The week in US unions, December 4th-11th, 2022

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

The largest strike in the country got a little bit smaller this week, with University of California post-docs with UAW Local 5810 voting to ratify a contract and return to work; around 36,000 teaching assistants and researchers remain on strike, and are entering into mediation with the administration. Over at the New School in New York City, UAW Local 7902 has ended their 2,000-member adjunct faculty strike with a tentative agreement. Some 500 more adjunct faculty have gone on strike with AFT Local 6262 at the College of the Canyons, a public community college in Santa Clarita, CA. Meanwhile, grad workers with the UE at the University of Iowa (in Iowa City, IA) and New Mexico State University (in Las Cruces, NM) are both pushing for raises, and the latter for a first contract.

Marty Walsh is now apparently stepping in to try to resolve the 200-day, 1,000-member UAW Locals 807 and 180 CNH strike in Burlington, IA and Racine, WI; Warrior Met UMWA strikers in Brookwood, AL have been out three times as long, with no end in sight.

SEIU cargo handling and airport lounge workers for Swissport in at least three airports – Newark, Boston, and Chicago’s O’Hare – walked off the job for a day, while their counterparts at a dozen more airports held protests demanding Congress pass the “Good Jobs for Good Airports Act,” creating some baseline standards for the heavily subcontracted airport services workforce.

The musicians of the Fort Wayne (IN) Philharmonic are on strike with AFM Local 58, after their contract expired in September; the pandemic was not kind to classical musicians and they have faced widespread furloughs and job cuts.

Chemical workers at MonoSol in La Porte, IN with Teamsters Local 135 took the fight to Procter & Gamble headquarters in Cincinnati, as the 200 workers remain locked out having rejected a deal that would continue a grueling mandatory overtime regime.

Workers at building products company Oldcastle Infrastructure appear to be on strike in Elgin, IL with Laborers Local 681, but I haven’t found any press on it.

Some 300 UNITE HERE Local 226 members who work for Sodexo at the Las Vegas convention center voted unanimously to strike; 200 of their UNITE HERE Local 737 counterparts in Orlando, FL also voted unanimously to strike a couple weeks back, and New Orleans, Sacramento, and Detroit may be close behind. Elsewhere in the union, UNITE HERE Local 1 picketed outside of Chicago’s United Center against violations of the state’s new law against overscheduling, with some workers being scheduled up to 35 days in a row.

Some 200 UFCW Local 7 meatpacking workers for JBS in Denver voted to strike this weekend after three months of negotiations.

160 public works employees with Teamsters Local 320 in St. Louis County, MN are taking a strike authorization vote as they seek higher raises, bonuses, and stipends for cold weather gear; these workers struck in 2020 at around the same time of year, which is when they have their greatest leverage, as they drive the snow plows in northern Minnesota.

Red Cross workers with AFSCME 1205 and 1558 in Wisconsin have authorized a strike during the annual holiday blood drive if they don’t have an agreement by Thursday; for whatever reason these locals don’t appear to be part of the Coalition of American Red Cross Unions, which lists fifty local unions across nine internationals.

K-12: High school teachers at San Francisco’s Lowell High organized a sickout over what sound like colossal payroll issues. Across the country, in rural Sampson County, NC, school bus drivers called out in protest after teachers, but not other staff, got raises. Los Angeles educators rallied for a new contract, demanding twenty percent raises. Teachers in St. Johns County, FL, went “Red for Ed” at a school board meeting after having rejected a $1200 raise; the current average salary is under $47,000. Teachers in Juneau, AK are at an impasse with the district.

And to clear something up from the last newsletter, the Minnesota Nurses Association at Lake View Hospital in Two Harbors, MN is in fact not striking, as part of the broader drawdown from the MNA having secured a tentative agreement at the big hospital systems (though my understanding is Lake View still doesn’t have a deal).

Starbucks Workers United celebrated a year since their first store was officially certified (which, incidentally, is a key milestone for the union-busting campaign, as the legal window for decertification opens after a year, though my understanding is that the 548 unfair labor practice charges before the NLRB make a decert attempt unlikely to be legally permissible, though I am happily not a labor lawyer) with rallies across the country. Matt Bruenig put together a helpful overview of how far the movement has come in a stunningly short amount of time, and while we’re looking back at the past year, I’ll give myself the armchair quarterback permission to say: I’m increasingly convinced that both the doomsayers predicting they’ll never make headway and the boosters saying they’re at the edge of victory are both probably wrong; the thing is now too big to easily kill (the nearly 300 organized stores cover over 7,000 workers!) though it’s not close to big enough to force concessions on an economic basis (and the political and social basis needs more firepower than our politicians or broader labor movement seem to be willing or able to bring to bear). I think the most likely model here is, fittingly, the Fight for $15, a protracted campaign to change the common sense around service industry work and win local concessions, but with a shitload more legal leverage over the company, and much more workplace organization. But anyway, happy birthday Starbucks Workers United, it’s been amazing to watch you all build this thing.

