week the UFCW has lost or backed off a union drive where an independent union has succeeded. 57 healthcare workers at a dozen urgent care facilities owned by Franciscan Medical Group in and around the Seattle area voted 21-23 not to join the Union of American Physicians and Dentists 43 drivers and mechanics for the Sonoma County (CA) Airport Express voted 5-27 against joining Teamsters Local 665. 21 workers at Semper Fi Express, a DHL subcontractor, in Bloomington, IL voted 5-13 against joining Teamsters Local 26. 16 workers at LSR Refinishing in Clinton, MD voted 2-11 not to join IUPAT Local 890. 15 maintenance workers for a subcontractor at the Merck facilities in North Wales, PA voted 5-7 against joining UA Local 420. Not quite a loss, but the 14 Petco workers who are organizing in Seattle with UFCW Local 3000 have withdrawn their NLRB petition, for now. Similarly, not quite a loss, but I wrote about how UFCW Local 7 has dropped its bid to unionize the third Trader Joe’s store in the country. Of the eight workers who make hinges and other steel products for Carlsen Manufacturing in Rome, GA, three voted, and they all voted no on joining UA Local 72 (in a rerun of a March vote that was 0-6, so I guess the union improved its outcome).

Decertifications and raids: Usually don’t report on decertification filings but it’s notable that a decertification petition has been filed at the Mayo Clinic in Austin, MN against Steelworkers Local 11-00578, since a big Mayo Clinic facility just decertified the Minnesota Nurses Association in a very contentious vote last month; Mayo is also trying to decert 32 more RNs with MNA in Lake City. 98 workers at Penske Truck Leasing in Cincinnati and Erlanger, KY beat back a decertification attempt, sticking with Machinists Local 804, 41-28. 58 workers at Pepsi in Sedalia, MO decertified Teamsters Local 41, by 7-32. 54 workers at the Montecito Heights nursing home in Los Angeles dropped SEIU Local 2015 in a 16-22 vote. 

Outside the NLRB & other new organizing drives: Some 3,000 grad workers at Boston University have gone public with their union organizing campaign with SEIU Local 509. The Teamsters are undergoing a huge organizing drive at DHL in Cincinnati, which would add 1,500 members to the 4,000 already-organized Teamster DHL workers. The MLBPA has officially begun distributing union cards to organize the minor leagues, which would obviously be a huge and prominent campaign. I missed this at the time (thanks for the flag, Lee Harris), but the UMWA has a deal with electric car battery maker SPARKZ to organize (I can’t tell if it’s neutrality, or recognition, or maybe just some “labor-management partnership” thing that’s fuzzier than that) 350 workers at a plant being built in West Virginia. Around 180 workers at GE in Auburn, AL have announced their campaign to unionize with IUE-CWA. 100 tech workers at The Atlantic have won voluntary recognition with the New York NewsGuild. About 90 workers in the Pierce County, WA public defenders’ office won a card-check vote to join SEIU Local 925, and some 50 workers who make electric buses for New Flyer in Jamestown, NY also won a (private) card-check election, joining the IUE-CWA. Public library workers in Grandview Heights, OH are organizing with AFT. The Architectural Workers Union, affiliated with the Machinists, has won its first unit by voluntary recognition at a small firm in New York City.

Store closures (here’s to hoping this won’t become a new category): The day its employees had planned to go on strike, the Nashville restaurant Chaatable abruptly closed for good; food service workers in the city have been organizing with Workers Dignity, a local workers center. Meanwhile, Knead Pizza in Harrisburg, PA closed just after workers announced their intention to unionize with UNITE HERE. 

A new federal report says there are 300,000 federal workers who are eligible for unionization but haven’t been organized; not just those who don’t pay dues, but those who aren't covered under a union contract. For context, AFGE, the largest of the federal unions, reports just over 300,000 dues-paying members, so lots of room to grow here.

Amazon has finally lost its ridiculous appeal at the NLRB not to recognize the Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island, NY, and, separately, the Board has ruled that the Schodack, NY election will go ahead over the company’s spurious objections.

Finally, the ever-essential “State of the Unions” report is out for 2022 and is very much worth your time; we are still in decline, despite all the good news of the past year, and that’s still the headline for the US labor movement. Plus much more of interest in here.

