The week in US unions, May 6-13, 2021

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 122 educators at the Great River School, a K-12 Montessori in St. Paul, MN are organizing with Education Minnesota Federation of Charter School Employees (NEA/AFT). 70 LPNs and support staff at assisted living home Mount Alverno Center in Warwick, NY are organizing with 1199 SEIU. 45 production workers at the John Deere Regional Parts Distribution Center in Dallas, TX are organizing with the UAW. The weed organizing wave blazes on in Illinois, with Teamsters Local 777 going for 40 dispensary workers at Moca/Ascend Cannabis Dispensary in Chicago, which I’m sure UFCW is not thrilled about. 40 skilled building maintenance workers at Pfizer’s Andover, MA plant, which manufactures the mRNA used in the vaccine, are organizing with either the Utility Workers Local 369 or the Area Trades Council (can’t tell if this is a raid or just two efforts ). 30 warehouse workers in Memphis for UPS Healthcare -- which is apparently a separate division from the package delivery division, and thus not already part of the largest private sector contract in the country -- are organizing with Teamsters Local 667. 30 security guards at the border patrol station in Carrizo Springs, TX are unionizing with the SPFPA. 

Small shops: 25 workers at art house theater Anthology Film Archive in New York City are unionizing with UAW Local 2110. 24 RNs at Stanford Health Care in Palo Alto, CA are joining CRONA, the Committee for Recognition of Nursing Achievement, an independent nurses union that’s been around since the 60s, and exclusively represents nurses at Stanford Health Care. 24 union staffers for the Pacific NW Regional Council of Carpenters are forming a staff union with UFCW Local 367. Another 23 employees at the Hispanic Society of America in NYC are also organizing with UAW Local 2110. 15 drivers, janitors, and maintenance workers for hospital linens supplier Crothall Laundry Services in Gilroy, CA are unionizing with Teamsters Local 853. 14 support staffers at Sacramento, CA’s Dignity Health Medical Foundation’s Behavioral Health department are joining SEIU UHW. 12 drivers for linen and uniform supply company Alsco in Pensacola, FL, are organizing with Teamsters Local 991. Ten drivers for US Foods in Harrington, DE are unionizing with Teamsters Local 355. Nine equipment operators with Impact Environmental in Newark and Cinnaminson, NJ are joining Operating Engineers Local 825. Six surgical RNs at Riverside Community Hospital in Riverside, CA are joining the existing unit of SEIU 121RN. Six security guards at electricity utility NV Energy in Las Vegas are unionizing with SPFPA. Six school bus workers at First Student in Bellport, NY are unionizing with Teamsters Local 1205. Four social workers and counselors at Fryeburg, ME prep school Fryeburg Academy are joining the Maine Education Association. Three workers at equipment and tool supplier Herc Rentals in Saint Peters, MO are joining Operating Engineers Local 513. Two inventory control technicians for refrigerated warehousing company Lineage Logistics in Seattle are joining Teamsters Local 117. 

NLRB wins…: 83 journalists at three Gannett-owned papers in New Jersey -- The Bergen Record, The Daily Record, and the New Jersey Herald -- voted 59-4 (that’s 94%) to join the New York NewsGuild, in a winning streak that just won’t quit. 56 stagehands and other workers at the Saxe and V Theaters in Las Vegas, where you can catch such shows as “Popovich Comedy Pet Theater'' are now with IATSE Local 720 after a 26-22 vote. 43 firefighters, EMTs, and dispatchers at the Army Ammunition Plant in Radford, VA voted 21-11 to join Teamsters Local 171. 10 building engineers at the Honeywell building in Des Plaines, IL voted 9-0 to join Operating Engineers Local 399. Nine hospice nurses with Providence Home Health & Hospice in Portland, OR have joined the Oregon Nurses Association after an 8-0 vote. Seven doormen and parking attendants at Chicago’s 1418 Lake Shore Drive condo complex joined Teamsters Local 727 after a 4-0 vote. Seven cement masons for contractor Fowler General Construction in Richland, WA are now members of OPCMIA Local 72 after one of them voted yes and nobody else voted; a win’s a win.

...and losses: 62 healthcare workers at five clinics for Samaritan Medical Group in Lincoln County, OR aren’t joining SEIU Local 49 after a 19-26 vote. 52 meatpackers at Newport Meat Southern California in Irvine, CA voted 19-24 against joining Teamsters Local 952. 9 freight truck drivers for 10 Roads Express in Lexington, KY voted 3-6 against joining Teamsters Local 651. 

