Labor Rights News Thread

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caltrek
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Every Bite of Your Chicken Sandwich Comes with Labor Problems
by Tom Philbot

https://www.motherjones.com/food/2022/0 ... onditions/
(Mother Jones) Eating in the United States represents one of the world’s great bargains. We consume the most calories per capita and don’t spend much cash to do so. Food’s claim on disposable income has fallen, from 17 percent in 1960 to less than 10 percent in 2019.

Consider the wildly popular fast-food chicken sandwich. A typical one delivers 700 calories for about $4. But its once-abundant secret ingredient—the cheap labor that fuels our entire food system—is suddenly in short supply. Here’s why.
  • Baker
    • Median hourly wage: $14.13
    …American Institute of Baking trustee Jeff Dearduff declared that “staffing issues are the number one plague in the space.”
  • Farmworker
    • Median hourly wage: $13.89
    …In a poll taken in June, 66 percent of farmers seeking workers reported having difficulty hiring enough of them, up from 30 percent the year before.
  • Meatpacker
    • Median hourly wage: $14.51
    …online postings for job vacancies are up 66 percent since 2020.
  • Fast-food worker
    • Median hourly wage: $11.47
    …McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski complained that “it’s just very challenging right now in the market to find the level of talent that you need (due to Covid concerns).”
Don't mourn, organize.

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caltrek
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Belgian Workers Win Right to Request Four-Day Week
by Andrea Germanos
February 15, 2022

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/ ... r-day-week

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Belgium announced Tuesday a package of labor reforms that includes affording workers the right to request a four-day work week.

"With this agreement, we set a beacon for an economy that is more innovative, sustainable, and digital," Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said at a press conference after the seven-party coalition government reached the agreement. "The aim is to be able to make people and businesses stronger."

The coronavirus pandemic, he added, "has forced us to work more flexibly and combine our private and working lives," which "has led to new ways of working."

Under the deal, according to The Brussels Times, "employees can work a maximum of 9.5 hours per day, with the possibility of extending to 10 hours per day via a collective agreement between the company and trade unions to allow employees to complete their full-time working week in just four days."

An additional part of the agreement, Reuters reported, "introduces the right to disconnect after normal working hours for companies with more than 20 employees."
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Starbucks Called Its Flagship Stores a Metaphor for the Company. Now They’re Trying to Unionize.
by Noah Lanard
February 19, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... z-buffalo/

Extract:
(Mother Jones) When I dropped in on the Meatpacking District shop this week …(the) barista wore a pin in support of unionization. Her store is now one of nearly 100 Starbucks locations across more than two dozen states that are trying to unionize after two Buffalo-area Starbucks voted in December to form the company’s first unions with Workers United, an SEIU affiliate. The nearly 100 workers on the retail side of the Seattle Roastery, which reportedly cost more than $20 million to build, have also petitioned for a union election.

New York was unusual in that the roasting team, which works under a different corporate umbrella, also petitioned for a union election. It’s the first sign of the unionization wave reaching Starbucks’ manufacturing operations. One of the manufacturing workers, who asked to remain anonymous because they fear retaliation, told me there’s unanimous support for the union among the roasters in New York. (Neither side of the Chicago Roastery, the company’s third US flagship store, has tried to unionize.)

(Sam) LaGow (who joined the New York Roastery after a few years at a Starbucks off Union Square) hasn’t been surprised to see the company take a hard line against unionization, including hiring dozens of lawyers from a notorious union-busting law firm, setting up an anti-union website, and firing seven workers who were organizing their Memphis store.

Miguel Pérez-Glassner, who joined the New York Roastery in October, says some people he knows have been surprised to hear that he’s unionizing since Starbucks is known for things like having good health care benefits. The workers I spoke to know they’re not the worst-off service workers. They just reject the premise that that makes a union unnecessary. While they do have specific demands like better pay, their broader goal is to have democracy in the workplace so that they can do things like help determine how their stores respond to additional Covid waves. “We’re not trying to destroy Starbucks,” explains Pérez-Glassner. “We want to have our voice at the table.”
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Pesticide Victims in Europe Left to Fend for Themselves
by Stephane Horel and Stanley Dahllof
February 16, 2022

https://www.ir-d.dk/2022/02/pesticide-v ... hemselves/

Introduction:
(Investigative Reporting - Denmark) Suffering from Parkinson’s disease or cancer, European farm workers experience inadequate recognition and failing compensation schemes.
  • Science has shown that pesticides exposure is linked to serious and deadly illnesses for farm workers, including Parkinson’s disease and blood cancers.
  • Victims across Europe are struggling for recognition and compensation, as occupational disease remains a blind spot for authorities.
  • As of now, only France and Italy officially recognize Parkinson’s disease to be linked to farm work. The condition is not on the list of occupational diseases upon which the European Union recommends Member States to act.
  • The official EU agency is not able to collect and share basic statistics on health at work.
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REI Workers Just Unionized by a Landslide
by Emily Hofstaedter
March 3, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2 ... landslide/

