The week in US unions, Feb 11-18
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NEW ORGANIZING
NLRB new organizing filings this week: 168 staffers at the Asociacion de Empleados del Estado Libre Asociado (AEELA), a public employees union in Puerto Rico, are organizing with UAW Local 1850. 155 comedy trainers at Second City in Chicago are forming the Association of International Comedy Educators, an AFT affiliate, which they announced on the same day as a private equity takeover of the company. 120 workers at Medium in San Francisco have officially filed for representation with CWA. 118 healthcare techs at McLaren Lapeer Region Hospital outside Flint are organizing with Teamsters Local 332. 81 ski patrollers at Vail Resorts in Broomfield, CO are joining CWA; you may remember reading about ski patrol organizing in last month’s roundups. 54 workers at 4 locations of Blood Bank of Delmarva in Delaware, Maryland, and PA are joining 1199 SEIU. 41 phlebotomists at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago are joining Teamsters Local 743. 40 dispensary workers at Greenleaf CCC in Portsmouth, RI are organizing with UFCW Local 328 [this is at least the 5th weed business UFCW has organized since the new year]. 39 grocery and food service workers at fancy Foragers Markets in Chelsea and DUMBO, NYC, are organizing with UFCW Local 1500. 27 EMTs at Mille Lacs Health System in Onamia, MN are joining the International Association of EMTs and Paramedics, which is affiliated with SEIU-NAGE.21 warehouse workers at Twin City Foods in Pasco, WA, are organizing with UFCW Local 1439; you may remember this local won a 200 person unit at this shop last month, so not sure if they’re going after another classification or what. 20 carhaul workers at AutoPort in Brownstown, MI are joining either Teamsters Local 299 or the Machinists. 12 aircraft mechanics in Chino, CA with Southern California Edison are joining IBEW Local 47. 11 workers at John Smith Road Landfill in Hollister, CA are joining Operating Engineers Local 3. Eight janitors in Torrance, CA at the Del Amo Behavioral Health facility are joining SEIU-UHW. Eight security guards at the EU offices in DC are joining either National League of Justice and Security Professionals or Law Enforcement Officers Security Unions LEOSU-DC. Six dispatchers at Access2Care senior transportation in St. Louis are joining Teamsters Local 610. Five school bus dispatchers in Philadelphia are joining IUJAT Local 726. Three school bus dispatchers are joining Teamsters Local 777 in Carol Stream, IL. Two workers at the Pulau Corporation, a defense supplier, in Little Falls, MN, are joining Machinists District Lodge 77. Two service techs at an NTB in Fairlawn, OH, are joining Machinists Lodge 1363. Two truck drivers at Eagle Express Lines in Lexington, KY are joining Teamsters Local 651.
NLRB election wins…: 28 truck drivers with Sierra Transport in Bakersfield, CA voted 15-10 to join Teamsters Local 87. The Desert Sun journalists in Palm Springs, CA won their effort to join the Media Guild of the West, TNG-CWA 39213 in a 13-1 vote, of 19 eligible voters. Three equipment operators for Seven Mile Creek Landfill in Eau Claire, WI voted unanimously to join Operating Engineers Local 139. Fourteen heavy equipment operators in Oglesby, IL voted 4-2 to stick with their union, Operating Engineers Local 150, after an attempted decertification. Ten truck drivers remain members of the Steelworkers at PVS Steel in Grandview, IN, after a 4-4 deadlock against a decertification; this shop first organized in 2018.
...and losses: 152 EMTs and paramedics with Regional Ambulance Services Inc (RASI) in Reno, NV voted not to join AFSCME Local 4041 by a 35-61 vote. 148 psychiatric healthcare workers at Fairmount Behavioral Health in Philadelphia voted 23-58 not to join District 1199C NUHHCE, AFSCME. 85 drivers with Ambassador Wheelchair Services in Rocky Hill, CT narrowly voted down their union, CSEA SEIU Local 2001, 26-28. 75 delivery drivers at United Natural Foods and Albert’s Organics in Sarasota, FL voted 24-43 not to join Teamsters Local 173.
Outside the NLRB: 700 faculty members at five campuses of Harrisburg Area Community College are organizing with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Police support staff in West Chester, Ohio have formed a union and won a contract. ACLU Missouri workers are seeking voluntary recognition with the NewsGuild Local 36047. Sam Rasoul’s legislative campaign staffers in Virginia have unionized with IBEW Local 666.
The first Unfair Labor Practice charges have been filed against Amazon in the Alabama warehouse fight, where voting is still underway. Due to the “24-hour rule” which states that the employer can’t interfere with an election within 24 hours of the vote (which in this case means they can’t interfere for 7 weeks, the length of the voting period), Amazon is theoretically barred from nefarious things. I wonder if they’ll make them change the traffic lights back or nah, because Amazon just gets to run the world now.
STRIKES & BARGAINING
After six months on strike, members of Steelworkers Local 1016-03have a tentative agreement at NLMK steel fabricator in Western PA.