Healthcare: The largest strike in the country this week remains NUHW’s 2,000 mental healthcare workers striking Kaiser across Northern California. It’s an open-ended strike, which is somewhat more rare in the healthcare sector, and of course comes on the heels of a good amount of strike activity (or at least strike hype) at Kaiser in 2021. Cal Winslow wrote about it for Labor Notes. Elsewhere in healthcare strike activity, things have considerably heated up this week, with 15,000 Minnesota Nurses Association RNs formally authorizing a strike (though still needing a 10-day notice at each of the dozen hospitals in Duluth and the Twin Cities to walk off), over 6,000 more with the Michigan Nurses Association announcing a strike vote at the University of Michigan, and a similar number at Kaleida Health in Buffalo with CWA Locals 1133 and 1168 saying they’ll make a similar announcement soon, plus 2500 nursing home workers at 39 facilities in Pennsylvania have authorized a strike with SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania. 

Another strike in California just about tied the Kaiser NUHW workers in number, when Frontier telecom workers across several CWA locals are now on their fourth ULP strike in the past year, as the company granted a one year extension which expired in April, has made safety violations, and refused to furnish information to the union. In other California strike watch news, about 1,000 workers with UNITE HERE Local 2 at the San Francisco airport have announced a “strike countdown,” though I haven’t seen a particular date set; 40 workers with BCTGM Local 85 who make Corn Nuts at Hormel in Fresno, CA are on strike, chanting “no contract, no crunch (Post must be sweating about this spreading to Grape Nuts); and oh yeah there was a big walkout at the Amazon facility in San Bernardino, CA, as Caroline O’Donovan and Lauren Kaori Gurley broke at The Washington Post. 

Rest assured, a week did not pass without Starbucks Workers United going on strike, including at three stores in California (while we’re on the topic) in Santa Cruz, Lakewood, and Barstow, CA; I  finally got to my first picket line in Olney, MD; workers who’ve been on strike for over a month in Boston were visited by Bernie and Sara Nelson; all six (!) unionized stores in Eugene, OR struck, in a big flex; and in a much bigger flex, the Memphis Seven, an entire organizing committee flagrantly fired by Starbucks months ago, got reinstated by the NLRB and struck the store the next day. All of this will go in the history books, but man, that should go on the front cover. In the meantime, Starbucks continues to fire organizers and is calling foul against the NLRB, pushing for a national injunction on mail-in elections; so yeah, this campaign is going to stay militant and ugly for a while, if I had to guess.

Workers for prepared food distributor Homegrown in Renton, WA struck with UNITE HERE Local 8, in part in protest against surveillance cameras being installed while wages and working conditions go unaddressed, a concern shared by UPS workers, as two drivers write for Labor Notes. Elsewhere in food warehouse/Teamster news, Sysco workers with Teamsters Local 104 in Tolleson, AZ aren’t on strike, but they did walk off a shift (click that video, it’s great) and apparently local businesses are feeling the effects as the company drags on negotiations.

There was a big update this week in the rail labor dispute affecting 115,000 workers, as the Biden-appointed Presidential Emergency Board issued their recommendations for a settlement, which triggers a final 30-day cooling-off period before any potential strike or lockout. The upshot is a serviceable wage package but little to nothing to address the overwork and lack of time off for rail workers which provoked strike threats earlier this year. Joe DeManuelle-Hall interviewed rail worker Ross Grooters for Jacobin, and some of the unions and the rail employers have issued statements. I’m not gonna get into the prediction game here, but will reiterate how massive and historic a rail strike would be.

Education: Columbus, OH teachers are voting tonight (Sunday) on whether to actually walk off tomorrow, in what would be the largest teacher strike in the state in decades. Meanwhile, 400 Dallastown, PA teachers have authorized a strike ahead of the start of the school year, as have 40 cafeteria workers in the Woodland Hills district outside Pittsburgh (including John Fetterman’s home base of Braddock). In higher ed, American University staff in DC with SEIU Local 500 will be walking off the job on Monday, and Barnard adjuncts in NYC have a new contract with UAW Local 2110. Outside of education per se, but elsewhere in UAW Local 2110, workers at Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA held a one-day strike. 

500 workers at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Middletown, IA, apparently repped by ten different unions, are on the verge of striking, says Forbes. Between Boeing, Collins, Raytheon, and probably others, defense contractors have been locking out and stiffing their workers in all kinds of ways, despite a ballooning military budget. It’s amazing that even the most cynical American-workers-benefitting-from-bloodthirsty-extractive-empire deal is too much to ask from the US capitalist class. 

The Steelworkers are still negotiating with Cleveland-Cliffs and US Steel for a contract covering 3,000 workers; this is the kind of bargaining that could sneak up and be a big deal, but doesn’t tend to get much press coverage, so something to watch.

