(Mother Jones) In our January + February 2022 cover story, we attempted to answer a simple question: What the hell happened to labor since the pandemic began? It wasn’t one thing. But this package—through a series of worker stories as told in their own voices, interviews with experts, and dissections of media narratives—attempts to make sense of the moment. You can find the full package here.*
No industry has seen more quitting during the last two years than leisure and hospitality, the Bureau of Labor Statistics category that covers hotels, restaurants, and many other areas of the service economy. These departures, memorialized over the in the “We all quit” signs in storefronts and beside drive-thrus, drove up wages and opened the door to new benefits. Here, workers in a field that’s traditionally relied disproportionately on people of color accepting poverty wages explain why they’re striking, quitting, or seeking something better.
I Didn’t Want to Get Covid-19 at McDonald’s. So I Went on Strike.
My son was 5 at the time. One of the things I’ll never forget is him saying to me, “Mom, why don’t you hug me anymore?” I told him I couldn’t because my employer was being irresponsible.
The first person who got Covid was someone I’d worked right next to. I didn’t know she had Covid. McDonald’s hadn’t said anything about it to us. We demanded better protection and professional cleaning. I remember telling them that profits were more important to McDonald’s than their workers. I knew I had to do something. I decided to go on strike. —Lizzet Aguilar as told to Noah Lanard
WASHINGTON (Courthouse News) — The Supreme Court gutted the Biden administration's pandemic-response strategy Thursday in a split decision that puts a vaccine-or-test mandate for large businesses on ice.
While no judge signed the decision granting a stay of the mandate from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined a concurring opinion from Justice Neil Gorsuch. Justice Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor took the rare step meanwhile of co-signing a dissent that labels Covid-19 “a menace in work settings.”
They contend that OSHA did what Congress asked it to do. “In our view, the Court’s order seriously misapplies the applicable legal standards,” the dissent states. “And in so doing, it stymies the Federal Government’s ability to counter the unparalleled threat that COVID–19 poses to our Nation’s workers. Acting outside of its competence and without legal basis, the Court displaces the judgments of the Government officials given the responsibility to respond to workplace health emergencies.”
The liberal justices said OSHA’s mandate works to prevent workplace harm, and that the mandate is necessary to tackle the dangers during a pandemic where Covid-19 poses a grave danger to the public writ large.
Skewering the majority's focus on whether OSHA has power to address a disease outside the workplace, Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor emphasized that there is no dispute that Covid-19 poses a grave danger and that a vaccination policy is necessary to safeguard against it. They argue that nothing in OSHA’s charge from Congress supports the majority decision.
GLENDALE, Colo. (Courthouse News) — Across the Denver metropolis, 8,400 grocery workers from 77 Kroger-owned King Soopers and City Market stores are making more money per hour on strike than they would if they held their post in the store across the parking lot from the picket line.
“The Great Resignation is real, you’re seeing workers across the country say enough is enough,” said UFCW Local 7 union president Kim Cordova. “Workers have been on strike all year, even before we walked out.”
Ninety-five percent of UFCW Local 7 union members working at King Soopers and City Market stores voted to strike this month and walked out Wednesday. At issue, workers say, are fair wages, work safety and respect.
“They called us essential workers when the pandemic started, then they took away our hazard pay after three weeks,” said Candice Haywood, a manager at a store in Aurora. Haywood said customers coughed and spit on her when she tried to enforce the store’s mask requirement,
“Some people say well, you should get a better job and let teenagers do this. Well, teenagers should also be able to make a living wage and take care of their families,” Haywood, who has been with the company nine years, said.
CHICAGO (Courthouse News) — The rank-and-file members of the Chicago Teachers Union finished voting Wednesday night to accept the tentative pandemic school safety deal reached Monday between the union and Chicago Public Schools that allowed students to return to classrooms.
Unlike Monday, and unlike on Jan. 4 when the union announced it would not comply with the district's in-person learning plan, the announcement of Wednesday night's ratification was subdued, posted to the CTU website without fanfare or much national media attention.
In truth, the deal remains unpopular even with many rank-and-file union members. Of the 70% of union members that voted on the deal between Tuesday and Wednesday, only 55% voted to accept it while 45% opposed it. Union leadership also seemed unhappy with the deal, even as early as Monday night. CTU President Jesse Sharkey called the agreement "imperfect," and the process of reaching it "unpleasant."
“This agreement covers only a portion of the safety guarantees that every one of our school communities deserve. Put bluntly, we have a boss who does not know how to negotiate, does not know how to hear real concerns and is not willing to respect our rank and file enough to listen to us when we tell her we need more protection," Sharkey wrote in a Wednesday statement accompanying news of the deal's ratification, directing his ire at Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
On Monday, CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates bemoaned how much it took from union members to get what she considered very little.
(The Verge) The National Labor Relations Board is preparing to issue a complaint against Amazon alleging the company illegally fired a worker at one of its New York warehouses, unless the company settles the case first. At issue is whether Daequan Smith, an organizer with the newly-formed Amazon Labor Union (ALU), was fired for trying to organize.
