Power at Work

21/12/2023

The Power at Work Blog is Taking a Break . . .

It's that time of year. The Burnes Center for Social Change team that produces the Power at Work Blog is taking a well-deserved break from December 22 through January 1 to reset, recover, and recharge for a powerful year in 2024. Since many of you also will take time off from work or school during this holiday season, you should have bountiful time to catch up with all the great worker-power-focused content produced for the Power at Work Blog over the last (almost) 13 months.

Read this full post on the Power at Work Blog for a reader/viewer/listener's guide to accessing all our content, the most popular content, and some underappreciated gems you might have missed:

https://poweratwork.us/a-holiday-break-so-you-can-catch-up

Remember to subscribe to keep up with all the Power at Work Blog's content (go to the form at the bottom of the front page). Also, follow the Power at Work Blog right here on Facebook.

It's that time of year. The Burnes Center for Social Change team that produces the Power At Work Blog is taking a well-deserved break from December 22 through January 1 to reset, recover, and recharge for a powerful year in 2024. Since many of you also will take time off from work or school during t...

20/12/2023

Union Demands that OSHA Revoke Failing South Carolina OSHA Program

OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) State Plan states — you can’t live with ’em, you can’t live without ’em.

Or can you?

A labor union has petitioned federal OSHA to withdraw the state’s authority to run its own OSHA program. The union believes that federal OSHA can more effectively protect workers than the state’s OSHA program. The union’s petition was based on data that OSHA compiles, much of it readily available to the public.

Below we will look at what’s going on in South Carolina. What options does OSHA have if a state is not effectively running its OSHA program? Why do we even have state OSHA programs? And what can be done to improve OSHA’s oversight over state OSHA programs? . . . .

*** The Burnes Center for Social Change's Power at Work Blog is proud to re-publish this important post by Jordan Barab for his Confined Space blog. Read the full post on the Power at Work Blog: https://poweratwork.us/union-petition-osha-south-carolina. ***
Please subscribe to the Power at Work Blog (bottom of the blog's front page) and follow Power at Work here on Facebook.

Union of Southern Service Workers SEIU AFL-CIO Doug Parker Bruce Rolfsen U.S. Department of Labor

17/12/2023

2023 was an historic year for worker organizing, unions, and collective bargaining. Seth Harris is joined by Cynthia Estlund and Steven Greenhouse on Power at Work to discuss how the labor movement changed in 2023, and predict what comes next.

🔗https://poweratwork.us/end-of-year-power-hour

Sustained and effective worker power arises out of collective action. Our goal at the Power At Work blog is to advance actions that build power to confront power — contributing to a discourse in the United States that puts workers at the center of the conversation.

17/12/2023

The Power Hour: End-of-Year Labor Roundup with Cynthia Estlund and Steve Greenhouse

The Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Cynthia Estlund, author and Professor at NYU School of Law, and Steven Greenhouse, Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation. This blogcast is a look back on what is undeniably an important year for workers, unions, and worker power. Our guests this month have done an excellent job of putting 2023 into context in terms of collective bargaining, developments for workers and organized labor, how the labor movement has changed in the past year, and predictions on where it will go next.

You don't want to miss this edition of the Power Hour!

Watch the end-of-year Power Hour here: https://poweratwork.us/end-of-year-power-hour

Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Cynthia Estlund, author and Professor at NYU School of Law, and Steven Greenhouse, Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation. Listen to their conversation on the importance of collective bargaining in 2023, the trends leading into 2024, and the futu...

15/12/2023

The Weekly Download Issue #46

The Weekly Download is the place for ideas, features, research, and news coverage about workers, worker power, and unions — delivered to your inbox and the Power at Work Blog, every week. The Weekly Download hopes to promote the writing, research, and analysis that advances a discourse putting workers and their unions at the center of the national conversation. If you have an item that we should include in The Weekly Download, or a source we should review for future items, please email us at [email protected].

Teamster: “Solidarity Is the Most Powerful Word in Labor, and You’re Seeing It This Year”
Published in Jacobin magazine, December 8, 2023
By Antonio Rosario

“There have been a lot of headline-grabbing strikes in the United States this year but at UPS, you won big with the threat of a strike alone. When you reflect on this year, not just for your union but for the entire US labor movement, how do you characterize it?”

