The week in US unions, December 25, 2021-January 1, 2022

Happy New Year! This week also marks, by my count, the 52nd edition of this weekly newsletter. I started this thing on a whim, because I thought it would be useful for people to look directly at what actually-existing unions are actually doing in the US on a weekly basis. What’s made me keep doing it is all of you, the 5,000 of you who’ve subscribed and the almost 500 of you who chip in a few bucks to help me keep it going. So thanks for that, for reading, and for spreading the word, and telling me what’s going on in your corner of the union movement. May 2022 bring more organization, more and better fights, and more power for the working class.

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

Columbia University’s administration has tabled its “best and final offer” for UAW Local 2110, and it seems like the final sticking point is primarily over recognition of “casual” and hourly student workers as members of the bargaining unit. Whether the union will choose to consolidate the gains on the table here and fight another day, or to stick it out and fight for these hourlies – many of whom have been on strike alongside the rest of the student workers for the past eight weeks – sounds likely to determine whether this thing ends.

Bernie Sanders has weighed in on the Special Metals strike in Huntington, WV, where 450 Steelworkers Local 40 members have been on strike for months now. Special Metals is owned by a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, which is obviously owned by Warren Buffett; Sanders wrote him a letter asking him to intervene to put an end to the strike; Buffett says he won’t step in.

The San Diego County garbage strike by Teamsters Local 542 pushed on through New Year’s Eve, and the city is threatening to take legal action against Republic Services for failure to provide trash pickup. 

UFCW Local 7 grocery workers for Kroger-run King Sooper’s in Colorado are taking a strike authorization vote this weekend; their contract expires on January 8th, as the first in the informal bargaining coalition across seven large UFCW locals facing grocery negotiations in 2022. Local 7 is also suing Kroger in district court for the illegal use of subcontractors, in violation of their agreement. Meanwhile in Portland, UFCW Local 555 members officially ratified their contract after their one-day (it was supposed to be seven, but the company quickly folded) strike in December at Kroger-owned Fred Meyer and QFC stores.

Ski patrollers in Park City, UT have raised tens of thousands of dollars for an “action fund” (read: strike fund) as they go into their 47th bargaining session with Vail Resorts and continue to push for a $17 starting wage.

Negotiations at the Minneapolis airport have “broken down,” says Teamsters Local 320, as their January 20th strike deadline approaches. Operating Engineers Local 49 is also considering striking the airport, as well as the city of Minneapolis itself; on Sunday members rejected the latest contract offer, sparking strike talk (which has not yet turned into action).

As Omicron surges during the holiday break, the K-12 reopening debate is roaring back to life; as is not infrequently the case, the Chicago Teachers Union is leading the way, and talking about strike action if the district won’t agree to two weeks of remote learning or negative tests for all students. Obviously it’s not a problem unique to Chicago, it’s just that Chicago has one of the most proactive and ready-to-strike unions in the country.

After Omaha Housing Authority workers with AFSCME Local 251 voted down a contract offer that would have eliminated jobs, the Housing Authority summarily fired 18 custodians and groundskeepers and is replacing them with subcontractors; a special board meeting was called this week to reconsider, but the decision was upheld.

AFSCME Council 5 members across five locals who work for Ramsey County, MN (where St. Paul is) picketed at the courthouse, as the county pushes for a wage freeze. 

Negotiations at the Lexington, KY jail have broken down with FOP Lodge 83, and the jail officers are now seeking intervention from the state. 

ATU Local 265 in San Jose, CA has a tentative agreement with the VTA for 10% raises over the next three years. 1600 Rockland County, NY county workers have new five-year contracts across five unions, with raises from 2.25-3% annually; Montgomery County, NY workers got in the same ballpark. Tulsa, OK firefighters are getting 4-12% raises after going to arbitration and losing. AFSCME members who work for the city of Canton, OH have new one-year contracts.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Not to be totally outdone by the CDC (which, as was very publicly reported, openly embraced the corporate push to halve quarantine time for asymptomatic COVID cases to five days, as AFA-CWA’s Sara Nelson and NNU vocally called out), OSHA actually rescinded its emergency temporary standard for healthcare workers’ protections against COVID-19 during the largest surge in cases we’ve seen since the pandemic began.

