“Want some forced birth with your venti latte?” wroteTerri Gerstein, a workers’ rights lawyer. “Starbucks is leveraging Roe’s fall in support of its union-busting. Says it’ll provide access to abortion travel to employees but can’t promise that to workers in stores unionized w @SBWorkersUnited. Shameful!!”
A Starbucks organizer pointed out that not only was the company not...
There’s a notable surge of action by cities and other localities in advancing workers’ rights, as documented in a report we wrote that was issued recently. Some cities and counties are now seeing worker protection as one of their core functions.
More cities and localities should become champions for the working people in their jurisdictions. Local leaders—from mayors and city councilors to agency heads and longtime civil servant managers—should consider how they can use their powers to drive workplace justice....
The states with the lowest union density generally have the lowest possible minimum wage, no state-mandated paid sick or family leave and have poverty rates above the national average. Conversely, states with the highest union density generally have among the highest minimum wage levels in the country, ensure access to paid sick or family leave and have lower-than-average poverty rates.
Put simply, the presence of unions in a state correlates with low-wage workers being economically better able to care for themselves and their...
“Seven months ago if you asked me about a union I would’ve said, ‘I don’t know, cops have them?’” says Sarah Pappin, a shift supervisor at a Seattle Starbucks. But on June 6, she and her co-workers voted unanimously to join Starbucks Workers United, part of an upsurge of organizing by younger workers with little union experience that is breathing new life into the labor movement.
Between the pandemic and the labor shortage, automation is having a moment. As help wanted signs remain pervasive, could robots hold the solution — or even a partial one — to the Great American Labor Shortage rocking the hospitality industry? After all, they don’t get sick (though they may break down), take vacation time or need to earn enough to afford the Bay Area’s astronomical housing costs.“It’s possible at some unknown future time that robots will replace humans, but we’re pretty far away from that,” says professor Richard...
On Tuesday, the highest court in Massachusetts struck down a ballot initiative that would have come before voters in November. The initiative, funded by such gig companies as Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, sought to designate workers as independent contractors rather than employees.
Many Bay State voters doubtless heaved a sigh of relief: Now they won’t face the overblown, misleading campaign that 2020 California voters encountered in those companies’ campaign for Proposition 22, a similar initiative. More importantly, Tuesday’s court decision means that workers’ rights will remain protected in Massachusetts for the near future.... Read more about In Massachusetts, a Limit on Gig Companies’ Deceptions
Starbucks Corp. CEO Howard Schultz’s disparaging comments about workers’ organizing efforts escalated a lengthy battle with employees who have unionized at 150 stores nationwide.
Workers United alleges Schultz’s recent interview with New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin demonstrates the company won’t bargain in good faith with unionized employees. It’s the fourth time the union has filed a charge with labor regulators over the Starbucks chief’s statements....
The Supreme Court on Monday decided a case that limits – in a small way – the use of forced arbitration by employers. The high court ruled that Southwest Airlines could not force an airline baggage handler to resolve her complaint about unpaid overtime in private arbitration with the company and instead has the right to sue them in court.
Now the Supreme Court has clarified a question about which workers can be held to arbitration agreements, finding the baggage handler was exempt because she works in...
Just about every union activity has been disrupted or transformed. A period of massive disruption, however, is also an opportunity for change. Seeing how quickly some of your longestablished practices stopped, and new practices started, demonstrates that change is possible.
As we (hopefully) emerge from the pandemic, we don't have to return to the way things were. Though the disruption was for an unpleasant reason, maybe some of the changes it prompted were good-they opened new opportunities or helped more members get...
I’m writing with a simple request: Please create some mask-required flight options for travelers who want them.
Designating some flights on each route mask-required would be easy. There’d be no need to retrofit plane interiors. No passengers would have to don tactical flight suits or special scuba gear. It’d just be a return, for a few select flights, to the rules from two months ago, hardly a staggering burden. Plus, ample mask-optional choices should reduce the horrible...
Labor leaders are calling a bill that passed the state House and Senate on Sunday the most significant piece of legislation for combating wage theft since it was made a felony in 2019.
The bill (HF 3255), which is awaiting Gov. Tim Walz’s signature, gives the Commerce Fraud Bureau new powers to criminally investigate financial crimes along with more than $800,000 a year to hire five more investigators.
Unionization efforts at Amazon and Starbucks have been regarded with hostility by their CEOs, but Harvard Law School professor Sharon Block suggests the companies should view it differently. She writes that organizing efforts can be seen as a positive sign that workers value their companies enough to try to improve their working conditions rather than job hop, and suggests leaders work with employees to come up with a win-win solution.
Laws requiring disclosure of salary ranges in job postings, like other pay transparency laws, reduce gender and race disparities.
Laws requiring disclosure of salary ranges in job postings, like other pay transparency laws, reduce gender and race disparities. Women still earn far less than men — 83 cents to the dollar in 2022 — and this gap is even worse for women of color: Black women made 58 cents on average, and Latina women 49 cents, for every dollar a non-Latino white man earned last year. Research has found that women are...
In this new era of work, employees who work at an office are finding that return-to-work policies can be tricky. We’ve heard stories from workers about companies that have changed work arrangements from remote, part-time remote to full time in-office. We’ve heard about fears over whether an employer can promise one working arrangement, only to change it weeks or months later. And we’ve heard questions about what protections unions may or may not offer workers when it comes to returning to the office. ... But employees should beware....
The uptick in organizing comes as record numbers of job openings give workers more leverage than they had in previous years. Workers are often pushing for better pay, hours and working conditions, citing pandemic-induced burnout and safety concerns.
“To have these successes is really significant to send a message that nobody should just accept that where they work is unorganizable,” said Sharon Block, a Harvard Law School...