Decertifications: Alcorn Fence Company in Riverside, CA is no longer a union shop after a 1-0 vote to decertify Ironworkers Local 509 among the 3 eligible employees.

Outside the NLRB: Editorial staff at criminal justice news outlet The Appeal asked management for voluntary recognition through the Pacific Media Workers Guild (TNG-CWA), were notified of layoffs 5 minutes later, and then successfully had the layoffs rescinded. The national staff of the ACLU had their union recognized as well, as a unit of the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (IFPTE Local 70). Progressive campaign outlet Fireside Campaigns has recognized their employees’ union through the Campaign Workers Guild. Journalists at the Kansas City Star are pushing for voluntary recognition through the newly-formed Kansas City News Guild, and the staff of non-profit news outlet MinnPost won voluntary recognition as part of the Minnesota NewsGuild. In the public sector, our friends at Daily Union Elections (@UnionElections on Twitter) reports 100 workers for the City of Hillsboro, OR have joined AFSCME Oregon, and that 22 custodial workers in Lindstrom, MN have joined SEIU Local 284, who represent school support staff across the state.

The BCTGM Local 26 weed organizing effort at Tweedleaf in Denver has died, and the NLRB petition pulled, apparently at the request of UFCW. Sounds like turf wars are alive and well in the cannabis industry.

DSA Maine’s new Pine & Roses has an interview with one of the nurses who voted to join the Maine State Nurses Association in last week’s massive NLRB win.

STRIKES & BARGAINING

NYU graduate student workers with UAW Local 2110 have announced a tentative agreement and have said the strike is over. Tentative agreements survive membership ratification votes vastly more often than not, but after the Columbia Local 2110 contract failed to pass, I wouldn’t bet my entire paycheck on it.

Six and a half weeks in, the 1300-member Steelworkers strike at ATI in Western Pennsylvania and a few other locations, rolls on. The two sides sound pretty far apart. The USW is reaching out for federal mediation, and ATI is apparently not opposed to the concept.

Ten weeks in, Massachusetts Nurses Association nurses at St Vincent Hospital in Worcester, MA are holding the line, and Jacobin has a look into that strike. The hospital has just announced its intentions to hire permanent replacements.

The UMWA strike at Warrior Met in Brookwood, AL drags on, with police threatening picketers with arrest, and families taking on a heavy burden, according to local news.

115 call center workers in Hyattsville, MD for DC’s paratransit service MetroAccess withATU Local 689 authorized a strike against WMATA subcontractor MV Transportation, then hit the picket line just before 11am on Friday morning. Allies should call WMATA’s Managing Director of Access Services, Christiaan Blake at: 202-281-8984 & demand that he tell WMATA contractor MV Transportation to settle a fair contract today. If that voicemail fills up, email cblake@wmata.com. At issue is a 1% wage increase offer from the company, who, when pressed, apparently told a worker that a job that doesn’t require a degree isn’t worth more than that.

21 workers with Workers United Local 9 in Mount Union, PA at Bleyer Industries, which does business as “Fun World,” and whose claim to fame is being the only US producer of Easter grass and Halloween spiderweb tinsel, walked out on Tuesday. The main demand is a pay raise, as the average wage among the workers is a whopping $8.50 an hour, which doesn’t sound Fun at all, no matter how much tinsel is involved.

Janitors with 32BJ SEIU struck cleaning contractor Greene Kleen in Doral, FL after filing unfair labor practice charges, accusing management of surveillance and threats regarding union organizing attempts. 

SEIU 1199 New England had a big week in Connecticut. After 3,400 nursing home workers announced their intent to strike beginning on May 14th, an additional 2,000 workers at group homes announced their intent to strike beginning on May 21st. Suddenly, the state was faced with the prospect of 5,000 striking essential workers. So, like any union-loving pro-labor Democratic, Governor Ned Lamont proceeded to… notify the National Guard to be ready to help break the strike if the union didn’t accept the “last and best offer.” God love the free market and its incredible ability to find the fair price of wages. Behind the scenes, Lamont’s talk wasn’t apparently as tough, and 1199 agreed to delay the nursing home strike, and then called it off entirely, announcing a wage increase of more than 10% over two years, winning their demand for a $20/hour minimum wage in the state’s nursing homes. Apparently the agreement doesn’t cover the group home workers, so we’ll see what happens on the 21st.

