The week in US unions, July 22-29

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NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 180 workers at Hudson Legal Group, “a full service global corporate immigration law firm” based in Pittsburgh are organizing with the UE. 148 nurse practitioners and physician assistants for WellNow Urgent Care in Syracuse, NY (but I assume this is for more than one location of the clinic chain) are organizing with 1199 SEIU. 43 healthcare techs for Mid-Columbia Medical Center in The Dalles and Hood River, OR are organizing with OFNHP (AFT Local 5017). 32 workers at industrial chemical manufacturer Quaker Houghton in Detroit are unionizing with the UAW. 25 paramedics and EMTs for Bucks County Rescue Squad based in Bristol, PA are unionizing with the Fraternal Association of Professional Paramedics, Local 1 (which is either independent or an IUPA affiliate, I can’t tell). 24 sterile processing techs, who I understand to be the folks who clean healthcare implements so infections don’t spread, at Ascension Providence Hospital in Detroit are unionizing with AFSCME Council 25. 22 school bus drivers for Apple Bus in Wood River, IL, are joining Teamsters Local 525. 17 TV production workers at Fox 61, WTIC in Hartford, CT are organizing with IBEW Local 1228. 14 electricians for Brent Electric in Tulsa, OK are voting on whether to join IBEW Local 584. 13 drivers for uniform delivery company UniFirst in Kansas City, MO are organizing with Teamsters Local 955. 12 workers at construction equipment rental outfit Sunbelt in West Seneca, NY are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 17. Four mechanics for New York Water Taxi in Manhattan are joining Masters, Mates, & Pilots.

NLRB wins…: 266 workers at Keurig Dr. Pepper in Victorville, CA voted 129-112 to join Teamsters Local 896; interestingly, it’s one of four KDP shops (in CA, PA, and VA) that have live union campaigns at the moment. 105 editorial staff at Forbes won their union with the New York NewsGuild in a 67-7 vote. Workers at the Hispanic Society Museum and Library in New York City voted 15-1 to join UAW Local 2110. 11 mechanics for Albertsons in Tolleson, AZ, where drivers and warehouse workers authorized a strike early this year, voted 9-0 to join Teamsters Local 104. Nine mechanics and maintenance workers at Del Monte’s plant in Toppenish, WA, which processes and cans peas and corn, voted 6-0 to join Teamsters Local 760.

...and losses: 120 workers at specialty grocer Formaggio in Hurleyville, NY voted against joining UFCW Local 342 by a big margin, 22-84. 39 fabrication and installation workers for Industrial Sprinkler Corp. in Barceloneta, PR voted 8-20 not to join the Laborers. Ten workers at industrial gas supplier Praxair in Austin, TX deadlocked 5-5, thereby not joining Teamsters Local 657. 

Raids: 70 security officers working for the Department of Homeland Security across Pennsylvania, currently repped by SPFPA Local 502, are being raided by LEOS-PBA. 

Outside the NLRB: Oren Schweitzer at Jacobin has an interview with organizers of the University of California mega-unit of 17,000 researchers joining the UAW.

STRIKES & BARGAINING

Frito-Lay workers in Topeka, KS with BCTGM Local 218 ended their strike on Friday after narrowly (200-178) ratifying a contract. It ends the “suicide shifts” that made headlines, but doesn’t do all that much to mitigate other rampant forced overtime, and the raises involved are as paltry (4% over two years) as they were when the workers first rejected the company’s offer. More Perfect Union shared a brutal story of one worker who was electrocuted on the job and his subsequent fight with the multi-billion-dollar corporation.

Hundreds of UMWA miners returned to Manhattan to protest BlackRock, the hedge fund that owns a chunk of Warrior Met, the Alabama metallurgical coal mining company where 1,100 miners have been on strike for five months. To mark the occasion, Luis Feliz Leon has a piece putting the strike into historical context, and reminding us it’s not the first time striking coal miners have traveled to Wall Street.

St Vincent Hospital in Worcester, MA is now saying that instead of reducing staffing ratios, as the Massachusetts Nurses Association has been demanding for their five months on strike, they’re just going to scale back on services. You know, for the good of the patients, or something. The union says it’s just another intimidation tactic.

235 skilled trades workers with an affiliate of UPTE-CWA Local 9119 at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in Livermore, CA are on a three-day strike, over management’s refusal to bargain over mandatory on-call time, which used to be voluntary.

