#Union SEIU

[fuzzytimes1]

Movement brews among Peet's coffee workers as the Davis shop is the first to unionize

Peet’s Coffee workers at the West Covell Boulevard location in Davis rallied with supporters outside the first Peet’s in the country to become part of a union. The crowd chanted, “No Justice. No Peet’s.” “I love my job and the community and I didn’t want to give it up,” said employee Rivad Tal. Tal and several of the 15 employees who formed the union with Services Employees International Union…

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

The SEIU (Service Employees International Union), representing nearly 2 million workers in the US and Canada, has called for a ceasefire.

"As a union family strongly committed to justice and democracy, we believe all people across the globe deserve to live safely and free of fear, with dignity and respect for their human rights, as well as access to food, water, shelter, medicine and other necessities."

[reasonsforhope]

Non-paywalled version here.

"Tens of thousands of workers at Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics across the country will soon vote on whether to authorize a strike, union officials announced Thursday.

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which includes a dozen local unions with members in seven states and the District of Columbia, said voting would begin Saturday [August 26] and extend into the middle of September. Any strike would start no earlier than Oct. 1.

More than 80,000 employees are represented by the coalition, which counts among its members a wide range of hospital and clinic workers including nursing assistants, phlebotomists, pharmacy technicians and housekeepers. The coalition said that it represents roughly 40% of the overall Kaiser Permanente workforce.

Union leaders said that if a strike moves forward, it would be the largest strike of healthcare workers in the history of the country. They faulted Kaiser for inadequate and unsafe staffing and said the healthcare giant had failed to bargain with them in good faith by refusing to provide them with crucial information during negotiations, among other unfair labor practices.

“Patient care is in crisis at Kaiser Permanente,” said Linda Bridges, president of one of the unions in the coalition, OPEIU Local 2in Silver Spring, Md. “Staffing was decimated during the pandemic and it has not gotten any better. The problem we’re dealing with is Kaiser is not hearing us.

“Kaiser can and must do better. ... They need to stop the unfair labor practices and address the healthcare staffing needs now.”

Regan, the SEIU-UHW president, said the coalition has proposed a $25 hourly minimum wage for its members across the Kaiser Permanente system, saying that “you cannot take care of a family in Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Honolulu” on $19 to $21 an hour. He said Kaiser had recently proposed a much lower minimum — $21 an hour — in 2026."

-via Los Angeles Times, August 24, 2023

Note: Also, if you have Kaiser and you've been putting off any doctors appointments, uh...you might want to make those asap.

[justinssportscorner]

Andrea Hsu at NPR:

Hours before their final game of the season, the Dartmouth men's basketball team has voted to join a union, becoming the first unionized college sports team in the U.S. and opening many thorny questions about the future of college sports. Led by Dartmouth forward Cade Haskins and guard Romeo Myrthil, the 15 players announced their intent to unionize last September, arguing that the business of college sports is different that it was a few years ago. Tuesday's vote was 13 to 2 in favor of joining SEIU Local 560. "Today is a big day for our team. We stuck together all season and won this election," wrote Haskins and Myrthil in a statement. "Let's work together to create a less exploitative business model for college sports." The election was held over the objections of the Trustees of Dartmouth College, which last week filed a motion asking the National Labor Relations Board to halt the election pending further review. The NLRB denied that request. On Tuesday, Dartmouth asked the NLRB to overturn the decision by the agency's regional director to hold the election in the first place, setting the stage for a protracted legal fight.

Are college athletes employees?

At the heart of this election was the issue of whether college athletes should be considered employees and therefore have to the right under federal labor law to form unions and collectively bargain over pay and benefits. In the student newspaper, Haskins and Myrthil said they believe they should be compensated the same as other student employees. Being paid for the time they spend on the sport "would alleviate the need for second jobs and enhance our experience as part of the Dartmouth community," they wrote. A union would also allow them to negotiate better health care benefits, to cover out-of-pocket costs incurred as a result of injuries sustained while playing for the school, the players argued.

In a ruling last month, NLRB regional director Laura Sacks concluded that an employer-employee relationship does exist between the Dartmouth basketball players and the college. She found that the players perform work that benefits their school through things like alumni donations and publicity, that the players are compensated for that work in nonmonetary ways, and that Dartmouth exercises a lot of control over that work. Her ruling paved the way for Tuesday's election.

Dartmouth College's men's basketball team is the first college basketball team to be unionized, as they voted to join SEIU Local 560.

