Here we go again with some links to news stories that will help catch you up with what's going on in the labor movement and unions. We encourage readers to liste to the KMUZ and KBOO radio labor shows advertised on the upper-righthand corner of this blog as well.
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From Portland Jobs with Justice:
Ethos Music Center is a nonprofit organization that has provided music lessons and performance opportunities to children across Portland for over 25 years. On Monday, March 18th, its teachers and staff filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election to certify their union.
This petition follows a March 15th request from the teachers to Ethos’ directors and board to voluntarily recognize the union. Ethos has not responded to that request and has declined to meet with the teachers to discuss it. Instead, the Board has hired Littler Mendelson as their lawyer.
Write to info@ethos.org to tell management that you support the union workers of Ethos Music Center! Workers deserve a union, not expensive union-busting lawyers!
If this union is recognized, Ethos Music Center will become the first nonprofit music school in Portland to organize. Teachers are seeking consensus-driven solutions to challenges such as organizational decision-making, financial transparency, and access to more teaching resources to create a positive learning environment for their students.
The beer giant behind Coors Light, Yuengling, Simply Spiked, Topo Chico, and other major brands forced the workers behind its successful beverages and record profits onto the picket line on Feb. 17 after offering as little as 99 cents an hour in new wages.
Until Molson Coors serves up a fair deal for hardworking Texas Teamsters in Fort Worth, we're putting them on ice. Let's show Molson Coors that we won't drink one drop of their beer until a fair deal is reached for Texas Teamsters.
That's right, it's BOYCOTT time! Don’t drink Coors.
From Stabucks Workers United:
Now is the time to celebrate the 10,000+ unionized baristas who have dedicated themselves to this campaign for the past 2 years and successfully unionized 400+ stores across the country.
We’re mobilizing allies to bring the celebration to union Starbucks near them to make sure unionized partners feel the love! Can you make a congratulatory delivery to a unionized Starbucks near you?
Can you deliver notes of congratulations to a unionized Starbucks? All you need to do is fill out the form with your information and location you’ll do the delivery to. Once we confirm the location, we’ll email you a guide to walk you through the delivery and mail you a packet of sweet messages we collected for baristas.
You can use this map to find the closest unionized Starbucks near you. If there isn't a unionized Starbucks store near you, hold tight because we have more ways to plug in coming soon!
Once you fill out the form, we will send you more information and work with you directly to coordinate with the stores.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.
The petition, expected to become public Monday, puts CVS on notice that workers in its Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas intend to hold an election to determine whether the newly formed guild should represent them in labor negotiations with the Fortune 500 company.
Nearly 30 pharmacists and pharmacy technicians work at the Omnicare location, which fills prescriptions for nursing homes across Nevada and is not a public-facing pharmacy like most of the chain's more than 9,600 locations. A simple majority is needed to win and organizers told USA TODAY they are confident they have the numbers. READ MORE HERE.
From Portside and the National Jobs For All Network:
Does the Federal Government regularly publish estimates of what a reasonably comfortable living standard would be for an average household? There must be something somewhere. A government agency does publish poverty lines--aka, poverty thresholds--and its experts tell us how many people fall below the lines. In spring, the Census Bureau gathers income and other information on the preceding year and publishes the results in September. The last report was Poverty in the United States: 2022.
According to this publication the proportion of the population that was poor in 2022 was 11.5%. That is the poverty rate. There are rates for many categories, including ethnic groups and households with no workers. Recently the Bureau created Supplementary Poverty Measures (SPM) which offer more information than the official poverty rate. But the SPM poverty rate was just 12.4%, so it does not change the basics, and it has not incentivized me to master the details of the SPM. The big picture for me is that each poverty measure is totally inadequate, especially in a country that is overflowing with riches. The poverty lines are given on page 18 of the 2022 report. The line for a family of four with two young children was $29,678. The line for singletons 65 or older was $14,036. Think about those numbers for half a minute. A family of four with $30,000 a year was not officially poor in 2022.
From Labor 411:
Thousands of Southern California hospitality workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 11 overwhelmingly voted to ratify a new contract containing historic wins after repeated rolling strikes since the summer of 2023.
Why It Matters:
Workers at 34 hotels, who led the largest hotel strike in modern U.S. history, won higher pay, increased employer contributions to pensions, fair workload guarantees, health care protections and more. This includes room attendants, cooks and other nontipped workers at some of Los Angeles’ most high-end properties, such as the Beverly Hilton and the Waldorf Astoria. By the end of this contract, workers will see a 40%–50% increase in wages, with half of the rise being delivered in the first year of the agreement.
“We have won a life-changing contract that transforms hotel jobs from low-wage service work to middle-class professional positions,” Kurt Petersen, co-president of Local 11, told workers at a rally on Monday.
Machinists Seek Seat on Boeing’s Board in Contract Negotiations
Machinists (IAM) District 751, which represents 32,000 workers at factories in Washington state, began contract negotiations with Boeing this month and has proposed that the union have a seat on the board of directors in order to help restore the public’s faith in the company.
Why It Matters:
Boeing has been struggling with recent quality control concerns from the public and aviation regulators after a door panel fell off one of its 737 Max planes during a flight in early January. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board have been investigating the incident, with initial findings pointing toward Boeing’s failure to comply with manufacturing quality controls. All of this occurring around the beginning of contract renegotiation has motivated District 751 to push for a larger voice at Boeing in the form of a seat on the board of directors so that the union can contribute unique insight into the production system and safety protocols. IAM is the largest union for Boeing workers and has set out to improve not only work-life balance and wages for members in their next agreement but also quality assurance and manufacturing oversight that benefits their members’ communities and beyond.
“It’s very complex to build [airplanes],” District 751 President Jon Holden (pictured above) said. “And our members do that very well. But there’s always decisions that leaders at the top make to try and increase production rates that we want a say in. We want to ensure that it’s done with the proper risk management assessments. We want to make sure that we aren’t eliminating important redundancies.”
UAW President Shawn Fain Meets with Mercedes-Benz Alabama Plant Workers to Chart Path to Victory
Top Cut:
International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) President Shawn Fain and UAW Region 8 Director Tim Smith met with Mercedes-Benz workers at the UAW union hall in Coaling, Alabama, on Sunday to talk about their path to victory.
Why It Matters:
UAW announced in late February that a majority of hourly workers at the Alabama plant had signed authorization cards, a significant milestone in the union’s campaign to organize factories in the South. Workers in Alabama voiced familiar concerns about their conditions that echo their peers in other states where similar drives are taking place. While Mercedes-Benz profits have soared, the company’s employees’ wages haven’t budged, and full-time roles have been slowly replaced with temporary staff. Although workers at the luxury automotive brand’s largest U.S. plant have been met with a barrage of anti-union rhetoric from public figures like Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and aggressive union-busting from management, they aren’t deterred in their fight for respect and dignity in the workplace.
“So, I came here not to win this thing for you. Not to tell you what to do. I came here to find out for myself the answer to one question. Are you ready to stand up?...If you’re ready, the time is now,” Fain said in his remarks to workers. “This is your defining moment. If we have public supporters in every department, on every line, on every shift, Mercedes workers will be guaranteed to win your election….Let’s finish the job that started so long ago. Let’s walk a new path for working-class people together in solidarity.”
From the United Mine Workers of America:
From the United Electrical Workers union:
A 32-hour work week “is not a radical idea,” said Sanders. noting that “American workers are now over 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s.” However, Sanders continued, “Almost all of the economic gains of that technological transformation have gone straight to the top, while wages for workers have remained stagnant, or even worse. READ MORE HERE.
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