1100 National Grid workers on Long Island with IBEW Local 1049 who authorized a strike appear to have settled their contract, and won’t be striking after all.
NYC taxi drivers shut down the Brooklyn Bridge in protest of a massive taxi debt crisis, organizing with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
1300 of CUNY’s lowest-paid members of the Professional Staff Congress, AFT’s fifth-largest local union, were denied a contractual raise with little warning, and the union is protesting.
IATSE picketed a job site in Chicago for an “immersive Van Gogh exhibit” that flew in out-of-state workers instead of using local laid-off union members.
New York transit unions want more protections for their workers against spitters. Transit workers take a lot of shit from the public, and one perennial concern among the rank and file is safety from harassment on the job. Elsewhere in public transit, Sarasota County and Richmond, VA bus drivers are speaking out, and Silicon Valley bus drivers have organized to enforce rear-door entry over management’s resistance.
UFCW’s fight for grocery hazard pay won in Seattle, and is spreading; grocer PCC Natural Markets has agreed to $4/hour hazard pay at stores outside the city, retroactive to the date it took effect in that city. This is an interesting blend of negotiations that are crossing the legislative-bargaining divide. On the other hand, Kroger is capital-striking in Seattle as it has done in Southern California in response to such laws, closing stores instead of giving workers a raise. Also in UFCW world, there’s a continued public relations push to get meatpacking workers priority in vaccination, which makes sense since Trump’s executive order exempting that industry from liability and shutdowns is still in effect.
The collective bargaining fight for Virginia public employees is fully on, with each school district or municipality making its own call on whether or not to legalize collective bargaining, the state now having permitted it in the law. Such a system of course flies in the face of collective bargaining as a human right under the freedom of association, but nevertheless, it’s a big opportunity to raise standards in VA. Virginia Beach educators are making their push, as other jurisdictions take up the question.
After a long fight, Guggenheim museum workers in NYC with Operating Engineers Local 30 finally have a contract.
Two professors at Collin College in McKinney, Texas were fired for organizing with the Texas Faculty Association.
AFSCME Local 1902 in Los Angeles is speaking out after the LA Times reported on rampant sexual abuse and harassment of workers at the Metropolitan Water Department.
K-12: I think the top-line thing to watch in K-12 unionism right now is that the Chicago Teachers Union’s return to school holdout has broken, and Randi Weingarten is signaling a national openness to returning, and releasing polls that I can only describe as misleading, explicitly connected to Joe Biden’s insistence that we get students back to school. US teacher unionism is incredibly fractured and localized, but insofar as there’s anything like a “pattern” in this moment of universalized bargaining, the CTU and AFT are currently setting it. Labor Notes has a great update on where things stand in K-12 organizing. Remember that teacher who had a viral video offering kids a goodbye hug, handshake, fist bump, or high five? She has died of COVID, and her local, Socorro AFT, held a ceremony in her honor.Philly teachers are still fighting, after a successful refusal to return. Anne Arundel County (Maryland) teachers are organizing against budget cuts, and Howard County (Maryland) teachers are organizing a work-to-rule against re-opening. The Madison teachers union is asking whether the district’s decision to reopen might have anything to do with the financial incentives being provided by the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee. A judge denied the Buffalo teachers union’s injunction against re-opening, and another judge denied the Montclair district’s injunction to reopen. More from K-12 unions in Kent, WA, Woodbury, CT, Broward County, FL, Albuquerque, San Diego, Los Angeles, Lowell, MA, Louisville, Memphis, San Francisco, Grand Ledge, MI, Connecticut.
POLITICS & LEGISLATION
Josh Eidelson has a really well-reported piece on the national move to Prop 22-style employment classification, and labor’s (non-)response. Actually a non-response would be better than most of what the article reports. I don’t even know if this qualifies as managed decline at this point, with tens of millions of workers soon to be classified as independent contractors with no statutory rights to organize, let alone ability to do so.
Biden met with 10 labor leaders in the Oval Office, building trades and AFL-CIO heads Trumka and Shuler exclusively. They talked PRO Act and infrastructure.
Montana is gunning hard to become the 28th “right to work” state, if New Hampshire doesn’t beat them to it, while Florida, already having enshrined RTW in their constitution, wants to go further. Also in Montana, the nurses union is speaking out against their governor’s decision to lift the mask mandate one day after the CDC recommended wearing two masks. Considering half a million have already died, I’m with the nurses on this one.
14 Hollywood & media unions (the Teamsters being somewhat noticeably absent) are pushing for Congress to act on several pro-worker and pro-diversity measures that concern the industry.
A mall in Burlington that has been closed for redevelopment since 2017 is hitting a snag as the developers refuse to use union labor and financing. The Vermont AFL-CIO is pushing for city councilors to reject the latest agreement on that basis, with the project stalling for nearly a decade.
After Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont proposed a budget that includes zero raises for state employees, a coalition of 15 state unions has quickly informed him that they don’t intend to go along with such a scheme, and recommend taxing the rich.
The West Virginia legislature is again pushing K-12 privatization bills that provoked a strike in 2019. This time, they’re expected to pass without strike action.