The trades: A Robert De Niro-owned production company is building a new studio in Queens, NY using non-union labor and Laborers Local 79 held a hilarious protest. In St. Louis, the building trades (or at least IBEW Local 1, Iron Workers Local 396, and Elevator Constructors Local 3) have new contracts. Workers with IBEW Local 702 at electric utility Ameren in West Frankfort, IL are in an unspecified “contract dispute.”

Other settlements: Spokane, WA educators have a new contract, as do Joliet, IL K-12 support staff. Baton Rouge, LA transit workers with ATU Local 1546 have a new contract after years of negotiations.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

SEIU-UHW is on the verge of a deal with the California Hospital Association that would let the bosses delay implementing earthquake safety updates (probably important in California) in exchange for raises. Five other unions are opposing the deal, writing “Our unions strongly oppose trading wages for safety.”

Victoria Law has a worthwhile piece in The Nation about unions against prison reform.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

I don’t tend to cover Canadian unions, but Unifor has a new president, from outside the auto sector, which is certainly relevant for the UAW as they hold their first direct elections, and get ready for Big Three negotiations.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 400 Amazon workers have filed for an election with the Amazon Labor Union in Castelton, NY, outside Albany; already the company’s anti-union efforts at the facility have reached a fever pitch. 116 security guards at the New York, New York casino which is in fact in Las Vegas, NV are joining the SPFPA. 112 grocery workers at New Seasons Market in Portland, OR are organizing with an independent New Seasons union. 70 workers for Liberty Utilities in Columbus, GA are unionizing with the Utility Workers. 57 hospice workers for Sutter in Alameda, CA are unionizing with NUHW. 55 firefighters I believe at an air base (or somewhere else that would have a private fire department) in Marietta, GA working for Constellis are unionizing with TWU Local 525 (which is jurisdictionally odd, this would normally be IAFF or Machinists turf). 43 mental health crisis intervention workers for the White Bird Clinic in Eugene, OR, a local alternative to using cops to intervene in such cases, are unionizing with Teamsters Local 206. 43 sanitation workers for EJ Harrison & Sons in Ventura, CA are organizing with Teamsters Local 186. 42 stagehands, costumers and others at the Robert W Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta are unionizing with IATSE. 38 drivers for produce wholesaler Imperfect Foods in Clackamas, OR are organizing with UFCW Local 555; Teamsters Local 162 lost a union bid there last year. The 30 strippers and dancers for Star Garden in Hollywood, CA have formally filed for a union election with Actors’ Equity after months of organizing and striking. 

Very small shops: 19 retail workers at a Goodwill in Affton, MO are organizing with UFCW Local 655, following in the footsteps of others in the St. Louis area. Yet another 18 workers at a Half Price Books location, this time in Louisville, are unionizing with UFCW Local 227; UFCW has quietly organized half a dozen of this regional chain’s stores over the past year. 18 workers at the Academy House condo complex in Philadelphia are unionizing with AFSCME Local 1739, and 10 at two buildings in Chelsea, NYC are joining 32BJ SEIU. 17 dispensary workers at Harvest Arizona in Scottsdale, AZ are joining UFCW Local 99, and eight dispensary workers at Bloom Medicinals in Springfield, MO are unionizing with UFCW Local 2. 16 RNs at South Shore Endoscopy in Braintree, MA are joining the Massachusetts Nurses Association. 15 transit workers subcontracted out of CT Transit in Hamden, CT are joining Teamsters Local 443. 11 workers at a Vulcan Materials concrete plant in Miller Place, NY are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 138, and seven more who make and transport concrete for Irving Materials in Scottsville, KY are joining Teamsters Local 89. 11 workers at Ralls County Electric Cooperative in New London, MO are joining IBEW Local 2 and seven more at Renville Sibley Cooperative Power Association in Danube, MN are joining IBEW Local 160. Ten workers for contractor Mike Gowen Mechanical in Little Rock, AR are unionizing with UA Local 155. Eight workers in the meat department of the Safeway in Lewistown, MT are joining UFCW, as are three pharmacists at a Safeway in Portland, OR. Eight skilled maintenance workers at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, CA are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 39. Seven eye doctors for Keck Medicine in Arcadia, CA are joning NUHW. Seven parts workers for Cummins in Horseheads, NY are joining Machinists District Lodge 65. Three home heating oil truck drivers for Cernak in Easthampton, MA are joining Teamsters Local 404. Two workers at packaging company Veritiv in North Plains, OR are joining Teamsters Local 206. Two maintenance workers at Loyola University in Chicago are joining Operating Engineers Local 399. Two nurses at Altus Biologics in Wentzville, MO are joining the very company-friendly-at-best (judge for yourself) Congress of Independent Unions.