39 home care therapists in Boston are on a 7-day strike against the Boston Visiting Nurses Association with the Massachusetts Nurses Association. 

The Teamsters Local 142 Pepsi strike in Munster, IN remain on strike, since July 12th, over rising healthcare costs. Inside production workers, also Teamsters, ratified a contract but drivers remain on the line.

After six weeks on strike with the Steelworkers, hydraulic cylinder manufacturing workers for Custom Hoists in Hayesville, OH ratified a contract, which, among other things, closes (but does not eliminate) the two-tier pay gap.

200 nurses with NNU struck the Community First Medical Center on Chicago’s northwest side on Monday, citing workplace safety issues around OSHA and COVID, as well as staffing concerns. Three nurses at the hospital have died of COVID.

About a dozen non-union workers at Springfield, MO’s Aviary Cafe walked off the job on Sunday in protest of low wages, unsafe COVID-related working conditions, and understaffing; they were all fired.

The 500 nurses at McLaren Macomb Hospital in Mt Clemens, MI who were ready to strike yesterday with OPEIU Local 40 reached a deal before the strike began, and a ratification vote is scheduled for early August.

650 nurses at West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh who unionized with SEIU Healthcare PA last August have now authorized a strike over the hospital’s failure to bargain a first contract that addresses -- what else? -- staffing. Elsewhere in SEIU Healthcare PA, nursing home workers called off a statewide strike at the last minute, having reached tentative agreements with operators Guardian and Priority, though what exactly is in the agreements hasn’t been released publicly.

Over 600 healthcare workers with NUHW at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital in Orange County, CA have authorized a strike. The hospital is owned by Tenet, the same corporation that owns St Vincent Hospital in Massachusetts, where nurses have been on strike for 20 weeks.

250 poultry processing workers for Foster Farms in Compton, CA authorized a strike with Teamsters Local 630. The contract expired in June, and the main bargaining issue is the company’s pushing to shift medical costs onto the workers.

Teachers in Champion, OH are still at an impasse with the district despite the involvement of a federal mediator, and the union issuing an “intent to strike.” Part of the dispute is around the district’s failure to use pandemic aid to raise salaries.

City workers in Springfield, IL with AFSCME Council 31 rallied in protest of a year without a contract and months of stalled negotiations. So did IBEW Local 77 electricians for the city of Richland, WA. Norfolk, VA city workers with AFSCME (newly energized by the possibility of local collective bargaining ordinances, per a new state law) rallied against being “overworked and underpaid.” Elsewhere in Norfolk, Hampton Roads Transit settled a contract with ATU Local 1177, so clearly it can be done. Elsewhere in Virginia, Loudoun County passed a collective bargaining ordinance in a heated session. Paraeducators in Amherst, MA spoke out against a proposed 1% pay increase (compare to the superintendent’s 4.3% pay increase) and rallied for more. And staffing concerns aren’t just hitting healthcare and hospitality; Baltimore Gas & Electric workers with IBEW Local 410 rallied against understaffing and a lack of training.

Wyandotte County, KS is filing labor board charges against IAFF Local 64 for the sin of trying to bargain “substantially increased staffing, construction of new fire stations and purchase of new fire trucks and ambulances.” Since these aren’t “mandatory” subjects of bargaining, the union is prohibited from holding up negotiations over those issues, which, fine, if that’s the letter of the law, but common sense says firefighters should be allowed to negotiate for better staffing and equipment.

The state of California has signed a contract with Child Care Providers United, the new 40,000-member union that’s a joint affiliate of AFSCME and SEIU.

After unionizing with the Steelworkers in September of 2019, 65 workers for Google subcontractor HCL America have a tentative agreement. I believe it’s the first contract for any Google subcontractor, but I could be wrong about that (I know the Teamsters and others have at least attempted to organize shuttle bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and other staff.)

The New York NewsGuild announced that, after two and a half years, workers at The New Yorker, Pitchfork, and Ars Technica have ratified their first union contract, which includes raises of up to 76% for some members, and a salary floor of $60,000 by 2023. They also won just cause and a ban on non-disclosure agreements. The Guild was already facing an avalanche of new organizing interest, and if non-union media workers get wind of this, I’d imagine there’ll be more where that came from. The NDA provision in particular marks a trend across media unions, as Indigo Olivier at The Nation reports.

