The week in US unions, Mar 4-11
Hi all, thanks for reading Who Gets the Bird? Quick plug: this evening (Thursday, 3/11) I’ll be joining Jordan Uhl’s TYT show at 9:30pm ET to talk about the PRO Act & all things labor. You can join the conversation at twitch.tv/tyt. Thanks for reading & sharing.
NEW ORGANIZING
New organizing filings at the NLRB: 420 Propel Charter School workers at 13 schools and headquarters in Allegheny County, PA are organizing with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. 100 museum workers at Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA are organizing with UAW 2110, who represent museum workers mostly in Manhattan, as well as other white collar workers including grad workers at Columbia and NYU.70 nursing home workers at Medilodge in Lansing, MI are organizing with SEIU Healthcare Michigan. 65 healthcare techs at Bon Secours Healthcare in Warwick, NY are organizing with 1199 SEIU. 32 workers at flour miller Grain Craft in Ogden, UT are organizing with the Bakers, BCTGM. 22 Head Start workers in Brooklyn are organizing with AFSCME DC 37. 13 Allied security guards who work at the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry in Williamsburg, VA are organizing with the SPFPA.
Tiny shops: Nine data center maintenance workers for Electronic Environments in Marlborough, MA are organizing with Teamsters Local 170. Eight maintenance workers at Liberty Communications in San Juan, PR are organizing with CWA Local 3010. Eight parking attendants at Sudler Property Management are joining Teamsters Local 727 in Chicago. Seven Red Cross workers in Cleveland are joining Teamsters Local 507. Six mechanics at an Audi and Volkswagen dealer in Newton, NJ are joining United Service Workers Union Local 355, IUJAT. Six truck drivers at wholesaler UNFI in San Diego are joining Teamsters Local 63. Six truck drivers with L&W construction materials supplier in Saginaw, MI are joining Operating Engineers Local 324. Five dispensary workers at The Verb is Herb in Easthampton, MA are joining UFCW Local 1459. Three school bus safety instructors at First Student in Anaheim, CA are joining Teamsters Local 952. Three drivers at 1-800-PACK-RAT Moving & Storage in Puyallup, WA are joining Teamsters Local 313. Three medical techs at Mercy Hospital in Sacramento, CA are joining Stationary Engineers Local 39. Two building maintenance workers at investment banker Heritage Capital in Parsippany, NJ are joining Operating Engineers Local 68.
NLRB election wins…: Queens Defenders staff have unionized after a long, contentious battle with management. 65 support staffers at ManorCare nursing home in Kingston, PA voted 28-13 to join Laborers Local 1310. 39 security guards at the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, VA voted 11-0 to join URSO, Union Rights for Security Officers. Ten nurses at Fort Hood voted 6-0 to join Operating Engineers Local 351. Seven drivers and warehouse workers for building materials supplier Interior Supply, Inc., in Holland, OH are joining Teamsters Local 20 after a 5-1 vote. Four building engineers for BGIS at a facility that houses an AT&T data center in Lisle, IL voted unanimously to join Operating Engineers Local 399.
...and losses: UFCW Local 1059 got absolutely walloped in an election at furniture manufacturer Solstice Sleep Products in Columbus, OH, losing an 88 worker unit 4-36. 33 dairy production workers at Smith Foods in Pacific, MO voted against joining Teamsters Local 688 in a 9-11 vote. 31 workers at Sun Chemical pigment factory in Kankakee, IL deadlocked 12-12, failing to join Local 498C of the International Chemical Workers Union Council, UFCW.
Doing it with dues: Bus drivers in Meriden, CT with Teamsters Local 677 at New Britain Transportation voted to keep their union security clause (i.e., not go open shop, aka “right to work”), 24-37; these drivers unionized last year. Meanwhile, 53 security guards voted 16-0 to be able to drop their dues, but as these votes require an absolute majority of the unit (as opposed to a majority of voters), the Union of Patriots Plaza at the office complex in DC will continue to collect dues.
Outside the NLRB: The staff of ACLU of Missouri has had their union recognized through a voluntary card check, and will be joining the United Media Guild (formerly the St. Louis Newspaper Guild). Make the Road New York staff have had their union, through UAW 2320, which organizes legal services workers, voluntarily recognized by management. Firefighters in the small town of Lee, MA have organized the newest IAFF local.
Tate’s Bake Shop, the cookie company acquired by Mondelez three years ago, is trying to bust the Novelty Workers Union drive among their largely immigrant workforce on Long Island by threatening workers with deportation. Some of the lowest, nastiest, most racist, divisive shit you can do.