Collective Bargaining in 2023: End-of-Year Grades
Published in Blog, December 10, 2023
By Seth Harris

“2023 was a very important year for collective bargaining --- perhaps the most important in a generation. This year certainly proved, yet again, collective bargaining can successfully address workplace problems. We already knew that. This year’s collective bargaining brought more. Collective bargaining produced generational changes in workers’ lives.”

Starbucks' Offer to Resume Contract Talks Comes with Some Serious Fine Print
Published in In These Times, December 12, 2023
By Steven Greenhouse

"After months of negotiation gridlocks, Starbucks union workers represented by Workers United may have a contract in sight. Starbucks sent a letter Friday to Workers United President Lynne Fox saying the company is ready to bargain and wants to finalize contracts for all stores in 2024.”

Read the entire edition here:

“There have been a lot of headline-grabbing strikes in the United States this year but at UPS, you won big with the threat of a strike alone. When you reflect on this year, not just for your union but for the entire US labor movement, how do you characterize it?”

12/12/2023

Supreme Court Employment Cases to Watch for This Term

Three cases that directly address employment law issues are currently on the Supreme Court’s docket for this term: a gender discrimination case involving a police officer (Muldrow v. St. Louis, MO), a whistleblower retaliation case involving a financial strategist (Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC), and a forced arbitration case involving truck drivers (Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St.). This post by guest author Michelle Fujii and Northeastern University School of Law student will describe and analyze these three cases.

In all three cases, the circuit court decisions below pose additional difficulties for workers attempting to vindicate their rights in court.

Read the full post here: https://poweratwork.us/supreme-court-employment-cases

Three cases that directly address employment law issues are currently on the Supreme Court’s docket for this term: a gender discrimination case involving a police officer (Muldrow v. St. Louis, MO), a whistleblower retaliation case involving a financial strategist (Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC), ...

10/12/2023

Collective Bargaining in 2023: End-of-Year Grades

2023 was a very important year for collective bargaining --- perhaps the most important in a generation. This year certainly proved, yet again, collective bargaining can successfully address workplace problems. We already knew that. This year’s collective bargaining brought more. Collective bargaining produced generational changes in workers’ lives. Worker activism and a willingness to strike retired the vestiges of concessions bargaining. Unions and their success at the bargaining table contributed to the expansion and strengthening of the middle class.

The success was not universal. Some employers stubbornly and illegally refused to bargain. But most employers, especially those in mature relationships with their employees’ unions, bargained to resolution. Employers did not always start in the right place. Workers either cajoled or forced their employers to reach the right result in an impressively large number of negotiations.

The aggregate results have been nothing short of historic.

Read the new post by The Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris on the Blog: https://poweratwork.us/collective-bargaining-2023-final-grades

UAW International Union SAG-AFTRA Writers Guild of America West Writers Guild of America West UNITE HERE

2023 was a very important year for collective bargaining --- perhaps the most important in a generation. This year certainly proved, yet again, collective bargaining can successfully address workplace problems. We already knew that. This year’s collective bargaining brought more. Collective bargai...

08/12/2023

Workers By The Numbers #14: Analyzing The November Jobs and Unemployment Report With Elise Gould and Rick McGahey

The US created 199K jobs in November and the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.7% in line with expectations, but what does it really mean for workers? Come join Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, with Economic Policy Institute's Elise Gould and The New School's Rick McGahey as she goes below the headline numbers & talk about which workers are benefitting in the long-term. This conversation was aired live on the homepage of the blog at 12:00 PM ET on Friday, December 8. You don't want to miss this Numbers Day blogcast!

Watch: https://poweratwork.us/workers-by-the-numbers-14
Listen: https://poweratwork.us/workers-by-the-numbers-14-podcast

Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, hosts this month's Workers by the Numbers Blogcast. Listen to her in conversation with Elise Gould and Rick McGahey as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for November 2023. This convers...

07/12/2023

Labor Artifact: Graduate Student Unionization on College Campuses

Graduate students have been integral to the development of the academic environment, serving as pillars of intellectual rigor and research inside institutions. However, despite significant contributions, they often encounter obstacles such as inadequate compensation, limited benefits, and a lack of representation in university decision-making processes. These displays of employer power drove the movement by graduate students to organize. Motivated by a shared resolve to improve their working lives, graduate students chose to fight for fair working conditions and a more inclusive scholarly milieu.

This article delves into the tumultuous history of these unions, and highlights how graduate student workers have overcome obstacles to pave the way for meaningful change in academia.

