cohostunionnews

a Cohost account about unions

mirroring and keeping a pulse on cool union stuff around the english-speaking (and occasionally non-english-speaking) world. run by @alyaza


Workers of the world, awaken! Break your chains, demand your rights!


Cohost Union News website
alyaza.neocities.org/CohostUnionNews/

Yesterday, Harvard Academic Workers – UAW (HAW-UAW)—which describes itself as "a union of Harvard’s non-tenure-track (NTT) research and teaching employees–about 6000 postdocs, research associates, lecturers, preceptors, and others"—filed for a long-awaited union election. If they win, it'll be a second win for UAW on campus: Harvard has already seen its undergraduate and graduate student workers unionize with them as the Harvard Undergraduate Workers Union (HUWU).

It does looks like this election will "only" cover the non tenure-track side of the union, totaling approximately 3,100 of the claimed 6,000 within HAW-UAW's scope. It's unclear to me whether that was a union call or whether they were told to separate out certain positions into another future bargaining unit. Either way, this is currently the largest union filing of the year—and, if it's anything like what we've been seeing on college campuses, should produce an overwhelming union victory.

HAW-UAW had this to say about being granted an election, and when they're hoping for it to occur:

Harvard non-tenure-track workers in FAS, HMS, HDS, and HLS Clinical have filed with the National Labor Relations Board and will soon have the opportunity to vote for a union! The overwhelming majority of non-tenure-track workers in these schools/programs have signed cards, putting us in a strong position for this critical next step! We’ve requested an early April election, though the timeline depends on the outcome of the hearings. Look out for more updates and help out by telling your colleagues to vote YES in the elections!



Sunday, March 10th at 2249 E Burnside Street from 1 to 3PM

Got a problem at work and want to do something about it? Maybe something like coordinating an action with your coworkers to escalate the situation?

This is being put on by the Coalition of Independent Unions, which formed last year in Portland on May 1. I know six of its constituent members:

  • Burgerville Workers Union (representing Burgerville workers),
  • Doughnut Workers Union (representing Voodoo Doughnuts workers);
  • Market of Choice Labor Union (representing workers at the eponymous retailer);
  • Restaurant Workers of Portland (a general union currently representing Afuri Ramen + Dumpling workers and aspiring to represent more food laborers);
  • New Seasons Labor Union (representing most Portland-area New Seasons Market stores); and
  • Association of Operators and Amusement Workers (representing workers at Oaks Amusement Park

Right now it also claims one more union that I'm not aware of. But needless to say there are a lot of cool people behind this and between them they have a lot experience winning actions in difficult circumstance. If you are in a position to benefit from a training like this, I'd encourage you to go.



This is a pretty cool achievement for them. The public sector and government work as a whole has always been pretty well unionized (by US standards anyways), but even that space has taken a bit of a downturn in recent years according to the BLS. Attrition is also a huge and constant issue for unions like this, as many members turn over each year.

In this respect AFGE is pretty impressive: they've posted strong growth and retention in membership in the past two decades. They counted 232,000 members in 2008, 288,000 in 2014, and 294,000 during the middle of 2015. The Trump years and pandemic were apparently pretty bad for them and in 2022 they counted "only" 282,436 members to end the year—but it seems throughout 2023 their growth has once again skyrocketed to reach the 300,000 members they're claiming this month.

Note that their actual membership is also only about half of the total number of employees they represent the bargaining rights of—they last claimed to bargain for approximately 750,000 members across 900 local unions, although I don't have a date for that number.



(h/t @DonutRush)

Last year, Youtube Music workers unanimously voted to unionize; beat Google's effort to avoid being recognized as a joint employer, and went on strike to protest Google's refusal to bargain with them. Yesterday, it appears they were laid off as their home city—Austin—was set to urge the company to do so.

The moment was actually caught on camera as several Youtube Music workers spoke in favor of the resolution during the Austin City Council's debate of it.

At least one worker alleges that "as [Youtube Music employees] were leaving the premises- members of HR physically assaulted our coworkers to remove them from the premises as they packed their personal items, leaving bruises and scratch marks."

What will happen next is not clear. Alphabet Workers Union had this to say on the matter:

Today Google informed workers on the YouTube Music team that they would be laid off, hours before a scheduled vote by the Austin City Council on a resolution calling on Google to bargain with these same workers in good faith.

These workers unanimously won their union election in April 2023. In response Google has publicly stated it would not engage in bargaining with them. The NLRB has ruled that Google’s continued refusal to bargain with these workers is unlawful.

The YouTube Music team is based out of Austin. Even as workers contribute to the success of the billion dollar platform, they are paid as little as $19 dollars an hour and receive minimal benefits. Many workers are forced to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.