In what can’t be a good sign, the only development in the Beaumont, TX ExxonMobil lockout of over 600 Steelworkers is that the union wants federal mediation. Considering there seems to be an industry-wide move to bust refinery workers’ unions, it’ll take more than that to save these workers’ jobs. Maybe if there really is a gas shortage, ExxonMobil will feel less comfortable with the potential disruptions of a brand-new scab workforce, but that’s pure speculation. A gas shortage is temporary; a busted union is forever.

AFT Local 2121, representing faculty at City College of San Francisco, is getting pummeled by austerity. First, the administration proposed laying off 163 faculty (and 34 administrators) to avoid going into a sort of state receivership due to financial insolvency. After protests by the union and student groups alike, the College made a deal to stop the layoffs in exchange for a 4-11% wage cut across the board. The deal was put to a membership vote, where it won over 80% approval from the 79% of members who voted, according to the union. If that weren’t enough, there’s also a reopening fight brewing on campus. The layoff situation is of course not unique to CCSF, and Inside Higher Ed has a comparison of the CCSF cuts as against an arbitrator’s decision to cut 17 faculty jobs at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, whose faculty are unionized with the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh. Elsewhere in higher ed, University of Kentucky workers with United Campus Workers Kentucky (CWA)rallied this week for more staff and faculty input on top-level hiring decisions, in particular the search for a new dean of the university’s graduate school, and won. At the University of California system, UC-AFT and the administration are close to an impasse, which could mean some labor action this fall, though there’s nothing concrete yet.

In K-12 education, Charles County, Maryland teachers (NEA) rallied for a fully-funded public schools budget. I’d expect protests like these to spread across the country, and by September be at a sort of fever pitch, combined with reopening rules fights and whatever other sorts of pandemic austerity-inspired interventions local superintendents try to implement over the summer. In other signs of potential trouble to come, Virginia’s Arlington Education Association is reporting that too few teachers have volunteered for summer instruction to hold summer school. The burnout and turnover rates among K-12 teachers must be astronomical right now, and budget cuts plus labor shortage is not a winning formula for labor peace. In Louisiana, public school teachers and support staff are getting a small raise, but remain below the average across the South, which in turn is below the average in the rest of the country.

Lest you think pandemic austerity is limited to the public sector, the Metropolitan Opera in NYC is proposing wage cuts for its union workers (of which there are apparently 14 local unions), and AFM Local 802 and IATSE Local 1 are rallying against the move; the American Guild of Musical Artists, who represents chorus singers, is apparently the only local who’s been able to come to an agreement. Elsewhere in private sector reopening injustice, IATSE Local 28 stagehands remain locked out at Portland, OR’s Moda Center.

In Rochester, NY, building trades unions are protesting the Monroe County Economic Development Agency’s proposal to waive labor regulations for the construction of a new Amazon facility in Gates, NY. The idea that Amazon needs these kinds of enticements is laughable, and just pits local governments against one another as they prostrate themselves before the retail giant, offering supplication and sacrificial tax abatements in return for low-wage jobs. That’s how you get a world in which Amazon workers pay more in taxes than Amazon does.

UAW Local 699 in Saginaw, MI announced a new tentative agreement with auto parts supplier Nexteer. The previous TA was voted down by the membership by 85% in February; as in the Volvo fight in Virginia, the local is apparently not releasing the TA to the membership, so it’s hard to know exactly what the sticking points are, but it seems like healthcare is (as it so often is, in our privatized insurance regime) a major issue. Also of note is that the local’s leadership elections are later this month, with five candidates for President, which is somewhat unusual for a 2500-member local.

On May 19th, Fight for $15 will strike McDonalds in 15 cities. These protest-strike blends don’t always shut down business, and sometimes are more media strategies than actual worker actions, but McDonalds in this case seems to be listening; the company announced they’ll accede to a $15/hour minimum wage at all company-owned franchises. The catch? Only 5% of stores are technically company-owned, the other 95% are legally considered independent employers although that doesn’t pass the smell test and a joint employer rule is common sense (i.e., companies can’t just play shell games with their subsidiaries when they clearly have substantial if not total control over the experience of working at any given store.).

