The week in US unions, December 11th-18th, 2022

Happy Hannukah!

STRIKES & NEGOTIATIONS

The remaining 36,000 University of California strikers, members of Student Researchers United and UAW Local 2865 teaching assistants, have a tentative agreement, with a ratification vote taking place through Friday. Some workers will see proportionally massive raises (I’ve seen figures ranging from 42 percent to 80), though there’s a vocal “vote no” campaign over pay differentials between campuses and other issues, so we’ll see how the vote goes.

Around 100 stores are participating in Starbucks Workers United’s 3-day “Double Down” strike, the union’s biggest action yet; you’ll recall the “Red Cup Rebellion,” in which a similar number of stores participated, but was only a one-day shutdown. Separately, the six-week strike at NYC’s roastery came to an end.

Workers with UAW Local 180 and 807 held solidarity days for the months-long, 1100-worker Case/CNH strike in Racine, WI and Burlington, IA.

K-12: Some 30,000 SEIU Local 99 custodians, school bus drivers, and other staff for Los Angeles public schools are taking a strike authorization vote. Educators in the Mohawk Area School District in Bessemer, PA have rejected a contract offer, having authorized a strike back in September. The teachers union in Escambia County, FL has a deal with the district, but some members aren’t happy with it, and are protesting the agreement. Paraprofessionals in Melrose, MA have a TA.

Healthcare: 400 hospital workers at Los Angeles’s Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital with SEIU UHW struck for five days. After authorizing a strike, 300 nurses with the Michigan Nurses Association at Ascension Borgess Hospital in Kalamazoo, MI have a tentative agreement with an average of 20.5 percent raises in the first year. Facing something like 100 layoffs, healthcare workers with the Illinois Nurses Association at Chicago’s Howard Brown Health are voting on a strike authorization this week; you can donate to their strike fund here. Around 90 support staff at Valley Hospital in Las Vegas have authorized a strike with UNITE HERE Local 226. After the longest strike in state history, St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, MA faces another strike, this time from Teamsters Local 170, who represent therapists and hospital techs. Michigan Nurses Association members in Alma, MI held an informational picket as they reached the two-month mark under an expired contract.

About 30 workers who make resins and paints for EPS, a Sherwin-Williams supplier, are on strike with UAW Local 171 in Williamsport, MD.

UFCW Local 5 members at Macy’s in San Francisco have set a two-day strike date for December 23 and 24, which is probably a really inconvenient day for Macy’s not to be able to sell stuff. It’s a reminder that the “DS” in RWDSU (a UFCW affiliate) stands for “department store,” which used to be a pretty militant section of the labor movement.

Hundreds of United ALPA pilots picketed the company’s board meeting in Houston, amid their ongoing contract fight. Meanwhile, 8,300 customer service workers with the Machinists at Southwest ratified a new deal (having voted down an earlier proposal).

The MASS MoCA staff in North Adams, MA who organized with UAW Local 2110 last year have a first contract, after a one-day strike this August.

Railroad workers rallied in about a dozen cities this week, generally bringing attention to the issues workers face across the industry, from “precision scheduled railroading,” to the fight against one-man crews, to a now-well-known lack of sick days. It comes amid a push for executive action on granting rail workers paid sick days; so far, nothing from the White House as far as I’ve seen.

Lee Harris at The American Prospect is on the UAW electric vehicles beat, with Stellantis announcing 1,350 long-term layoffs at their Belvidere, IL plant as the company builds new electric vehicles and hybrids in Canada. 

