#unionisation

[probablyasocialecologist]

The restaurant industry has long coordinated efforts to suppress labor costs through the NRA, a multimillion-dollar lobbying machine funded both by its restaurant members and by the fees workers pay for required food-safety classes, according to a recent New York Times report.

The group has spent its war chest on lobbying campaigns to preserve a subminimum wage for tipped workers — who are disproportionately young, women, and people of color, and far more likely to live in poverty than regular minimum wage workers — and to help block state and federal sick leave proposals and minimum wage increases.

But now, restaurant executives are on edge. Union campaigns are suddenly penetrating their industry, which employs about 10 percent of the American workforce and has one of the lowest unionization rates of any sector. Over the past few years, baristas have unionized nearly 280 Starbucks stores in the face of enormous odds, and dozens of other coffee shops and restaurants have followed suit.

[...]

“The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, every newspaper reports on every union win… when an unfair labor practice charge is filed, when there are challenges to elections,” said Felice Ekelman, a principal at Jackson Lewis, one of the oldest and most infamous union avoidance law firms in the country. “When did this become first page news?”

“And guess who’s reading it?” replied Laura Pierson-Scheinberg, one of Ekelman’s Jackson Lewis colleagues, as the two sat across from each other on the main stage of the summit. “My kids. Literally. I have an 18-year-old, my kids are into it.”

The two lawyers were discussing a new threat for the restaurant industry: the unexpected rise of union campaigns in workplaces that, for decades, have largely been immune from such organizing efforts.

[...]

“Before, I used to say… ‘[Unionization] isn’t a problem for you in the restaurant industry,’” said Pierson-Scheinberg. But now, she warned, “Kids do not care about paying union dues. Two percent of pay, are you kidding me? Their Netflix costs more. They think it’s a hell of a deal.”

The “kids,” she added, are organizing workplaces which would have previously seemed unreachable.

[reasonsforhope]

"More than 150 workers whose labor underpins the AI systems of Facebook, TikTok and ChatGPT gathered in Nairobi on Monday [May 1st, 2023] and pledged to establish the first African Content Moderators Union, in a move that could have significant consequences for the businesses of some of the world’s biggest tech companies.

The current and former workers, all employed by third party outsourcing companies, have provided content moderation services for AI tools used by Meta, Bytedance, and OpenAI—the respective owners of Facebook, TikTok and the breakout AI chatbot ChatGPT. Despite the mental toll of the work, which has left many content moderators suffering from PTSD, their jobs are some of the lowest-paid in the global tech industry, with some workers earning as little as $1.50 per hour.

As news of the successful vote to register the union was read out, the packed room of workers at the Mövenpick Hotel in Nairobi burst into cheers and applause, a video from the event seen by TIME shows. Confetti fell onto the stage, and jubilant music began to play as the crowd continued to cheer.

The establishment of the Content Moderators Union is the culmination of a process that began in 2019, when Daniel Motaung, a Facebook content moderator, was fired from his role at the outsourcing company Sama after he attempted to convene a workers’ union called the Alliance. Motaung, whose story was first revealed by TIME, is now suing both Facebook and Sama in a Nairobi court. Motaung traveled from his home in South Africa to attend the Labor Day meeting of more than 150 content moderators in Nairobi, and addressed the group.

“I never thought, when I started the Alliance in 2019, we would be here today—with moderators from every major social media giant forming the first African moderators union,” Motaung said in a statement. “There have never been more of us. Our cause is right, our way is just, and we shall prevail. I couldn’t be more proud of today’s decision to register the Content Moderators Union.”

TIME’s reporting on Motaung “kicked off a wave of legal action and organizing that has culminated in two judgments against Meta and planted the seeds for today’s mass worker summit,” said Foxglove, a non-profit legal NGO that is supporting the cases, in a press release.

Those two judgments against Meta include one from April in which a Kenyan judge ruled Meta could be sued in a Kenyan court—following an argument from the company that, since it did not formally trade in Kenya, it should not be subject to claims under the country’s legal system. Meta is also being sued, separately, in a $2 billion case alleging it has failed to act swiftly enough to remove posts that, the case says, incited deadly violence in Ethiopia...