The ten unjustly-fired UPS Teamsters with Local 804 in Queens, NY got their jobs back, after a big campaign that drew public support and involved the president of the local parking a video billboard truck out of one of the managers’ Long Island home. Turns out that under the largest private sector contract in the country you can’t fire people for leaving work when their shift is up. Elsewhere at “Big Brown,” UPS drivers with Teamsters Local 340 held an informational picket in Auburn, ME, against overwork, and a failure to hire more drivers to lighten the load. UPS is one of the most notorious companies for mandatory overtime and forced overwork, with drivers routinely working 50-60 hours per week, and up to 70 hours per week in “peak season” from mid-November to mid-January. The pandemic has been crushing for these workers, as people working from home order more shit, which is good for business but pushes the human body to its limit when the company doesn’t want to hire more workers.

Elsewhere in Teamsters 340 news, four police officers (the local represents several municipal police department employees in Maine) filed a complaint against the Fryeburg police chief for filing false reports to get out of a meeting, and the chief subsequently lost his job. Who says police unions can’t have a role in police reform? (I kid. Mostly.)

Another California school district, Santa Maria, is at an impasse in negotiations with its teachers union. The Santa Maria Education Association is rallying for public support, and talking about bringing in a mediator.

89 school support staff with the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (AFSCME) with the Claymont City Schools District in Dennison, OH who struck for a month in 2019 have settled a contract in just two days of negotiations. 

A weed dispensary in San Diego County, CA has reached its first contract with UFCW Local 135. It’s not the first California cannabis industry CBA, but it’s the first to originate in San Diego. What’s interesting about this account is the weird ways in which legislative mandates of labor peace agreements can put workers in a strange position where the union and their bosses are telling them what the deal is without much input. Or as the article puts it, bargaining “was management-led and formulated in concert with the union, who brought workers into the process down the line.” It goes on to detail some of the bristling from workers that generated.

United Airlines is still considering outsourcing over 2500 airline catering jobs, which just so happen to be the group that newly unionized with UNITE HERE in the fall of 2018. It’s not just massive corporations, though — Powell’s Books in Portland, OR is forcing its union employees (with ILWU Local 5) to re-apply for their own jobs lost during the pandemic. Disaster capitalism takes many forms.

Hawaii teachers are getting a $2,200 bonus; support staff aren’t. HGEA (AFSCME), who represents custodians, teaching aides, principals, and others, is speaking out against the disparity.

NUHW members at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital in Fountain Valley, CA protested parent company Tenet Healthcare (which, incidentally, is also the hospital corporation that forced the longest ongoing strike in the country, at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, MA) and their use of subcontractor Compass, for paying poverty wages, failing to provide COVID testing, and working conditions that have been decried by state legislators.

For the past couple weeks, there’s been trouble brewing with the ILA and the Port of Charleston, as a new terminal uses non-union labor in violation of the master contract that covers the East Coast, and an obvious threat to these union workers. I wonder if it matters that the ILA disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO last year; if this gets out of hand, they could start wishing they had a little more firepower, at least on the legal and political fronts.

SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin is organizing for a raise for workers at Aspirus Riverview Hospital in Wisconsin Rapids, WI. This quote from one of the workers pretty much summed it up: "I've been there just under 29 years and make $15.89 an hour” said Sarah Von Loh, a cleaner at the hospital. "That's pretty pathetic. We just want a decent, living wage." The CEO makes $1.5 million.

The Teamsters have successfully led shareholders to defeat a CEO compensation package at Marathon, as part of a larger campaign against the lockout of 200 refinery workers in the Twin Cities that began in January.

The Steelworkers have delivered a public support petition on behalf of 65 workers at HCL Solutions, an IT subcontractor for Google, demanding the company negotiate a first contract; the workers voted in 2019 to join USW, but it sounds like they haven’t made much progress.

BCTGM Local 218, representing Frito-Lay workers in Topeka, KS, continues to fight for a fair contract. The company’s last offer was rejected by the membership at the end of March by a 265-36 vote. If they can’t get a better offer, they may take a strike authorization vote.

A complicated conflict over Project Labor Agreements -- which dictate labor standards for large-scale construction projects -- at the Imperial Irrigation District, a large public utility in California, has spilled into a court fight. It’s a big deal for the trades, who stand to win or lose a lot of work for members, and who’ve already clashed this year with the IID.