For More Perfect Union, I helped with a video on the state of pilot unionism; it’s kind of remarkable how aligned the unions are in this moment, and how much leverage they appear to have. Last week’s news about Delta’s 34 percent wage offer over three years to ALPA is no longer the standard-bearer, as Spirit came out with the same percentage on average, but over just two years. Meanwhile, things appear to be going great for United’s CEO, who tried to talk to some picketing pilots and got a lesson in solidarity.

Over 1,000 members of the New York NewsGuild struck the New York Times for 24 hours; those journalists briefly joined the ongoing Fort Worth Star-Telegram strike and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike, which drags on, as does the UAW Local 2110 HarperCollins strike, which hit its one-month mark this week.

Illinois’s union neutrality laws have helped UFCW Local 881 organize tens of dispensaries across the state, but it hasn’t stopped big operator Curaleaf from stonewalling them in bargaining at at least one Chicago store. Cannabis has been one of the most quickly organizing industries, as its legalization in blue states in particular has often been accompanied by labor peace agreements; it will be interesting to see what sorts of standards the unions are able to extract beyond certification.

AFSCME Local 494 prison guards in Pontiac, IL are calling for more staffing after some guards were reportedly attacked.

And on the subject of strikes, this Labor Notes piece from the great Teamster negotiations expert Richard de Vries is worth a read, on the right to strike for non-union workers.

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

The railroaders’ fight for paid sick days isn’t over yet, as dozens of members of Congress, led by Bernie Sanders and Jamaal Bowman, push for Biden to take executive action to grant seven paid sick days to railroad workers under an executive order covering federal contractors from 2015; the rail workers didn’t qualify, because why? You guessed it, the Railway Labor Act, apparently. In the meantime, SMART and BLET have announced a dozen or so rallies across the country for this Tuesday which are likely to be geared towards winning this executive order, but several members have pointed out to me that these actions are kind of conspicuous as after-the-fact mobilizations when the unions did very little to put members in motion when that sort of grassroots pressure might have had more of an effect on the outcome. (For more members’ feelings on these matters, see the “Internal Union Politics” section below).

The Teamsters won a huge pension victory this week, with the Biden administration announcing $36 billion to avert pension cuts for 350,000 Teamsters under the failing Central States Pension Fund. Organizing against these pension cuts were part of the big grassroots movement that groups like Teamsters for a Democratic Union have built off of over the past decade, often at odds not just with the companies and the federal government, but union leadership as well. I doubt it’s a coincidence that a week after shoving a contract down the throats of some 30,000 Teamsters, Biden moves money around to make good by the union.

On the state level, the Massachusetts Teachers Association is firmly putting the right to strike on their legislative agenda, an exciting prospect for public workers everywhere, who even in many blue states don’t have the basic legal right to walk off the job.

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

For Labor Notes, I wrote about the slate of working railroad mechanics running for national union office in Machinists District Lodge 19, as part of the broader fallout from the rail negotiations. Ryan Grim took a deep dive into the BMWE internal politics that fed into the rail showdown, and how rank and file reformers have been organizing in that union for years; this one is really worth a read. Carey Dall, who Grim spoke with for the BMWE story, also wrote out his thoughts on the big picture here, also well worth a read: “No one else is coming to save railroad workers – not the AFL-CIO. Not the well-meaning DSA chapters, and not the self-styled left-wing commentators.  And certainly not the Rail Labor leaders.”

Kyle Bragg, president of 32BJ SEIU, one of our nation’s most prominent megalocals, is retiring.

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 3,335 more graduate student workers, this time at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, are also unionizing with the UE (the union has increased its potential membership by something like 50 percent in the past year through grad worker organizing). 2600 RNs at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals in Madison, WI, having called off a recognition strike to see if the state board would grant them the right to unionize, are taking their effort to join SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin to the NLRB. 1200 medical interns and residents at Montefiore Medical Center in The Bronx, NY are organizing with CIR-SEIU. 250 healthcare support staff at Mercy Hospital in Fridley, MN are joining SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. 151 therapists and counselors at mental health startup Resilience Lab in NYC are organizing with AFSCME DC37. 150 workers who do HVAC manufacturing for Seasons-4 in Douglasville, GA are organizing with UA Local 72. 150 workers who do commercial wood framing construction for Wood Mechanix in Portland, OR are organizing with Carpenters Local 1503. 104 drivers for Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits in Farmers Branch, TX are organizing with Teamsters Local 745. 80 Starbucks workers at four stores in Fayetteville, AR, Skokie, IL, Sherman Oaks, CA, and Flower Mound, TX are joining the Starbucks Workers United movement; 15 more baristas at a Peet’s Coffee in Davis, CA are unionizing as well, with help from Starbucks activists, but joining SEIU Local 1021. 80 warehouse workers for wood products manufacturer Patrick Industries in Decatur, AL are organizing with RWDSU. 43 workers at Shannon Side Welding in Daly City, CA are unionizing with the Iron Workers, and 39 more construction workers at RNR Concrete in Napa, CA are doing the same. 36 school bus drivers for First Student in South Sioux City, NE are organizing with Teamsters Local 554; three mechanics in Memphis are joining Teamsters Local 667. 34 chemical production workers for Ascensus in Elma, WA are unionizing with Teamsters Local 252. 29 dancers at the Texas Ballet Theater in Fort Worth, TX are organizing with AGMA, as are 19 more dancers at Ballet Memphis. 22 transit workers for MV Transportation, operating the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority out of Springfield, MA are unionizing with UFCW Local 1459. 19 drivers for Stericycle (aka Shred-It) in Sharon, MA are joining Teamsters Local 25 (true Bird brains will recall the Teamsters struck and organized locations of the same company in Ohio and New Jersey last year). 18 PepsiCo warehouse workers in Santa Clara, CA are joining Teamsters Local 665. 16 software engineers at Oakland, CA texting company GetThru are unionizing with CWA. 16 LPNs at Madison House nursing home in Madison, CT are unionizing with SEIU 1199 New England. 12 building mechanics for utility First Energy in Western PA are joining Utility Workers Local 102. 12 more school bus drivers in Amarillo, TX, for DS Bus Lines, are joining Teamsters Local 577. Ten drivers for Maytag Aircraft in Fort Stewart, GA are joining AFGE Local 1922. Nine workers at Dryden Ambulance in Dryden, NY are joining IAFF Local 709. Nine maintenance workers at Hopkinson House condos in Philadelphia are joining Workers United. Eight workers at Potomac Holistic Cannabis Dispensary in Rockville, MD are joining UFCW Local 400. Eight AmeriGas terminal operators in Reading, PA are joining IBEW Local 777. Seven workers for Lowell Telecommunications in Lowell, MA are joining NABET-CWA. Six building maintenance workers at Seattle’s KOMO Plaza are joining Machinists District Lodge 751. Four landscapers at Portland, OR’s Reed College are joining Teamsters Local 305. 