NLRB election wins…: In one of the biggest manufacturing wins of recent years, UAW Local 140 appears to have won an election among 490 auto parts workers at Dakkota in Hazel Park, MI by a stunning 172-0 count; would love to hear how they pulled that off, if anyone knows, also notable that Local 155 won a 240-worker unit at Dakkota in Detroit 64-1 last year. 227 workers voted to join Starbucks Workers United by a combined 98-34 vote at nine stores in San Francisco, Chicago, Carbondale, IL, Louisville, Wichita, Richmond Heights, MO, Malta, NY, McMurray, PA, and Edina, MN. One store in Reading, MA voted 4-7 against the union, and n the fourth tally of ballots at a Starbucks in Cheektowaga, NY, the union officially finally lost, 8-9, having filed back in November in the initial wave of organizing. 64 school bus drivers for First Student in South Bend, IN voted 18-1 to join Teamsters Local 364. 39 dispensary workers at Zen Leaf in Pilsen, Chicago voted 22-2 to join Teamsters Local 777, while 11 dispensary workers at Maribis in Springfield, IL voted 7-0 to join UFCW Local 881; and if that weren’t enough to confirm the Teamsters-vs.-UFCW turf war over cannabis workers in Illinois is alive and well, the Teamsters made a big show of saying all cannabis workers in the state should join Local 777; elsewhere in weed organizing, 38 workers at a Curaleaf in Phoenix joined UFCW Local 99 in an 8-5 vote, and five workers at a JDRC dispensary in Fall River, MA voted 4-0 to join UFCW Local 328. 30 security guards at the CDC facility in Fort Collins, CO voted 12-1 to join the SPFPA. 21 warehouse workers at wood products distributor Weyerhauser in Albany, OR voted 11-5 to join Machinists District Lodge W24. 11 doctors and nurses at three urgent care clinics run by PeaceHealth in Oregon voted 10-0 to join AFT Local 6552. Nine sanitation workers for Blue Line Transfer in South San Francisco voted 6-1 to join Teamsters Local 350. Five healthcare workers on the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque voted to join Machinists Local 794, 4-0, though the two techs in a separate vote deadlocked 1-1. All three parts workers for Alta Construction Equipment in Batavia, NY voted to join Operating Engineers Local 158, and all three workers at Global Auto Logistics in El Cajon, CA voted to join Teamsters Local 683. 

…and losses: 54 workers at Mauser Packaging in Chicago lost a rerun that they had won in May, this time voting 10-35 against joining UFCW Local 1546; in another disappointing UFCW rerun, 20 pharmacists at 11 Walgreens locations in Oakland and Alameda, CA, tied 8-8 on joining UFCW Local 5, in a rerun of an election that the union won in May (and if you want to know why either of these were rerun, you’ll have to FOIA the NLRB). 20 school bus drivers for M&J Bus in Mansfield, CT voted 9-11 against joining Teamsters Local 671, and three school bus mechanics for First Student in Pittsburgh deadlocked 1-1 on joining ATU Local 1743. Ten freight truck drivers for Dependable Highway Express in Fresno, CA tied 5-5 on joining Teamsters Local 431. 

Decertifications and raids: Despite the best efforts of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (a billionaire-backed anti-union effort), NNU nurses defeated a decertification attempt at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, ME, by a far larger margin than they initially won their union, which is a great show of force. The Oregon Nurses Association maybe just lost a unit at the Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Ontario, OR, but the local news report is quite confusing.

Beyond NLRB filings: Huntsville, AL utility workers are seeking representation with IBEW, and are showing up at city council meetings to make their case. Commercial production workers who are trying to organize with IATSE are facing severe union-busting from the employers’ association, they say. As are Trader Joe’s workers in NYC, whose store was closed on the verge of them going public with their union efforts, reports Dave Jamieson. And elsewhere in anti-union grocery activity, Whole Foods forbid workers from wearing Black Lives Matter apparel, and the case has found its way to Jennifer Abruzzo’s NLRB, as Josh Eidelson reports. And although I’m skeptical of optimism, let’s end on a better note, with this story of how Korean restaurant workers in Los Angeles won their union contract with an independent union. Workers can, in fact, win.