Read the full article by Northeastern University student Jiaqi Zhang here: https://poweratwork.us/labor-artifact-graduate-student-workers

Graduate students have been integral to the development of the academic environment, serving as pillars of intellectual rigor and research inside institutions. However, despite significant contributions, they often encounter obstacles such as inadequate compensation, limited benefits, and a lack of....

05/12/2023

Power At Work Blogcast #28: Higher Education Organizing

Listen to The Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation about organizing in higher education with William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions; Joseph van der Naald, Affiliated Researcher with the National Center and a Ph.D candidate at The Graduate Center, CUNY; and Scott R. Phillipson, Esq., president of SEIU Local 200United and chair of the SEIU Higher Education Council.

Seth and guests discuss trends in organizing among higher education workers, including graduate and undergraduate students, The CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies latest union density report, and current organizing efforts at universities and colleges like Emory, Syracuse, and California State.

Watch the blogcast here: https://poweratwork.us/higher-education-organizing-blogcast
Listen to the podcast here: https://poweratwork.us/higher-education-organizing-podcast

Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation about organizing in higher education with William Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions; Joseph van der Naald, Affiliated Researcher with the....

03/12/2023

Healthcare Workers at Kaiser Permanente Won a Historic Deal. Here's How They Did It.

Over three days in October, 75,000 frontline healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente held an unfair labor practice strike. The actions, led by workers across multiple states and Washington, D.C., constituted the largest strike of healthcare workers in U.S. history.

In November, more than 85,000 healthcare workers who form the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions overwhelmingly voted to ratify a new contract to bolster patient safety, make critical investments in the healthcare workforce, and set a higher standard for the healthcare industry nationwide. Approved with 98.5% of the members’ votes, the four-year contract is in effect at hundreds of Kaiser facilities across California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

The following is an interview with Christian Siguenza, a laboratory assistant at Kaiser Permanente in Southern California and a member of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW).

Read the whole article here: https://poweratwork.us/kaiser-permante-seiu-strike-contract

In November, more than 85,000 healthcare workers who form the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions overwhelmingly voted to ratify a new contract to bolster patient safety, make critical investments in the healthcare workforce, and set a higher standard for the healthcare industry nationwide. This p...

01/12/2023

The Weekly Download Issue #44

The Weekly Download is the place for ideas, features, research, and news coverage about workers, worker power, and unions — delivered to your inbox and the Power at Work Blog, every week. The Weekly Download hopes to promote the writing, research, and analysis that advances a discourse putting workers and their unions at the center of the national conversation. If you have an item that we should include in The Weekly Download, or a source we should review for future items, please email us at [email protected].

How to Count Strikes and Collective Actions with Johnnie Kallas
Published in Power At Work, November 26, 2023
By Asia Simms
The Cornell ILR Labor Action Tracker is a database that provides reliable information on strikes to fill the hole left by budget cuts to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Reagan administration in the early 1980s. Listen to Johnnie Kallas explain how to use the Labor Action Tracker to track current strikes across the U.S.

'Biggest Ever Global Strike Against Amazon' Kicks Off on Black Friday
Published in Common Dreams, November 24, 2023
By Jake Johnson
“Amazon workers and allies in dozens of countries around the world took to the streets Friday to protest the e-commerce behemoth's atrocious working conditions, low pay, union busting, tax dodging, and inaction on planet-warming emissions.”

California Faculty Prepare for First Strike in 12 Years
Published in Labor Notes, November 21, 2023
By Owen Lavine
“After 95 percent of voting members authorized a strike on October 30, the 29,000-member California Faculty Association plans to roll out strikes at Cal Poly Pomona December 4, San Francisco State University December 5, Cal State Los Angeles December 6 and Sacramento State University December 7.”

Read the full edition here:

The Weekly Download is the place for ideas, features, research, and news coverage about workers, worker power, and unions — delivered to your inbox and the Power at Work Blog, every week. The Weekly Download hopes to promote the writing, research, and analysis that advances a discourse putting wor...

30/11/2023

Celebrating One Year of Putting Workers at the Center of the Power At Work Blog

December 1, 2023 marks the first anniversary of the Power At Work Blog. We arrived at exactly the right time. This has been a historic year for workers, worker power, collective action, and unions. Dramatic increases in organizing and greater success in union representation elections. Historic gains through collective bargaining in industry after industry. A president (and other public officials) visiting picket lines. We have done our best to give you a front row seat to all of it.

We’re not taking credit, of course. Workers and their unions did it. They made history by channeling their anger into action, showing immense courage, and executing shrewd strategies and tactics.