Workers who helped OpenAI detoxify the breakout AI chatbot ChatGPT were present at the event in Nairobi, and said they would also join the union. TIME was the first to reveal the conditions faced by these workers, many of whom were paid less than $2 per hour to view traumatizing content including descriptions and depictions of child sexual abuse. ...Said Richard Mathenge, a former ChatGPT content moderator... “Our work is just as important and it is also dangerous. We took an historic step today. The way is long but we are determined to fight on so that people are not abused the way we were.”

-via TIME, 5/1/23

[Note: In addition to Big Tech outsourcing and exploiting workers for social media and AI moderation, many companies also exploit and vastly underpay mostly overseas workers to straight up pretend to be AI. I'm really glad issues around this are starting to get attention AND UNIONS because exploited overseas labor is so often the backbone of AI--or even the "AI" itself.]

[berniesrevolution]

@_ericblanc

[geofffromaccounting]

So remember when someone said it'd be funny if VFX workers started unionising during the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes?

Turns out, VFX workers at Marvel Studios would agree with you, as they file for a unionisation election with the National Labor Relations Board.

I think it's probably safe to say that this is a Pretty Big Deal, considering the VFX industry has formally existed since at least the 70s (and I'd be willing to bet on it going back further depending on how you define it) and hasn't had a recognised union at all during that time.

And now, in a time where everyone in the film industry is demanding better working conditions (and rightfully so!) the VFX-IATSE union is becoming a thing. I genuinely love to see it, and I wish all VFX workers a happy unionisation, and all studio execs a very "get fucked and treat your workers fairly"

[canadianabroadvery]

" ... As workers launched a vibrant card collection campaign, management launched their all-out campaign of bullying and intimidation. All of their tactics are blatantly illegal, but Amazon does them anyway because they have all the lawyers and money in the world, and they can easily deal with fines and penalties later if it means stopping the union effort now. 

This is why it’s essential that workers are prepared to organize and stand up to managers every time they try to bully workers. When workers force managers to back down, it massively boosts the confidence of all workers across the facility, no matter how small the win might be. .

[narilwrites]

as a European it is kind of alarming how little Americans seem to understand about strikes and guilds/unions based on the discourse I’ve seen about the writers strike…

[capnsoapy]

With Half-Life being talked about again, I do want to reiterate that Gordon Freeman went to work one morning and; aside from being knocked unconscious and put into stasis a few times; went without sleep for the next six consectutive days

[pine-rhyme]

Harowhark study because i got the flu (Nonegesimitis).

[wafflesrisa]

Say what you will about winners and losers of the 2024 São Paulo GP, the ones who had it the hardest were the mechanics and engineers. They worked injured, sleepless, burnt out. They worked after nearly a month away from family. They worked without time to eat or rest. First to the track and last to leave. And they’re not flying home in private jets

[colomkola]

Honestly, if you had showed him the concept/what not, he'd prob be on board for the pilot/1st episode, that man is a fnaf fan, have you not seen that video.

can't believe we didn't get to see kaufmo in all his full glory, this is clown erasure >:(

We could only afford his voice actor, Jack Black, for zero lines.

[canadianabroadvery]

[feckcops]

‘War of attrition’: why union victories for US workers at Amazon have stalled

"So far, no Amazon union campaign has come close to replicating the Staten Island victory. ALU came up short in union elections in Albany, New York, at another warehouse in Staten Island, and pulled a union election petition shortly after filing in California, though the union is currently supporting a union campaign in Kentucky and at Amazon’s air hub outside Cincinnati, Ohio.

"The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union came up short in the rerun of a union election in March 2022 at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, after the NLRB ordered a new election due to Amazon’s misconduct during the first election. The second election results have yet to be finalized. Unfair labor practice charges are still being adjudicated and objections to the elections, which include 400 contested ballots that could sway the result, are yet to be decided.

"In the meantime, efforts to pass sweeping labor law reforms in Congress have stalled. The House passed the Joe Biden-backed pro-union Pro Act in 2021, but the bill did not reach a Senate vote. Reintroduced in the House and Senate this year, the act now faces a House under Republican control that is unlikely to vote in its favor."

[colomkola]

Posting Politics on main part 5 2

[ocelotrevs]

CGI animators should definitely unionise in that case

CGI animators should unionize next. normally, their jobs would be too precarious to strike, since studios would replace them without a second thought, but if it's part of this larger general film strike, they might finally have meaningful power to better their working conditions

[theindefinitearticle]

what you have to understand is every character in riverdale represents a genre and a class dynamic do you understand no wait come back

[077891st]

No one else can drink from the Meow-nager's cup 😾