See Also:

Daily Kos: Dartmouth men's basketball team makes history by becoming first US college sports team to unionize

[local-gay]

apparently my planned parenthood affiliate is unionized so guess who joined a union !!!

[fabiansociety]

kaiser workers are ON STRIKE, you love to see it

[theburialofstrawberries]

where is the quivering white liberal deference to voices of colour when we need it

[tomorrowusa]

The US Senate will be getting its first black female LGBTQ+ member. Laphonza Butler will replace veteran California Sen. Dianne Feinstein who died last week.

Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the selection of Laphonza Butler — the President of the nation’s largest organization dedicated to electing women, EMILY’s List — to complete the United States Senate term of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, which runs through 2024. Butler, a longtime senior adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, labor leader, and advocate for women and working people, will be the first openly LGBTQ person to represent California in the Senate. She will also be the first Black lesbian to openly serve in Congress in American history and the second Black woman to represent California in the Senate following Vice President Kamala Harris. “An advocate for women and girls, a second-generation fighter for working people, and a trusted adviser to Vice President Harris, Laphonza Butler represents the best of California, and she’ll represent us proudly in the United States Senate,” said Governor Newsom. “As we mourn the enormous loss of Senator Feinstein, the very freedoms she fought for — reproductive freedom, equal protection, and safety from gun violence — have never been under greater assault. Laphonza will carry the baton left by Senator Feinstein, continue to break glass ceilings, and fight for all Californians in Washington D.C.”

Gov. Newsom sends a timely message by choosing someone who is the leader of an organization promoting reproductive freedom and who was once head of California's largest union. Workers rights and reproductive freedom are major parts of Democrats' message in the 2024 presidential and congressional elections.

[queerforscience]

❗️This list is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

That's general info on unionizing in the US. Contacting an existing union in your country in the same or a similar industry is often also helpful, especially if your workplace union may be able to be part of an umbrella union like UFCW, SEIU, AFL-CIO, Teamsters... There are pros and cons to joining a larger union like those, but it's worth approaching them for info and potential support and considering your options.

[stephaniemercado]

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My work at the 2024 SEIU convention in Philadelphia.

[haroldjaffe]

Nearly 4,000 UIC workers are standing together to demand a fair contract that protects, respects, and pays them what they deserve. It’s time for UIC to put people over profits and uphold its commitment to the patients, workers, and students who rely on the University for accessible services. #SupportUICWorkers #WeMakeUICRun

[warmhappycat]

Also, Anon is absolutely a fucking clown who does not know shit about labor history, and I’d say odds are high they’re just a straight up bootlicker troll, honestly.

My evidence?

It’s SEIU, not SIEU, you moldy onion. Iirc it’s the biggest union in North America, and one of the oldest and most well-known, so if anon’s head were just, like, less up their ass (not even all the way out!), they’d know how to fucking spell it.

SEIU is not a “white collar” union???????? Its largest growing segment now is among adjuncts, but one of the biggest hurdles in organizing those adjuncts is convincing them to join *SEIU specifically*, because some “white collar” workers think they’re too good for “the janitor’s union.” It’s literally Service Employees International Union. Until very recently, it was almost exclusively known for organizing “blue collar” workers like janitors, food service employees, housekeepers, garbage collectors, etc. Last I checked, it was a “majority minority” union - that is, more members of color than white members. Like I said, Adjunct Action is the fastest growing portion of SEIU now, but service workers still make up the vast majority of members.

Truly, fuck OFF trying to scold anyone on their labor beliefs and then in the same breath call “SIEU” a “white collar” union.

P.S. - Police unions are their own fucking thing. You are out of your fucking mind if you think the undocumented housekeepers or elderly lunchladies of SEIU are getting qualified immunity or any such shit 😂

Nobody is making anyone go into scriptwriting. No one is born in a Netflix company town where their dad takes them into the script mines at age 12. Fuck writers who want to get paid more than once for the same job. They should only get residuals AFTER all the people who do REAL WORK, like construction, grips, costume, makeup & animators etc. Most of them are much better at their jobs than writers especially for streaming services, and they are what screenwriters can lean on & novelists can't.

People need to realize that the unions for white collar people like WGA or SIEU or NEA (public sector unions are why cops who kill the people they were supposed to serve & protect remain employed get pensions) is not the AFL-CIO or any other historical union fighting for the lives of the people who built the country's industry and made it run, any more than the NRA are the Minutemen of 1775 New England.

First, go fuck yourself, you fucking scab. No, seriously - you don't come to my blog and spout off about what workers deserve unions and decent pay and what ones don't, like it's your fucking decision. The intellectual labor that writers perform is just as real as any other work done on a film set - "all who labor by hand or brain" is the inherent logic of industrial unionism for a reason.