Workers’ success over the last year is certainly not just a matter of economics. American culture now strongly supports workers organizing and demanding their fair share. Perhaps most important, the American public is simply sick and tired of excessive wealth and grotesquely high executive salaries made possible by others’ hard work. Americans want workers to fight back and they support unions by large margins, especially younger Americans. Workers have been emboldened to act by their neighbors’ encouragement.

Join us in celebrating one year of the Blog with our new article: https://poweratwork.us/one-year-anniversary-power-at-work-blog

While you're there, don't forget to subscribe to the blog to see where the new year takes us!

UAW International Union AFL-CIO SAG-AFTRA UNITE HERE AFT - American Federation of Teachers The Burnes Center for Social Change United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters (UA) Levy Ratner Cornell ILR Labor Action Tracker National Whistleblower Center National Education Association

December 1, 2023 marks the first anniversary of the Power At Work Blog. We arrived at exactly the right time. This has been a historic year for workers, worker power, collective action, and unions. Dramatic increases in organizing and greater success in union representation elections. Historic gains...

28/11/2023

The Power Hour #3: Labor Experts Discuss 2024 Politics, Law, and Bargaining Over Technology

In this month's Power Hour blogcast, The Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Ruben Garcia, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Workplace Law Program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV, and Mark Gaston Pearce, a Visiting Professor and Executive Director of the Workers’ Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, as well as a former Chairman and member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Listen to their wide-ranging conversation on the politics of labor and labor in politics, the unfinished business of pro-worker legislation, unfinished business at the NLRB, bargaining over new technologies, and much more.

Listen here: https://poweratwork.us/podcast-the-power-hour-garcia-pearce
Watch here: https://poweratwork.us/the-power-hour-garcia-pearce

In this month's Power Hour blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Ruben Garcia, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Workplace Law Program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law, and Mark Gaston Pearce, a visiting professor and the executive....

26/11/2023

How to Count Strikes and Collective Actions with Johnnie Kallas

The new post on the Blog is an edited interview of Johnnie Kallas, Director of the Cornell University ILR School Labor Action Tracker, conducted by Chris Garlock from the The Labor Radio / Podcast Network. The Power At Work Blog is a proud member of the network. We are especially pleased to support the network’s great work by welcoming back Johnnie Kallas to the Power At Work Blog. We interviewed Kallas in February 2023 about the Cornell ILR Labor Action Tracker’s 2022 Annual Report. In this interview, Kallas explains in greater detail how to use the Labor Action Tracker.

Find the interview here: https://poweratwork.us/how-to-count-strikes

This post is an edited interview of Johnnie Kallas, Director of the Cornell ILR Labor Action Tracker, conducted by the Labor Radio Podcast Network. The Power At Work Blog is a proud member of the network. We are especially pleased to support the network’s great work by welcoming back Johnnie Kalla...

21/11/2023

Janitorial Workers Across New England Reach Tentative Deal on Historic Contract

More than 12,000 janitorial workers across New England represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU), SEIU Local 32BJ reached a tentative contract agreement on Wednesday, November 15, with the Maintenance Contractors of New England (MCNE), an organization representing 60 individual employers. The deal, pending ratification by the union’s members, outlines historic wage increases, an increased number of full-time positions, and more. This deal has become just the latest win at the bargaining table during a historic year of labor activism.

Local 32BJ represents janitorial workers working at a wide range of institutions, including several Cambridge biotech labs, the Prudential Center, the campuses of Northeastern University and Berklee College of Music, and all MBTA train stations.

Read the whole post by Alexandra Anderson on the Blog:

More than 12,000 janitorial workers across New England represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ reached a tentative contract agreement on Wednesday, Nov. 15, with the Maintenance Contractors of New England (MCNE), an organization representing 60 individual employers.

19/11/2023

Airline workers’ persistence in labor organizing continues

The holiday season is here, meaning that many of us will probably find ourselves in an airport sometime during the next few weeks. While some travelers may not think much about who their pilots and flight attendants are – let alone those workers’ schedules and pay – many employees of the airline industry have been organizing for better working conditions for months or longer.

In early January 2023, workers at Delta Air Lines held union organizing drives and collected authorization cards to force an election to allow them to be represented by a union. Flight attendants, ramp agents, and mechanics at Delta were all organizing with support from the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters respectively.

