Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here’s the latest edition of the Working People Weekly List.
Apprentice Tells Her Story at the Capitol: “North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) was looking for panelists for a March 8 presentation to members of Congress and their staff, and asked the Oregon Building Trades Council to find someone to take part. United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 290 nominated Kasey Finegan as someone who sets an example of participation in her union. The panel would be a chance to tell her story. The event took place in a Capitol conference room during Women in Construction Week. NABTU president Sean Garvey introduced the panel, followed by national AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler. Women have doubled in the construction workforce in the last decade, Garvey said, but that means going from 2% to 4%. There’s a lot of room for growth, and Finegan told members of Congress that she feels like she’s part of a culture change.”
Barnes & Noble Education Workers Seek to Unionize, Extending Organizing Wave: “Barnes & Noble Education Inc. employees at a New Jersey store are petitioning to make theirs the company’s first unionized location, extending a wave of organizing in the U.S. retail sector. Workers say they’ve signed up most of the roughly 70 employees at the store on Rutgers University’s campus. After announcing their organizing campaign to local management, they plan to submit a filing Thursday asking the US National Labor Relations Board to conduct a unionization election. Employees are petitioning to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which currently represents retail workers at Macy’s Inc., H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB and, most recently, Recreational Equipment Inc., where it first secured a foothold last year in New York City.”
For the First Time in Its 257-year History, Rutgers’ Faculty and Grad Student Unions Will Go on Strike: “For the first time in Rutgers University’s 257-year history, the unions representing its 9,000 faculty and graduate student workers—virtually its entire teaching force—have called a strike, beginning 9 a.m. Monday. The decision, which affects all three Rutgers campuses in Newark, Camden and New Brunswick, follows a meeting of union leaders Sunday evening and 10 months of unsuccessful negotiations, including more than two weeks of full-day sessions. ‘We intend for this new contract to be transformative, especially for our lowest-paid and most vulnerable members,’ Rutgers AAUP-AFT President Rebecca Givan said. ‘But our proposals to raise graduate workers and adjunct faculty up to a living wage and establish meaningful job security for adjuncts are exactly the ones that the administration has resisted most.’”
Strike at New York’s Hispanic Society Enters Second Week as Museum Pushes Back Long-Planned Reopening: “Staff at the Hispanic Society Museum and Library in New York City have been on strike since 27 March, with union members, representatives of their United Auto Workers (UAW) local and local lawmakers joining the picket line at the institution’s Washington Heights campus. The strike comes as members of the museum’s union, which formed as part of UAW Local 2110 in 2021, seek to reach an agreement with museum administrators on their very first contract. The timing is especially significant as the Hispanic Society’s museum—home to a world-class collection of art from Spain, Portugal and their former colonies in the Americas—was due to reopen on 6 April after a six-year closure for extensive renovations.”
The Fed Could Easily Drive Black Unemployment Much Higher than the Overall Jobless Rate: “As such, the Fed’s tightening efforts could easily drive the Black unemployment rate much higher than the overall jobless rate, said William Spriggs, an economics professor at Howard University and chief economist to the AFL-CIO. ‘If the Fed continues to use unemployment as its measure of labor force slack, and thinks they want a 4.5% unemployment rate—to make that happen, the Fed would have to induce net job loss in the labor market,’ Spriggs told CNN in an email. ‘If we go through two months of negative job growth, all bets are off. The Black unemployment rate will easily get to 9% in that scenario.’”
AFL-CIO: Janet Protasiewicz’s Victory in Wisconsin State Supreme Court Election: “It is with great pride that the Wisconsin labor movement celebrates this victory. Union activists across the state mobilized and rallied working people to engage in the election and carefully consider the qualifications of the candidates. In the end, it was Janet’s judicial record of standing up for fairness and equality that put her over the top.”
Actors’ Equity National Council Authorizes Strike if Tour Deal Cannot Be Met: “On April 3, the National Council of Actors’ Equity Association authorized the union’s executive director and lead negotiator, Al Vincent, Jr., to call a strike on all Broadway League tours should he deem it appropriate. The union, which represents over 51,000 professional theater actors and stage managers, has been in bargaining sessions for the past two months regarding a new touring agreement. The current contract expired on February 5 and union members have been working according to terms of the out-of-date contract.”
MLB Owners Unanimously Ratify CBA with Minor League Players: “Major League Baseball owners voted unanimously to ratify the new collective bargaining agreement with minor league players, formalizing the landmark agreement that will more than double player salaries. Players late last week overwhelmingly voted in favor of the tentative agreement, with thousands backing a deal that also improved housing, transportation and medical rights of players. Upon the players' ratification of the agreement, MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in a statement: ‘The agreement represents a giant step forward in treating minor league players as the elite professional athletes that they are. It's a historic day for these players, their families and the entire player fraternity.’”
Chicago REI Workers File Retailer's 4th Union Petition: “Workers at the REI store in Lincoln Park, Chicago, have taken steps to unionize, filing a petition with the National Labor Relations Board indicating their desire to affiliate with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. If the organizing drive succeeds, the Chicago REI will be the fourth location of the retailer—which sells clothing and equipment used for outdoor activities—to unionize. The staff of REI's New York City and Cleveland stores are represented by the RWDSU, while the staff of the company's Berkeley, California, store is represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers. RWDSU spokeswoman Chelsea Connor said one of the key issues the Chicago workers organized around was fairness in scheduling, as many employees aren't assigned to work enough hours to ensure consistency in their earnings. ‘At this store, there's a particular concern around scheduling fairness and hours, so it's less wages and more ensuring there's enough hours to have spare wages,’ Connor said, noting that wages were an issue in the Cleveland and New York City campaigns.”
Under Biden, U.S. Sees Unions as Key Ally in Democracy Agenda: “‘Unions are the largest civil society organizations in any country, they are membership-based, sustainable, and are themselves examples of democratic practice,’ said Shawna Bader-Blau, the executive director of the Solidarity Center, a nonprofit aligned with the AFL-CIO, the biggest grouping of American unions. ‘Weak or strong, they have elections.’ Their capacity to mobilize, act collectively, strike and force political change far outweighs whatever smaller nongovernmental organizations can muster, she said. The focus on organized labor comes at a moment of political and economic crisis. Studies point to years of democratic decline, including in the West, while the coronavirus pandemic reversed decades in global progress in fighting poverty. Economic inequality has further ballooned.”