The union push among Illinois’s 17,000 weed workers continues apace. The first weed contract was ratified in December, and the drive seems to be led entirely by UFCW.
A congressional delegation (Bush (MO), Bowman (NY), Levin (MI), Williams (GA), Sewell (AL)) traveled to Bessemer to support the Amazon union drive there. Rep. Ilhan Omar gave her support from the floor of the House.Six NJ Democratic members of Congress are calling on Gannett to stop union-busting against the NewsGuild.
STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS
Nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, MA are on strike over nurse-patient ratios. The Massachusetts Nurses Association represents about 800 nurses at the hospital, and management says about 150 have crossed the picket line. The Teamsters, who represent hospital techs, have said they refuse to provide, train, or supervise scabs.
170 educators with NEA in Bourbonnais, ILremain on strike, primarily over skyrocketing healthcare costs.
150 medical technicians with OFNHP at St. Charles Hospital in Bend, OR remain on strike. Seems like it could be a rough fight, and Oregon labor is watching closely.
6,900 grocery workers at 97 Food4Less stories in Southern California with various UFCW locals are expected to authorize a strike and vote down a contract next week.
Higher Ed organizing: Kenyon College student workers with the Kenyon Student Worker Organizing Committee, a project of UE, have authorized a strike. The president of Illinois State University is shocked that grad workers with SEIU Local 73 are moving into a “strike readiness” phase, after 24 negotiation sessions over 18 months. The Columbia grad workers strike deadline of March 15 looms large, and Interim Provost Ira Katznelson (yes, the liberal political scientist who writes about labor, the New Deal, Marxism) is apparently not blinking. Adjuncts at Virginia Commonwealth University are organizing for a 174% raise, as they currently make a pittance. It’s unclear to me whether there is a union backing these efforts, or if they’re a fully self-organized group.
Jewel averted a strike of 850 grocery workers with Teamsters Local 710 in Melrose Park, IL with a last-minute tentative agreement.
Quickway, a freight carrier, is shuttering its Louisville operation rather than bargain a first contract with Teamsters Local 89. Bizarrely, the company says they’re shutting down due to a strike in December, which the Teamsters say never happened.
Hollywood unions DGA, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, and the Teamsters, are looking to negotiate return to work agreements; their current agreement expires at the end of April, and was bargained in September, before there was even a vaccine.
Biden’s Office of Personnel Management instructed all agencies affected by Trump’s executive orders on federal union rights to reopen their contracts to undo the damage. Agencies have apparently been slow to move, so this is a bit of a nudge to get moving.
Pickets & protests: IATSE is picketing the College Street Music Hall in New Haven after a year of contract negotiations. CWA Local 7250 is picketing AT&T for killing union jobs by closing down three retail stores around the Twin Cities. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance and other allies shut down the Brooklyn Bridge in a march to tax the rich in New York. The Carpenters union has sued the city of Irvine, CA for violating their free speech rights by barring the union from displaying signs about sex offenders (presumably because of some underlying labor dispute with the city/developer).
K-12: Los Angeles, Seattle, and Cleveland teachers all voted, in some form, to reject proposed reopening plans; in LA at least that led to a negotiated deal. CTU says Passages Charter is forcing 40 educators back to work without safety agreements. The Maryland State Board of Education voted to delay standardized tests until the fall. Rachel Cohen has a deep dive on a year of political fights over COVID science in schools, and is, as usual, thorough and useful.
Contract negotiations: SEIU 32BJ has opened bargaining for 10,000 airport workers at LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark. Teachers at the Oldtown School of Folk Music in Chicago, recently unionized with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, are accruing public support over their contract fight; one provision they’re pushing for is representation on the board of the school. Sarah Jaffe has a look into podcast bargaining at Gimlet Media. 360 freight Teamsters at Standard Forwarding approved a one-year contract extension. 5,000 San Francisco janitors with SEIU Local 87 are in contract negotiations. 3,000 of their members have been laid off during the pandemic, while 26 members have died. The Mineworkers have been fighting for the jobs of workers at Remington Arms gun factory in Ilion, New York. The factory was bought by a new company after going bankrupt, and whether it would stay open has been a question -- as well as whether the union contract would stay in effect. Now the company says they’re close to an agreement, whereas UMWA President Cecil Roberts says they haven’t even really begun to negotiate.