POLITICS & LEGISLATION

Federal workers have been pushing for the re-confirmation of Ernest DuBester to the Federal Labor Relations Authority to preserve the Democratic majority on the federal labor board for many, many months, and for some reason it still hasn’t happened. Add this to the list of pro-labor partisan no-brainers (like funding the NLRB) that for some reason don’t seem to be a priority for party leadership. On the latter issue, the government passed a one-week extension to avert a government shutdown, and we should know soon how much the administration 

INTERNAL UNION POLITICS

Eddie Hall, a working railroad engineer, has won the presidency of the BLET-IBT, ousting 12-year incumbent Dennis Pierce to lead the second-largest freight rail union. It’s hard to stress how much this sort of thing does not happen; not just incumbents losing to challengers, but particularly those challengers being people who are still actively working the job, and are not full-time staff somewhere within the union. I wrote it up for More Perfect Union (above), but it just goes to show how deep the rail workers’ frustration with their union, this contract process, and the outcome, runs. On Friday, Dennis Pierce released a statement that an internal board found election violations that require the vote to be rerun, but also announced that he wouldn’t be seeking reelection in the rerun, so Hall wins but only because Pierce retires, technically.

As the UFCW internal fight ramps up before their 2023 convention this spring, the International’s organizing director, Todd Crosby, resigned in protest and has joined the staff of UFCW Local 3000, the most vocal local in calling for change in the union.

ATU Local 241 in Chicago has re-elected its union president, after the top challenger was arrested the day before the election for, according to police, “coming onto CTA property with union political agendas that were not welcomed.”

NEW ORGANIZING

New election filings at the NLRB: 3400 grad student workers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles are organizing with the UAW, no doubt in part inspired by their counterparts at the UC system. 163 workers at Providence St. Joseph Health Hospice in Petaluma, CA are organizing with NUHW. 150 workers for industrial contractor Brown and Root, out of Baton Rouge, LA, are organizing with the USW. 120 grad student workers at the RAND Corporation’s Graduate School in Santa Monica, CA are unionizing with the UAW. 70 drivers for Sky Hop Global in Glendale, NY and Elizabeth, NJ, which provides ground transportation for airline crew members, are organizing with Teamsters Local 210. 70 workers at the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site (excluding Halloween seasonals) in Philadelphia are unionizing with the USW. 

Coffee: 50 baristas in Liverpool and Penfield, NY are joining Starbucks Workers United. 36 baristas at Intelligentsia Coffee in Los Angeles are joining IBEW Local 1220 (the same local that organized Intelligentsia baristas in Chicago earlier this year, and the Colectivo chain in the midwest). 28 more baristas at Blank Street Coffee in NYC are unionizing with UFCW Local 1500. 16 more baristas at La Colombe in Chicago are unionizing with UFCW Local 881, after two other stores in DC filed with UFCW Local 400 in the past month. 

Other small shops: 43 aircraft fuelers for PrimeFlight at the Orlando airport are organizing with TWU. 34 building engineers and maintenance staff at George Washington University in DC are unionizing with Operating Engineers Local 99. 30 workers at La Grange Crane Service in Hodgkins, IL are joining Operating Engineers Local 150. 25 workers for defense contractor Amentum at the Naval Air Station in New Orleans are joining IUE-CWA. 19 workers at Ash’Kara, an Israeli restaurant in Boulder, CO, are unionizing with CWA. 17 US Foods warehouse workers in Breinigsville, PA are organizing with Teamsters Local 773. 17 workers at Grassdoor cannabis delivery operation in Commerce, CA are joining Teamsters Local 630. 17 laborers for Tatitlek, which appears to be a federal construction contractor, in Chaparral, NM are joining Operating Engineers Local 351. 13 bank tellers at the Lake Michigan Credit Union in Wyoming, MI are unionizing with CWA. Ten workers at Freedom House (which I believe is a domestic violence shelter) in NYC are unionizing with OPEIU Local 153. Six weather forecasters for Akima Systems Engineering in Colorado Springs, CO are joining Machinists Local 47. Five more utility workers at Xcel Energy in Eau Claire, WI are joining IBEW Local 953. Four air traffic controllers at the Lebanon Municipal Airport in West Lebanon, NH are joining NATCA. Three organizers in training at SEIU Healthcare Minnesota are unionizing with USW Local 2002. 