Second, writers aren't asking to get paid more than once: residuals are deferred pay, you absolute moron. In Hollywood, whether it's writers or actors or voice talent or whatever, you get a small fraction up front - it's usually an ok check, depending on the union's day rates and so forth, but you can't make a living off stitching these together - and then most of your pay comes from monthly royalty checks that provide you with the income you need to live off when you're between jobs.

The problem is that, historically in Hollywood, residuals have been structured with a very long "tail" - the payments start out relatively low and then get more generous over time as the show has more seasons and (presumably) goes into syndication. This doesn't work with streaming's new business model, where increasingly shows are getting 2-3 seasons max and streaming services have become increasingly quick to not just cancel shows but yank them off their servers in order to avoid paying residuals.

So what WGA writers are fighting for is a system that ensures writers (but also actors and other creative workers, because the unions pattern bargain) get a fair share of the show's revenue, even if the show is only given 2-3 seasons.

Third, the U.S labor movement would not exist today if it wasn't for white collar workers and public sector workers. About half of the U.S labor movement - 7 million workers - is public sector, and those workers are overwhelmingly women of color, mostly working as either teachers or postal workers. Likewise, about half the U.S labor movement is made up of white collar workers, and we're graduate students and adjuncts and lab researchers, teachers and social workers, administrators and IT departments.

I'm both public sector and white collar, and I'm a member of an NEA union. I'm an adjunct professor who earns $6,000 a course and it's my job to get working adults with jobs and families who've never gone to college or who've been out of higher ed for a decade to graduate with a bachelor's or a master's. If you don't think that's real work, you're free to research and write all the lectures and powerpoints, deliver those in an entertaining and educational fashion, answer a flood of questions from students who need help navigating academia, and then grade all the midterms and finals and research papers.

[daisylovesrumble]

Greedy CEOs – A CEO of a company that puts profits, their own paychecks & shareholders above all else. Someone who runs a corporation and will use all tactics necessary to keep workers down, including violating labor law, union busting, and hiring multi-million dollar legal firms to litigate their wrong-doings.

[iww-gnv]

California fast-food workers are forming a unique kind of union

Lizzet Aguilar has worked at a McDonald’s in Los Angeles for 17 years. She’s never once been given a paid day off. She’s never taken a vacation. When her husband or nine-year-old son get sick and need her to care for them—or if she gets sick herself—she has to call out and lose a day’s pay. “Es difícil,” she says: It’s difficult. Her wages are already low. She makes $16.78 per hour. “Estamos luchando día a día. Es difícil vivir en California,” says Aguilar: We live day to day. It’s difficult to live in California. But for many years she was afraid to speak up and join the Fight for 15, a national movement to raise the minimum wage that started with fast-food workers and has since seen 14 states and Washington, D.C., raise their minimum wages to $15 an hour, increasing pay for 26 million workers.   Then the pandemic hit and Aguilar’s boss didn’t give workers any hand sanitizer, gloves, or even masks. Six coworkers got COVID-19. “Ese me puso a decir, ‘Basta,’” she recalls: It pushed her to say, Enough. She got involved to protect herself and her family.  Now Aguilar will be part of the next evolution in the Fight for 15 movement: She and her coworkers will announce on February 9 that they are forming the California Fast Food Workers Union, which will be part of SEIU. Hundreds of workers from different fast-food companies will gather in Los Angeles to sign union cards. It’s time, Aguilar and her coworkers decided, to become more formal members of a union and pay dues. It’s a fresh start, she says, on the road toward securing bigger gains.

Read the rest here.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #10

March 15-22 2024

The EPA announced new emission standards with the goal of having more than half of new cars and light trucks sold in the US be low/zero emission by 2032. One of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history, it'll eliminate 7 billion tons of CO2 emissions over the next 30 years. It's part of President Biden's goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 on the road to eliminating them totally by 2050.

President Biden canceled nearly 6 Billion dollars in student loan debt. 78,000 borrowers who work in public sector jobs, teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters etc will have their debt totally forgiven. An additional 380,000 public service workers will be informed that they qualify to have their loans forgiven over the next 2 years. The Biden Administration has now forgiven $143.6 Billion in student loan debt for 4 million Americans since the Supreme Court struck down the original student loan forgiveness plan last year.