Introduction:
(Mother Jones) The rock-climbing, canyon-crossing, river-rafting workers at outdoor gear giant REI love a challenge—even when it comes from their bosses. Overcoming stiff corporate opposition and a slick anti-union campaign, staff at the company’s New York flagship store voted Wednesday to unionize by an overwhelming 7-to-1 margin.

REI SoHo, the nearly 40,000-square-foot Manhattan store, is the first of the company’s locations to unionize. Eighty-six percent of its 116 staff, from tech specialists to shipping and retail workers, voted to form a new local of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union—the same union that workers at Amazon’s huge Bessemer, Alabama, facility are now voting on whether to join. The REI vote follows an expensive, full-bore effort against the union, including an anti-union podcast that drew laughs online for “progressive” flourishes like an Indigenous land acknowledgement and executives’ recitation of pronouns. (REI CEO Eric Artz, who opened with the land acknowledgment, earned $3,284,590 in 2019.)

The REI workers filed their union petition in January, citing widespread concerns across the retail sector: They wanted more transparency about pandemic protections, benefits, full-time status, and better pay. Store staff members have told reporters that they’re paid $18.90 an hour, less than the borough’s living wage for a single adult without kids. “These are very basic things that REI has gotten away with not doing despite this facade of being a progressive, liberal company,” Kate Denend, who works at the store and supports the union, told Motherboard.
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Sanders Welcomes End of Major League Lockout but Slams 'Baseball Oligarchs'
by Brett Wilkins
March 10, 2022

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/ ... -oligarchs

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) As Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association announced Thursday that they'd come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders welcomed news that the 99-day lockout was over and the full 162-game season would be saved and promised to introduce a bill aimed at ending the "baseball oligarchs'" antitrust exemption.

While Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement that he is "delighted to see an agreement reached so that the Major League Baseball season can start," he slammed the "unacceptable behavior" of team owners, who he said "negotiated in bad faith for more than 100 days in a blatant attempt to break the players' union."

"We are dealing with an organization controlled by a number of billionaires who collectively are worth over $100 billion," the democratic socialist and two-time U.S. presidential candidate noted. "It should be clear to all that these baseball oligarchs have shown that they are far more concerned about increasing their wealth and profits than in strengthening our national pastime."

Sanders excoriated the owners for eliminating their teams' affiliation with more than 40 minor league ballclubs, "not only causing needless economic pain and suffering but also breaking the hearts of fans in small and mid-sized towns all over America."

The senator took the "baseball oligarchs" to task for paying minor league players "totally inadequate wages," for seeking to "eliminate the jobs of another 900 minor league players," and for taking "billions of dollars in corporate welfare from taxpayers to build expensive stadiums" while charging "outrageously high prices for tickets that many working-class families cannot afford."


caltrek's comments: Only in organized sports in America do "laborers" include within their ranks multi-millionaires. Still, as Sanders points out, there are many that are not so fortunate in regards to their compensation packages. Yet, they play a role in promoting the continued success of baseball as a source of sporting entertainment.
Don't mourn, organize.

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Amazon Workers in New York and Maryland are Protesting for Better Wages
by Mitchell Clark
March 16, 2022

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/16/2298 ... ise-breaks

Introduction:
(The Verge) Early Wednesday morning, Amazon workers staged a walkout in two states, quitting work and even shutting off a machine to demand a $3 raise. The workers also demanded that Amazon bring back 20-minute breaks — a “perk” introduced during COVID that the company has since replaced with 15-minute breaks, according to Vice. The actions are part of a wave of labor activism at Amazon as more employees band together to demand better working conditions, compensation, and representation.

The roughly 60 workers were employees at three different warehouses in New York and Maryland, working the night shifts. The walkout was organized by Amazonians United, a group that includes workers from at least nine warehouses nationwide, according to Vice. In December, AU led a multi-warehouse walkout in Chicago to demand better pay. According to the Amazonians United Chicagoland Twitter account, workers received a $2.20 raise the next month.

According to Vice and a reporter from the Huffington Post, the workers striking this morning in DC make under $17 an hour and work in “megacycle” shifts — 10 hours of work done between 1AM and noon (with two 15-minute breaks and one 30-minute lunch break, according to a site that compiles data about warehouse shifts).