NLRB election wins…: Some 3,000 grad student workers at Boston University voted 1,414-28 (that’s not a typo) to join SEIU Local 509 in one of the biggest large union election landslides ever; grad workers really want to form and join unions these days. 900 workers who make electric vehicle batteries for Ultium, a General Motors/LG joint venture in Warren, OH, voted in a landslide, 710-16, to join UAW Local 1112; aside from just being a big auto win in Ohio (no small feat), it’s also an important breakthrough for the UAW as they hope to organize the massively expanding electric vehicle supply chain, as it’s the first non-Big Three electric vehicle plant they’ve organized. 349 workers involved in PGA Tour telecasting based in St. Augustine, FL voted 135-52 to join the IBEW. 121 food service and catering workers at Homegrown in and around Seattle voted 59-11 to join UNITE HERE Local 8, after several pre-recognition strikes and actions. 56 workers at two stores in Elmhurst, IL and Whitehall, PA voted a combined 34-15 to join Starbucks Workers United. 37 hospice workers at the St. Charles Health System in Bend, OR voted 29-5 to join the Oregon Nurses Association. 32 baristas at four locations of La Prima Espresso Co. in Pittsburgh joined UFCW Local 1776KS in a 22-8 vote. 14 stagehands and techs for Theatre Squared in Fayetteville, AR voted 9-1 to join IATSE. 13 electricians for contractor Smith Electric in Oaklyn, NJ voted 8-5 to join IBEW Local 351. 11 workers at Atlantic American Fire Protection in Elgin, IL voted 10-1 to join UA Local 281. Ten telecom construction workers for Windstream Services in Bolivar, MO voted 8-2 to join IBEW Local 53. Seven firefighters and EMTs at the Roxana Volunteer Fire Company in Frankford, DE voted 6-1 to join IAFF Local 5121. Six building services workers in Chelsea in NYC voted 2-0 to join SEIU 32BJ. Five pharmacy techs at a Safeway in Bend, OR voted 4-1 to join UFCW Local 555. All five air traffic controllers at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in Belgrade, MT voted to join NATCA. 

…and losses: 78 workers building the Mammoth North solar installation in Bass Lake, IN voted 6-22 against joining Operating Engineers Local 150; for more on solar workers, check out Lee Harris’s latest at The American Prospect. 54 workers at SAAB’s new jet manufacturing facility in West Lafayette, IN voted 20-25 against joining Machinists Local 2018. 24 retail workers at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Prescott, AZ voted against joining UFCW Local 99, 5-18.

Decertifications and raids: SEIU Healthcare Minnesota narrowly defeated a decertification push among 165 hospital techs at Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby, MN, 65-51. 59 steelworkers at Latrobe Specialty Metals narrowly decertified USW Local 1537 in Franklin, PA, 26-29. 55 workers who make construction equipment parts for Pierce-Pacific Manufacturing in Portland, OR voted 8-18 to drop Machinists Local 1005. 35 bus drivers (I think) for DLC Transportation in Philadelphia voted 23-7-3 to join the dubious United Service Workers Union (IUJAT) over SEIU 32BJ; I’m not sure this one was actually a raid, but, as always, these filings are a little unclear. Three workers at Whitacre Rebar in Liverpool, NY voted 1-2 to drop Iron Workers Local 824. 

300 video game workers for Microsoft subsidiary ZeniMax are organizing a union with CODE-CWA. Workers with social services agency OnPoint in NYC announced that they’re unionizing with UNITE HERE’s New England Joint Board.