Under Pressure from the administration and Democrats in Congress Drugmaker AstraZeneca caps the price of its inhalers at $35. AstraZeneca joins rival Boehringer Ingelheim in capping the price of inhalers at $35, the price the Biden Admin capped the price of insulin for seniors. The move comes as the Federal Trade Commission challenges AstraZeneca’s patents, and Senator Bernie Sanders in his role as Democratic chair of the Senate Health Committee investigates drug pricing.

The Department of Justice sued Apple for being an illegal monopoly in smartphones. The DoJ is joined by 16 state attorneys general. The DoJ accuses Apple of illegally stifling competition with how its apps work and seeking to undermining technologies that compete with its own apps.

The EPA passed a rule banning the final type of asbestos still used in the United States. The banning of chrysotile asbestos (known as white asbestos) marks the first time since 1989 the EPA taken action on asbestos, when it passed a partial ban. 40,000 deaths a year in the US are linked to asbestos

President Biden announced $8.5 billion to help build advanced computer chips in America. Currently America only manufactures 10% of the world's chips and none of the most advanced next generation of chips. The deal with Intel will open 4 factories across 4 states (Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon) and create 30,000 new jobs. The Administration hopes that by 2030 America will make 20% of the world's leading-edge chips.

President Biden signed an Executive Order prioritizing research into women's health. The order will direct $200 million into women's health across the government including comprehensive studies of menopause health by the Department of Defense and new outreach by the Indian Health Service to better meet the needs of American Indian and Alaska Native Women. This comes on top of $100 million secured by First Lady Jill Biden from ARPA-H.

Democratic Senators Bob Casey, Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, and Jacky Rosen (all up for re-election) along with Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Sheldon Whitehouse, introduced the "Shrinkflation Prevention Act" The Bill seeks to stop the practice of companies charging the same amount for products that have been subtly shrunk so consumers pay more for less.

The Department of Transportation will invest $45 million in projects that improve Bicyclist and Pedestrian Connectivity and Safety

The EPA will spend $77 Million to put 180 electric school buses onto the streets of New York City This is part of New York's goal to transition its whole school bus fleet to electric by 2035.

The Senate confirmed President Biden's nomination of Nicole Berner to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Berner has served as the general counsel for America's largest union, SEIU, since 2017 and worked in their legal department since 2006. On behalf of SEIU she's worked on cases supporting the Affordable Care Act, DACA, and against the Defense of Marriage act and was part of the Fight for 15. Before working at SEIU she was a staff attorney at Planned Parenthood. Berner's name was listed by the liberal group Demand Justice as someone they'd like to see on the Supreme Court. Berner becomes one of just 5 LGBT federal appeals court judges, 3 appointed by Biden. The Senate also confirmed Edward Kiel and Eumi Lee to be district judges in New Jersey and Northern California respectively, bring the number of federal judges appointed by Biden to 188.

[beguines]

Seven major US labor unions representing about 6 million workers sent a letter to Joe Biden on Tuesday calling on his administration to "immediately halt all military aid to Israel" ahead of a visit to the US from Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, this week.

The unions that signed on to the letter include the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), American Postal Workers Union (APWU), International Union of Painters (IUPAT), National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW) and United Electrical Workers (UE).

"Our unions are hearing the cries of humanity as this vicious war continues," said Mark Dimondstein, the APWU president, in a press release. "Working people and our unions are horrified that our tax dollars are financing this ongoing tragedy. We need a ceasefire now, and the best way to secure that is to shut off US military aid to Israel."

In the letter, the unions expressed concerns that the US president's three-part ceasefire plan announced in May 2024 has not been fully accepted as violence in Gaza has persisted.

"Large numbers of Palestinian civilians, many of them children, continue to be killed, reportedly often with US-manufactured bombs. Rising tensions in the region threaten to ensnare even more innocent civilians in a wider war. And the humanitarian crisis deepens by the day, with famine, mass displacement, and destruction of basic infrastructure including schools and hospitals. We have spoken directly to leaders of Palestinian trade unions who told us heart-wrenching stories of the conditions faced by working people in Gaza," wrote the unions in the letter.

"The time to act decisively to end this war is now. Stopping US military aid to Israel is the quickest and most sure way to do so, it is what US law demands, and it will show your commitment to securing a lasting peace in the region."

Earlier this year, US labor unions launched the National Labor Network for Ceasefire, which has been signed by dozens of local unions around the US, including the letter signatories and National Nurses United.

The letter comes as activists are planning protest demonstrations in Washington DC this week over Netanyahu's visit, his first to the US since 7 October. Thousands of protesters are expected to descend on Washington DC to call for an end to the US aid to Israel that has been fueling the war in Gaza.