ATU Local 704, representing transit workers for Rock Region Metro covering Pulaski County, AR, is pushing to re-impose the 10-person-per-bus limit as COVID resurges.

In other COVID-related bargaining, we’re seeing hazard pay both retroactive and upcoming being proposed in contracts across the country. Jacksonville, FL city workers are potentially getting a raise and a hazard bonus, while Oregon state employees may see something similar for having worked during the pandemic. 1199 in Florida is pushing for a hazard pay provision, while the Detroit school district is offering $2,000 in hazard pay for Detroit Federation of Teachers educators who work in-person this upcoming school year.

FOP Lodge 7, representing the Chicago Police Department cops, has its first tentative agreement with the city in over four years. Columbus, OH cops also have a contract, while San Antonio cops still can’t come to an agreement with the city over police disciplinary procedures. The Portland, OR police union is in mediation with the city, hoping to avoid impasse.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Politico has a look into how labor is responding to the idea of a vaccine mandate, and the answer is… unevenly. The AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka came out in favor of a mandate, while the AFL’s largest affiliate, the AFT, came out vocally against one. The issue isn’t quite whether members should get vaccinated, but whether that should be mandated (with the implication of punitive measures for those who fail to get the shot). And it’s not falling along the same culture war lines as the general public’s vaccine conversation seems to be, with usually liberal unions like 1199 SEIU being some of the most vocal opponents. Actually-existing mandates have popped up unevenly as well, with the largest one set to be announced today, as Joe Biden mandates (but refuses to say “mandate,” apparently) the 2 million federal employees get a shot or submit to weekly testing. The IFPTE supports the move, while AFGE hasn’t commented. Elsewhere, New York State and City workers were mandated to get a vaccine by Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, respectively, as well as state workers in California, a move quickly opposed by everyone’s favorite new union president at SEIU Local 1000. K-12 school districts will likely be the next frontier of vaccine mandates, which will inevitably add fuel to the coming reopening fights. Speaking of, Labor Notes has the story of how Oakland, CA teachers are fighting for safer conditions through expanded bargaining and organizing site walkthroughs.

The Washington Post reports that in the past several years, there have been dozens of cases of nooses found on construction sites, targeting black workers. Only one arrest has been made.

After two union-side lawyers (one from a union-side law firm, the other from SEIU 32BJ) were confirmed by the US Senate (plus Jennifer Abruzzo of CWA as General Counsel), the NLRB is now set to have a Democratic majority for the first time since 2017. What exactly they might do with that majority is better answered by Brandon Magner.

The NEA New Mexico is calling on the state to decouple the public schools funding formula from fossil fuel profits, citing the volatility of those profits, which went from a $2 billion surplus to a $400 million deficit during the pandemic.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

The WGAE is holding leadership elections beginning in August, and while the top officer slots are uncontested, the Council (essentially the union’s executive board) is very much contested. Today there was a dust-up as the Council sent out a statement about a “pause” on digital newsroom organizing and the budget strains caused by a crush of new organizing interest (interestingly, this sounds a lot like the conversation around WGAE’s frenemy, the New York NewsGuild’s, dues increase campaign). Then a faction of the Council put out their own statement saying they voted against sending out the initial email due to “factual inaccuracies and distortions.” Needless to say, as this election season heats up, this will likely be a key topic of conversation, and though the WGAE is small (6,372, per their 2021 LM-2 filing) they are for obvious reasons quite visible online and in the media.

In an extremely messy, drawn-out process, UPTE-CWA, which represents 16,000 technical employees at the University of California system, and is one of if not the largest CWA local, has new leadership. The original election took place last fall and then had to be re-run and now the incoming presumptive President is facing suspension charges. But presumably the election season is over now?

The Columbia Spectator has a write-up on the recent changes among student unionism on that campus. The Columbia University student workers unit of UAW Local 2110’s transformation is complete: it is now officially the Student Workers of Columbia in name, and the 10-person bargaining committee is now fully populated by those who (successfully) advocated a “no” vote on the contract in May. This new strike-friendly leadership is sounding the alarm about a change in the way the university pays student workers which would “make a strike more painful”; which is to say, it would be reasonable to expect more labor unrest on campus this fall.

The IATSE convention wrapped up today, with President Matt Loeb re-elected unopposed. He’s run the union since 2008, and this new four-year term will take him to 2025.

AFSCME Council 61 in Iowa has a new president, also elected unopposed.