The raise Amazonians United is fighting for wouldn’t be unprecedented at Amazon. In April 2021, the company announced that 500,000 workers would get a pay bump in amounts ranging from $0.50 an hour to $3. These raises came after a union drive at Amazon’s Bessemer facility and during another union campaign at Staten Island.

Labor organization has been a big deal at Amazon recently. The two union campaigns in Alabama and New York are ongoing — the Bessemer election initially went in Amazon’s favor, but it’s being redone after the National Labor Relations Board decided that the company had interfered with the process. There are two separate union votes happening at the Staten Island facilities; one is scheduled to occur on March 25th, and election details are currently being decided for the second.
Don't mourn, organize.

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Major League Baseball Slammed Over Labor Violations for Minor Leaguers
by Maria Dinzeo
March 16, 2022

https://www.courthousenews.com/major-le ... -leaguers/

Introdcution:
SAN FRANCISCO (Courthouse News) — Minor leaguers qualify as year-round employees, a federal judge ruled in a lengthy repudiation of Major League Baseball’s contention they're seasonal workers.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Spero also awarded the players nearly $1.9 million in penalties, finding the league failed to comply with California wage statement requirements. He also found MLB separately liable for violating Arizona’s record-keeping law, writing, “Plaintiffs may present evidence at trial consistent with this opinion to establish the amount of the penalty to which they are entitled.”

He issued his 181-page ruling late Tuesday in a lawsuit filed eight years ago by lead plaintiff Arron Senne, who played for a Miami Marlins farm team in Jamestown, New York. Senne sued then-Commissioner Bud Selig and 30 major league clubs for violating Fair Labor Standards Act, claiming minor league players earn a meager $3,000 to $7,500 per season and are not paid overtime or compensated for off-season work, including spring training.

“Plaintiffs here have an employment contract with defendants that provides for the payment of compensation and expressly requires that plaintiffs perform service throughout the calendar year for a period of seven years,” Spero wrote. “These are not students who have enrolled in a vocational school with the understanding that they would perform services, without compensation, as part of the practical training necessary to compete the training and obtain a license.”

Spero ruled MLB exercises significant control over hiring and firing, players’ schedules and setting minimum salaries to support the players’ contention that MLB is a joint employer with minor league teams under federal labor laws.
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No Sugarcoating Hershey's Union Busting Efforts
by Sonali Kolhatkar
March 16, 2022

https://otherwords.org/theres-no-sugarc ... n-busting/

Introduction:
(Other Words) There’s a bittersweet battle taking place in Stuarts Draft, Virginia.

Workers at the Hershey Company’s second-largest factory are seeking to unionize. In response, the candy manufacturing giant is throwing the full force of the corporate union-busting playbook at them.

The Virginia plant employs about 1,300 people, none of whom are sharing in the record profits reaped during a pandemic when Americans ate their weight in candy.

Hershey now stands accused of mistreating the workers who made that possible. Employees are speaking out about grueling hours, company surveillance, and harsh retaliation. Some even refer to the factory as the “Hershey Prison.”

One woman named Janice Taylor told the labor outlet More Perfect Union (see video below) that she had to work for 72 consecutive days. “I was exhausted both physically and mentally,” she said.

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Seattle Starbucks Location Unanimously Votes in Favor of Unionizing, a First in the Company’s Hometown
by Amelia Lucas
March 22, 2022

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/22/seattle ... etown.html

Introduction:
(CNBC) Starbucks baristas at a Seattle location on Tuesday unanimously voted to unionize, a first in the company’s hometown.

The Seattle location on Broadway and Denny Way joins six other company-owned Starbucks cafes in Buffalo, New York, and Mesa, Arizona, in deciding to form a union under Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Only one location, in the Buffalo area, has voted against unionizing, giving Starbucks Workers United a win rate of 88%.

The growing union push is among the challenges that incoming interim CEO Howard Schultz will face once he returns to the helm of the company he helped grow into a global coffee giant. Starting April 4, Schultz will take over so outgoing CEO Kevin Johnson can retire and the board can search for a long-term replacement.

Under Schultz’s leadership, Starbucks gained a reputation as a generous and progressive employer, a position that is now in jeopardy as the union gains momentum and workers share their grievances.

Nine workers at the Broadway and Denny Way location voted to unionize, with no votes against. One ballot was challenged and was therefore not counted. Six other Seattle Starbucks locations have filed for union elections, including the company’s flagship Reserve Roastery, a flashy cafe designed to compete with more upscale coffee shops.
Don't mourn, organize.

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