Speaking of OSHA, the Department of Labor has announced an audit of OSHA since 2016, specifically in whether and how aggressively the agency has addressed injuries and COVID safety protocols “at warehouse and order fulfillment facilities of online and other retailers” (this is how DOL lawyers pronounce “Amazon”).

The Department of Labor has also officially rescinded a rule put in place under the Trump administration in 2020 that required more reporting and transparency for union-run funds (including strike funds, apprenticeship programs, credit unions, and more).

The Clark County Education Association is suing the Nevada Secretary of State to remove two ballot measures to raise taxes to fund public schools from the 2022 ballot. The measures were initiated by the union, but the state legislature passed a bill in the interim that apparently secures sufficient funding; as part of the deal, the union agreed to rescind the ballot measures, but the Secretary of State is saying that’s unconstitutional.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill allowing non-teaching K-12 staff (both classroom staff like paraprofessionals but also secretaries and others) to serve as substitute teachers to address the state’s teacher shortage. The Michigan Education Association opposed the bill.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 220 RNs at Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence, RI are organizing with UNAP. 140 sanitation workers for Republic in Winder, GA are organizing with Teamsters Local 728, in the biggest election filing in Georgia in over two years. 111 therapists at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis are organizing with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. The architects who were seeking voluntary recognition (as I mentioned last week) have now filed for an election among 91 staffers at SHoP Architects in New York, with the Machinists. 44 staffers at Alliance for a Healthier Generation, an advocacy non-profit for kids’ health, are organizing with OPEIU Local 11 in Portland, OR. 28 Starbucks workers in Knoxville, TN are joining the organizing wave at the coffee giant, again with Workers United. 

Small shops: 18 LPNs at Riverstreet Manor nursing home in Wilkes-Barre, PA are organizing with RWDSU Local 262, where CNAs filed for a separate election last week. 17 utility workers for Xcel Energy in Minneapolis are unionizing with IBEW Local 160. 16 call center workers for Verilife cannabis dispensary (which, like, I’m just imagining the kinds of calls they get) in Schaumburg, IL are unionizing with Teamsters Local 777. 15 set designers for Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis are organizing with IATSE Local 829. 14 workers at Stella-Jones, which makes wood products, in Arlington, WA, are organizing with Machinists Local 751. 14 staffers at the Community Work Training Association in Bellingham, WA, a non-profit that does work release programs with the incarcerated, are organizing with Teamsters Local 231. 12 workers for Colgate Industries, which I think is a heating contractor, in Buffalo are organizing with the Steelworkers. Five skilled trades workers for C&W Facilities Services in Marlborough, MA are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 877. Four dietitians at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, WA are joining UFCW Local 21. Two school bus mechanics for Durham School Services in Bettendorf, IA are joining Teamsters Local 371.

NLRB election wins…: 22 workers in the Los Angeles Opera costume shop voted 13-2 to join IATSE Local 768. 20 workers for landscaping/forestry outfit Garden Cycles in Seattle swept their vote to join Laborers Local 242, 13-0. 

…and losses: 66 non-profit staffers at Common Sense Media in San Francisco narrowly lost their election to join CWA, 28-29. 15 workers at Supervalu grocery warehouse in Hopkins, MN deadlocked 6-6 on joining Teamsters Local 120, with the tie going against the union. 

The NLRB has impounded the ballots in the decertification vote against Steelworkers Local 13-243 at ExxonMobil in Beaumont, TX, as the board considers unfair labor practice charges the union has brought against the company. As readers will recall, some 600 refinery workers authorized a strike in March, and the company responded by locking out the workers as of May 1st. Since then, there has been intermittent bargaining over the proposed changes to seniority among other issues, but not much movement, as the company has openly supported the decertification effort. The anti-union push among refinery employers has been out in the open since the spring, as Reuters reported, but no fight has been as large or as public as the lockout in Beaumont.

Speaking of big decertifications, Bill Shaner did some digging into the decertification efforts against the Massachusetts Nurses Association at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, MA; turns out – shocker – it’s being orchestrated in part by far-right-wing lawyers.

Outside the NLRB, 460 Baltimore County, MD public library workers voted by 77% to join the Machinists, sneaking in under the deadline to make into the top ten largest new union organizing wins of 2021.