As first reported by Bloomberg, NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado confirmed Friday that the agency’s regional director Kathy Drew King determined allegations by the ALU that Smith was fired illegally had merit and would issue a complaint if the case doesn’t settle. “The complaint would allege a discharge because of union and other protected concerted activities, among other allegations,” Blado said.
Amazon didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge.
The ALU Is awaiting a hearing on its petition to hold a union election at four of Amazon’s warehouses in Staten Island. Smith was a worker at one of the Staten Island warehouses, and the ALU tweeted Friday that since his firing, Smith has been left homeless. The NLRB has the authority to reinstate workers fired for organizing, but it’s not yet clear whether it would do so in this case.
The NLRB ordered Amazon to redo a union election at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, after finding the company interfered in the first election in April 2021. That redo, which will be carried out by mail and supervised by the NLRB, begins February 4th.
National Labor Relations Board Indicates Amazon Workers in Staten Island Have Gathered Enough Employee Signatures to Hold a Union Vote by Isobel Asher Hamilto
January 27, 2022
Amazon workers in Staten Island have enough signatures to hold a union election, the NLRB said.
The Amazon Labor Union has been campaigning for a union vote since April.
Amazon said it is "skeptical that there are a sufficient number of legitimate signatures."
Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staten Island can officially ask for a union election, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) confirmed on Wednesday.
(Common Dreams) Poorly paid bus drivers in a rural Mississippi school district went on strike last Friday morning and by the end of the day, they had won an hourly pay raise of at least $5, lifting their wages to $20 an hour.
The strike happened after the Jefferson Davis County school board authorized paying $25 per hour to drivers hired on an emergency basis, Magnolia State Live first reported Wednesday.
The emergency pay proposal—meant to incentivize retired teachers, coaches, and bus drivers to help alleviate an ongoing labor shortage—passed 4-1. However, the pay bump didn't apply to existing drivers, some of whom were making as little as $12 an hour—less than half the newly established emergency rate.
"I have zero problem with having anyone that is willing to drive our busses," said Bobby Wilson, the lone District 2 school board member to vote against the measure. "I do have a problem with $25 an hour. I would like to know why we are doubling the salary for certified personnel to drive versus the $12-$15 for our regular drivers."
On Friday morning, the bus drivers went on strike. After one hour, district superintendent Ike Haynes "met with the bus drivers at the bus shop over their pay concerns," according to Magnolia State Live.
MEXICO CITY (AP via Latino Rebels) — Workers at a General Motors plant in northern Mexico were voting Tuesday on whether to form one of the first truly independent auto labor unions in Mexican history.
The vote among the roughly 6,500 employees of GM transmission and pickup plants in the northern Mexico city of Silao is a major test of whether a measure of freedom has come to Mexican labor practices.
For almost a century, Mexican unions have been largely a sham, with sold-out leaders guaranteeing low wages that drained manufacturing jobs out of the United States. Mexican auto workers make one-eighth to one-tenth of the wages of their U.S. counterparts, spurring a massive relocation of auto plants to Mexico.
Under changes to Mexican labor law required under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade pact, workers can now in theory vote out the old, pro-company union bosses.
But independent labor activists still face threats and pressure tactics. Just two days before the voting began, thugs threatened a union activist and told her not to show up for the vote.
(Common Dreams) Progressives in Congress offered their full-throated support to Capitol Hill staffers as they launched a unionization effort on Friday, with several lawmakers acknowledging that low pay and poor treatment are common in many congressional offices.
"I'm proud to pay my staff a living wage and offer the most generous benefits Congress has to offer," tweeted Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.). "But that's the exception. That's why we need to allow congressional staff to unionize."
Following numerous anonymous social media posts by Hill staffers about racial and gender discrimination at work and struggling to afford essentials in Washington, D.C.—among the most expensive cities in the U.S.—the newly-formed Congressional Workers Union publicly announced Friday that workers plan to organize individual offices of lawmakers as well as congressional committees to join the union.
The staffers are unionizing "in solidarity with our fellow workers across the United States and the world," said the group.
(Common Dreams) As the National Labor Relations Board began sending out union election ballots to Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama on Friday—less than a year after the workers lost an initial election and the board accused the company of illegal interference—Sen. Bernie Sanders condemned the U.S. Senate's failure to pass proposed legislation that would strengthen unionization efforts.
"We're seeing efforts around the country for people to become unionized and we're seeing corporations responding in sometimes absolutely illegal ways," the Vermont independent senator told The Hill. "Workers need protection and of course we've got to give them that protection through the PRO Act."
The Senate has thus far failed to pass the PRO Act, or Protecting the Right to Organize Act, whose provisions are included in the stalled Build Back Better social spending and climate package. Due to the legislative filibuster—and right-wing Democrats' opposition to reforming the tool—the Democrats need 60 votes to pass the legislation.
(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).”
(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."
(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.”
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
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.
(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.
(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.