NLRB election wins…: Another 600 non-tenure-track faculty members at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago voted to join AFSCME Council 31, 377-33, doubling the size of Art Institute of Chicago Workers United. 242 grocery workers at two more New Seasons stores in Portland, OR voted a combined 152-40, across two votes, to join the independent New Seasons Labor Union; 110 more grocery workers at the Lexington Co-op in Buffalo, NY voted 56-20 to join Workers United. 112 customer service workers at Las Vegas’s Bellagio voted an impressive 92-3 to join Teamsters Local 986, who already represent some other workers at the casino. 92 nursing home support staff at Wadsworth Glen in Middletown, CT voted 55-16 to join SEIU 1199 New England; so did 17 RNs at Salmon Brook nursing home in Glastonbury, CT. 48 educators at Philadelphia’s Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School voted 37-7 to join AFT Local 6056. 44 workers at two dialysis clinics in Antioch and Brentwood, CA voted a combined 32-7 to join SEIU UHW. 28 drivers and mechanics at Chellino Crane in Joliet, IL voted 22-1 to join Operating Engineers Local 150. 16 workers at construction equipment dealer Sunbelt Rentals in Plains, PA voted 9-5 to join Operating Engineers Local 542. 12 fire captains at the Oak Ridge National Lab in Oak Ridge, TN voted 11-1 to join IAFF Local I-101. All eight baristas at Lady Killigrew Cafe in Montague, MA voted to join UFCW Local 1459. Seven contracted building maintenance workers at Dallas’s Earl Cabell Federal Building voted 4-0 to join Operating Engineers Local 564. Five Holland freight clericals in Cincinnati voted 4-1 to join Teamsters Local 100. Three sprinklerfitters for Siemens in Portland, OR voted 2-0 to join UA Local 669. Both dispatchers at First Transit’s operation in Caldwell, ID voted to join ATU Local 398. 

…and losses: Starbucks Workers United just barely lost three elections this week, each by a single vote, meaning 79 baristas in Chicago, NYC, and Hillsboro, OR will not be joining the union, in a combined 30-33 vote. 63 drivers for HD Supply in Kent, WA voted 22-38 against joining Teamsters Local 174. 14 workers at Oasis cannabis dispensary in Chandler, AZ voted 6-7 against joining UFCW Local 99. 12 workers for Adams Communications at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, CA voted 1-8 against joining Machinists District 725. Eight workers for Heritage Fire Protection in Ashland, KY deadlocked 1-1, thus not joining UA Local 669. 

Decertifications and raids: UNITE HERE Local 11 narrowly avoided decertification among 61 dining and facilities workers at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, with workers voting 28-26 to stick with the union. 1199 SEIU appears to be raiding a unit of 15 workers at Wavecrest Home for Adults in Far Rockaway, NY who are currently repped by the dubious International Brotherhood of Trade Union Local 713 (who appear, in turn, to have raided the unit from UFCW Local 2013 in 2015).

Outside the NLRB: Over 600 workers in Maryland’s Office of the Public Defender voted to join AFSCME Council 3. Over 400 grad student workers at the University of Alaska (mostly in Fairbanks) are also organizing with the UAW. 26 medevac pilots for Air Care voted 19-3 to join OPEIU. Singers with the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir are pushing for voluntary recognition with AGMA; their stated deadline passed this week. IATSE has made a formal request for card check to the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, where workers have been organizing for several months.

For Jacobin, Cody Melcher wrote about the UNITE HERE union drive at New Orleans’s Loyola University, and unionism at Catholic institutions more broadly. Elsewhere in that city, the independent Lowe’s union in New Orleans withdrew its petition for what sounds like a ridiculous legalistic reason, though it was always going to be a severely uphill fight.

Workers at the Amazon warehouse in Shakopee, MN are reportedly signing cards with the Amazon Labor Union, after years of organizing with the Awood Center, a workers center with ties to SEIU.