The state of Nevada has approved the first-ever union contract with state employees, after a 2019 law passed legalizing collective bargaining for certain state workers.This first agreement was for about 110 employees of the state police, including titles like youth parole counselor, agricultural enforcement officer, and criminal investigator, through CWA Local 9110, Nevada State Law Enforcement Officers’ Association/Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers. The state has three more state worker contracts left to approve, which include members of AFSCME Local 4041, the Nevada Police Union (an independent union), and IAFF Local 3895.

AFSCME Local 3999, representing workers for the City of Santa Fe, NM, is filing complaints about hazardous working conditions at the Santa Fe Wastewater Treatment Plant. In 2019, a 27-year-old worker at the Santa Fe Convention Center, also a Local 3999 member, was fatally electrocuted on the job. His family was awarded a $500,000 tort settlement, and the city separately paid $120,000, mainly towards safety improvements. Elsewhere in hazardous work environments, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (AFT) is raising the alarm about asbestos, lead paint, mold, and more in Philly’s public schools, and demanding repairs.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Federally, UNITE HERE is pushing for the “Save Hotel Jobs Act,” to provide tax credits to workers for PPE, and extend direct payroll assistance to the hospitality industry to bring back lost jobs; in terms of percentage of the workforce, hospitality was the hardest-hit industry by the pandemic, and UNITE HERE had nearly 100% of its workers on layoff at its lowest point. A bill is advancing in the Rhode Island legislature to extend the provisions of state workers’ union contracts indefinitely when negotiations stall out. Other states have similar provisions, like the Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law in New York State, but Rhode Island’s passage of a similar law specifically for K-12 educators is in legal limbo at the moment, so we’ll see if this effort goes anywhere. In the Connecticut legislature, a legislative effort to essentially provide neutrality and union access among public employees (as an effort to combat some of the effects of 2018’s Janus supreme court decision, which made the public sector “open shop”) is one step closer to enactment.

AFSCME Local 270, the largest municipal employees union in Spokane, WA, is suing over a ballot measure that mandates contract negotiations be open to the public. 

OSHA continues to be amazingly slow about issuing its long-delayed emergency workplace standard for COVID-19. Now reports say it should be out “by June.” Who knows, maybe they can even issue it before the pandemic ends. Meanwhile, the Steelworkers safety director, on the occasion of his retirement, is warning about OSHA’s general slowness in responding to potentially hazardous workplace technological developments.

The National Right To Work Legal Foundation continues its crusade to weaken unions, targeting Operating Engineers Local 324 in Michigan, for not expediently enough facilitating union freeloaders in their freeloading.

UNION LEADERSHIP

The heads of AFT & NEA -- Randi Weingarten and Becky Pringle, respectively -- are both calling for a full in-person reopening of public schools in the fall. The point is somewhat moot, and not news, as Weingarten has been a vocal proponent of reopening schools, even when some of her biggest locals (Chicago, Los Angeles) were actively fighting against it. 

The incumbent president of the Camden Education Association will see a challenge later this month, as the local holds leadership elections after 3 years without a contract.

Matthew Cunningham-Cook has a great piece at The Intercept on this fall’s Teamsters leadership elections, and what it has to do with organizing Amazon. As I wrote last week, organizing the unorganized is not a controversial position in the union, so it’s no surprise that both slates are making a campaign issue out of it. What is controversial is the 2018 UPS contract, and one slate -- O’Brien Zuckerman Teamsters United -- is running on their leadership in opposing that contract and opposing its imposition over a majority “no” vote due to a constitutional loophole. Cunningham-Cook is right that without strong contracts in core industries, new organizing that relies on the kind of mobilization and scale an Amazon campaign would require is nearly impossible, as probably a majority of UPS drivers would freely inform you.

Finally, the two big pieces of news in the UAW this week are that ex-President Dennis Williams has officially been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for his role in the years-long corruption in that union in which officials and auto executives exchanged cash for contract concessions. Perhaps the bigger news is that a federal judge has approved Neil Barofsky (who oversaw the TARP bailout that had him dealing directly with Big Three auto companies among many others) as the independent monitor as the UAW tries to start a new chapter after the devastating corruption scandal. That it’s Barofsky is not the big news, but the act of officially naming him as monitor means the clock is ticking on a six month window to hold a membership-wide referendum on whether or not to transition the union’s leadership selection process to a one-member one-vote ballot (as opposed to heavily indirect delegate elections), which is the first real threat to the Administration Caucus’s leadership of the union in decades.