At the suggestion of the ever-brilliant Michael Kinnucan, I looked into the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service’s database of contract expirations. These are self-reported notices to bargain, and it’s unclear how compliant unions and companies are, but it gives a really good picture of the nuts and bolts of negotiation timelines. I’ll try to include big shops (there are too many to include every small unit) in my weekly roundups, but here’s a taste for the month of March:
This week’s contract expirations of over 100 workers: 2,800 Autoworkers with UAW Local 2069 at Volvo in Dublin, VA; 600 Steelworkers with USW Local 121B at Neenah Foundry in Neenah, WI; 500 workers with IATSE Local 500 at Production Management One in South Florida; 370 Machinists with District Branch 60 at Pratt & Whitney Autoair in Lansing, MI; 300 members of UFCW Local 880 at Case Farms Processing in Canton, OH; 200 UFCW Local 1995 members at Koch Foods in Morristown, TN; 160 Autoworkers with UAW Local 2279 at Grammar Americas in Delphos, OH; 150 Autoworkers with UAW Local 2409 at Transtar Industries in Cookeville, TN; 100 GCC Teamsters with Local 235/16M at Tension Corp in Kansas City, MO, and earlier this month, 1900 workers with UFCW Local 1000 at HAC, Inc., in Oklahoma City.
Expiring in March: 16,000 school bus Teamsters at 200 job sites across the country, under the national master agreement with First Student; 12,400 grocery workers with UFCW Local 1996 at Kroger across Georgia; 2700 grocery clerks with UFCW Local 880 in Ohio and UFCW Local 360 in New Jersey at Acme Fresh Markets; 2400 utility workers with IBEW Local 2400 at Dominion Energy in Virginia; 2200 Carpenters in Southern Indiana and Kentucky; 1800 workers at HomeGood Distribution Center in Jefferson, GA, with Workers United Local 21; 1400 freight Teamsters with Reddaway; 1200 Local 527 cement masons with St. Louis-area contractors; 1100 tradesmen with UA Local 136 in Southern Indiana and Illinois; 1000 workers at Aramark in Philly with UNITE HERE Local 274; 1000 operating engineers with IUOE Local 17 in Western New York
POLITICS & LEGISLATION
The PRO Act has passed the House. This isn’t shocking, but the fact that it might pass the Senate as well, is. Whip counts vary but at least 45 Democrats are supporting, with rumored soft support from others, and pretty strong language in support from the White House. Of course, since we don’t live in a democracy, a majority is not enough, unless of course the Democrats abolish the filibuster, which the AFL-CIO has, as of this afternoon, strongly called on them to do, following the lead of the Painters and NNU. If this thing gets anywhere near passage, expect to see wrangling over either the misclassification or right to work provisions in the bill as concessions to the right. Even without those important provisions it would have an absolutely massive impact, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see a GOP vote for it; for context, zero Republicans voted for the COVID relief bill, while five House Republicans voted for PRO. The Democratic Socialists of America are organizing thousands of people into a campaign to get the bill passed, which you can learn more about here.
The House and Senate have passed, as part of the massive COVID relief bill, the Butch Lewis Act. Named after a Teamster pension activist, the bill would provide funds for failing multi-employer pension plans, whose defined benefits have consistently been threatened by companies pulling out of plans, draining the funds. The move would save the pensions of over a million workers.
Another kind of reopening fight: as BWI airport gets back up to pre-pandemic operating capacity, UNITE HERE Local 7 (& DSA member and Maryland legislator Vaughn Stewart) is pushing for legislation that would ensure laid-off workers get their jobs back.
Costa Mesa is next in line of California cities approving hazard pay ordinances for grocery store workers. They’re at least the fifth municipality in Southern California to do so, as UFCW continues to push.
Anti-union bills advanced in the state legislatures of Idaho and Florida. A bill that mandates non-tenure-track faculty minimum wage of $5,000 per credit hour, plus unemployment benefits, has advanced in the New Mexico statehouse.
SEIU is endorsing Nina Turner for Congress.
UNION LEADERSHIP
Ed Kelly defeated Mahlon Mitchell for the top spot in the International Association of Fire Fighters. Kelly got about 56% of the delegate vote, which is a pretty slim margin for union elections generally, especially as Kelly was already in the second spot in the union, while Mitchell was not in national leadership. It’s hard to say what this will mean for the IAFF, but if nothing else I would expect to see a drop in political contributions to Democrats from the union’s FIREPAC.
The AFL-CIO Executive Council has voted to delay their quadrennial convention, which was set to take place in October of this year, until June 2022, ostensibly for COVID safety reasons (which I don’t quite know what to make of, considering we expect the country to be widely vaccinated by this summer). Whatever else it might mean, Trumka’s term is now extended for 8 months, and potential challengers -- Sara Nelson if she decides to go for it, Liz Shuler if Trumka indeed retires (though he hasn’t committed to that) -- will have 8 more months to jockey for position.