During the past 20 years, flight attendants at Delta — a notoriously anti-union company since its inception in 1925 — have tried to hold a union election three times, but failed to win enough support. Delta has the lowest percentage of its employees represented by a union among U.S. airlines with only around 20% of the more than 80,000 workers at the company unionized compared to 80% at other major airlines. Now, after the pandemic and the array of upheavals that came with it, many employees across industries feel more passionately about getting a union contract with their employers.

Read the whole article by guest Author Emily Spatz on the Blog: https://poweratwork.us/airline-worker-organizing

The holiday season is here, meaning that many of us will probably find ourselves in an airport sometime during the next few weeks. While some travelers may not think much about who their pilots and flight attendants are –– let alone those workers’ schedules and pay –– many employees of the...

17/11/2023

The Weekly Download Issue # 43

The Weekly Download is the place for ideas, features, research, and news coverage about workers, worker power, and unions — delivered to your inbox and the Power at Work Blog, every week. The Weekly Download hopes to promote the writing, research, and analysis that advances a discourse putting workers and their unions at the center of the national conversation. If you have an item that we should include in The Weekly Download, or a source we should review for future items, please email us at [email protected].

Starbucks Unionized Baristas’ Strike Coincides With Red Cup Giveaway
Published in Bloomberg, November 16, 2023
By Josh Eidelson and Daniela Sirtori-Cortina
“Thousands of Starbucks Corp. baristas went on strike Thursday, claiming the coffee chain refuses to fairly negotiate with their union. The work stoppage is pegged to the company’s Red Cup Day, when Starbucks gives out holiday-themed reusable cups. Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, said staff at hundreds of cafes are participating. It’s one of several tactics — along with outreach to politicians and to students on campuses where Starbucks has contracts — that the union has deployed in an effort to make the company change its behavior.”

Hollywood Unions Take on AI—and Win
Published in OnLabor, November 15, 2023
By Marina Multhaup
“Artificial intelligence has the capability to reshape the ways that we work. Experts predict that AI will increase wealth, raise the GDP, improve health care and education. Generative artificial intelligence (AI, or G*I) is also a potential existential threat to labor. That’s not hyperbole, that’s the dream and prediction of OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who explains that the promise of AI’s wealth-generating capability is premised on AI reducing labor costs to zero. That outcome is not inevitable, however, and if and how it happens will be shaped and influenced by humans—and in particular by unions.”

American Airlines Passenger Service Workers Rally Nationwide to Demand Fair Pay and Job Security
Published in Communications Workers of America, November 15, 2023
“On November 14 and 15, American Airlines passenger service workers – members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA)-International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Association – walked picket lines at eight airports across the country to educate travelers about their fight for a fair collective bargaining agreement that guarantees job security, worker safety, adequate pay, and better working conditions.”

Read the whole issue here:

The Weekly Download is the place for ideas, features, research, and news coverage about workers, worker power, and unions — delivered to your inbox and the Power at Work Blog, every week. The Weekly Download hopes to promote the writing, research, and analysis that advances a discourse putting wor...

15/11/2023

SAVING YELLOW'S UNION JOBS

The tendency in recent discussions about union density has been to focus on organizing and solidifying organizing gains. Where will the labor movement find new members? Which sectors are amenable to union organizing? Will newly organized workers win contracts that lock in their organizing successes? These are some of the right questions. But there is another question that is deeply evocative for people of my age who watched the deindustrialization, deregulation, and deunionization of the American economy that destroyed middle-class union jobs during the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s: can workers keep the union jobs they already have?

It's obvious that filling a bucket with water is much easier if the bucket doesn’t spring a leak. The same is true of union density: it’s easier to grow union membership if unions stop or slow any loss of union members. Right now, one struggle to retain thousands of union jobs is playing out in a bankruptcy court in Delaware.

Yellow Corporation, a nearly 100-year-old trucking company once known as YRC, filed for bankruptcy in August 2023. The court is in the process of liquidating Yellow’s assets to pay off its creditors, which include The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund (more about both of those later). How the court disposes of the assets will determine whether any of the 22,000 Teamsters who used to drive trucks for Yellow will have a shot at retaining their jobs. . . .

*** To read the full post, go to The Burnes Center for Social Change's Power at Work Blog: https://poweratwork.us/saving-union-jobs ***

The tendency in recent discussions about union density has been to focus on organizing and solidifying organizing gains. But there is another question that is deeply evocative for people of my age who watched the deindustrialization, deregulation, and deunionization of the American economy that dest...