I'm not sure how much detail to give, I don't think anyone involved or in my town browses this website, but I don't want to give any specifics in case someone does a search and this shows up. Using an alt so I this won't be tied to my normal account. I'm probably posting more details than I should, so If you think I should delete something specific let me know.

First off: To anyone thinking of unionizing in the US, and are unsure of where to start, I recommend contacting EWOC. We had followed the typical guidelines of union formation: Stay secret and form an organizing committee from people representing as many areas of the store as you can (we got a signal chat and got consent from everyone before adding new people), map the store and figure out who we should absolutely not talk to, and then gauge support of the unionizing idea by having discreet convos with your coworkers as you feel comfortable, etc.

In our case we had trouble contacting unions, and got no repsonse from a lot of them. EWOC responded immediately and we got assigned a contact who helped us along with good advice and encouragement, and helped us settle on who to go with. They had just unionized an amazon warehouse they worked at, and they helped a lot when we had spent weeks getting frustrated with the lack of any response from unions.

When the time came to choose a union, it came down to a couple choices: UFCW and CWA. CWA doesn't typically unionize our type of workplace but they are branching out, and we've heard mixed things about UFCW so we were hesitant about them. Our contact at EWOC is a socialist and informed us that CWA has been spamming pro-biden/harris ads, while their UFCW local has refused to endorse because of the ongoing genocide. So that made things simple. UFCW it is.

I've worked at a local co-op for almost a decade. I started there thinking "aha! A co-op! This place will be much better than corporate!" and there are a lot of good things about it, but it was one of those co-ops formed by hippies way back when and who basically wanted natural foods and other hokum that tends to go along with that stuff. Basically a community owned whole foods type store. One of the cool things about it was that they were officially strongly pro LGBTQ and it was one of the founding values.

But it's a community co-op, not a workers co-op. Officially democratically run by the member-owners, but absolutely no democratic principles at play when it comes to managing the workforce, and over the years it's become obvious to me and a lot of other employees about how poorly managed it is. Lots of safety issues get ignored until someone gets hurt and the co-op is financially liable, lots of homophobic incidents get swept under the rug, managers are basically unaccountable to anyone underneath them unless they flagrantly violate labor law, etc. Your experience can be a good one if your manager likes you, if you are one of the favorites, but if not they can get away with almost anything and treat you like absolute shit.

Lately our general manager has been acting like a corrupt tyrant and their policies have caused numerous injuries and wide swaths of people to be put on disciplinary action for speaking up about working conditions, shockingly incompetent mismanagement, and transphobia in the workplace.

Upper management is tired of our complaints and has decided to crack down hard over the past few months for reasons detailed in the spoiler, and that has involved under-staffing the store to a dangerous degree and numerous injuries.

A lot us are fed up with it to the point that we are ready to burn the place to the ground, but since so many of the staff are fed up we have taken the more constructive path and started a union drive. We've been trying to keep it as secret as possible, but it becomes harder to maintain a lot of secrecy as you talk to more people. So management knows something is up, but not the extent of support.

There was one person from the organizing committee who was talking up the union and was getting people on board, and they just got fired for taking a long planned vacation. It’s all shady and most likely an unfair labor practice, but they aren’t pursuing action at this time. I wish they would, but they understandably want to just enjoy they time off at the moment. But they were friends with a small local online news reporter, and I guess the reporter decided it was time to publish news about the union because it relates to other drama involving the board of directors that has been making news here.

We really didn't want news of the union reported, and told them so, because with the way they've treated us this past year we were expecting them to go overboard with punishment and threats and didn't want to risk that bullshit yet, but management has taken the opposite approach and are now love-bombing us, LMAO.

Who knows how long it will last until they hire a union buster or something, and revert back to to making shit up to get us in trouble for, but since the news of a union drive is public they can't do anything flagrantly illegal without risk of the union we are working with hitting them with unfair labor practice charges, and since many of us have ongoing L&I claims, they can't retaliate without making it look like they are punishing us for being injured.

They are still in the dark about most of it, so we are sticking to our plan, but now we have the article to allow us to have conversations about the idea of a union with more people. It wasn't what we wanted, but it's going to work out. In the meantime we get the free pizza treatment.

This is a heavily unionized town with a strong majority of democrat to far left demographic. If they add union busting to the list of egregious behavior along with racism and transphobia, they are cooked. There is now also pressure for them to drop Israeli products because of the genocide, so that's something else they have to deal with.

We are absolutely going to win this thing and inshallah we’ll take down the people responsible for all this shit. I am doing everything in my power to make them suffer for it.

Not that its relevant anymore, but its a banger headline from fair and interesting article

Samsung's largest labor union is beginning its three-day strike in South Korea. The union is now 36,570 members strong, making up a quarter of Samsung Electronics' workforce.
It is demanding one more day of annual leave, a change to the company's draconic bonus structure, and better pay overall.

The union has 6,540 members participating in the strike, and the union says 5,211 of these are workers involved in semiconductor manufacturing.

This week's three-day strike is not estimated to seriously impact Samsung's productivity, but the union has pledged to begin a second five-day strike next Monday if demands are not met in time.

A report filed last month by Barofsky disclosed an investigation into UAW President Shawn Fain for alleged retaliation, Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock for claims she misused her treasury powers, and an unnamed regional director for potential embezzlement. In response to delays in obtaining documents related to these allegations from the union, Barofsky accused it of "obstructing and interfering" and said that "if left unaddressed," it would be "an apparent violation" of the union's consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department following a years-long corruption scandal.

according to an email sent on Feb. 19 to Barofsky by Benjamin Dictor, a attorney working with the union — Barofsky called Fain for a conversation “strictly on a personal level” in which he shared "concerns about the union’s position on the crisis in Gaza." The Algemeiner — a global news outlet that covers the Middle East, Israel and matters of Jewish interest around the world — in October named Barofsky to its list of the top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life for an investigation into historical Nazi ties.

"Your call to President Fain on an issue so blatantly outside of the Monitor’s jurisdiction was inappropriate as your Office holds disproportionate power over the UAW," Dictor wrote, "and even a 'strictly personal' sharing of opinion implicitly implicates such power dynamic."

Later on Feb. 15, an email signed by Barofsky was sent by a legal assistant to the IEB. It included a letter sent to the monitor's hotline by the Anti-Defamation League, an organization involved in combatting antisemitism that expressed concerns over a statement passed by Local 7902's joint council in support of a ceasefire. The ADL letter said the statement lacked context, that it accused Israel of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and that misinformation contributes to antisemitism.

keep it general not to dox yourself and whatnot, just wondering if there's anyone else adopting the fielder method. and also what's the worst thing you have had to pick up and carry somewhere? for me it is a toss up between upright piano, heavy treadmill and slab of granite.

https://nitter.poast.org/CompassCoffeeU/status/1803568899398492416

Our election is July 16. Compass Coffee has proven they will do whatever they need to stop this from happening. Breaking the law, calling in favors from friends, adding customers and partnerships to their list of baristas in order to stop this union.More updates to follow.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided on Thursday with Starbucks, in the coffee chain's challenge to a judicial order to rehire seven Memphis employees fired as they sought to unionize in a ruling that could make it harder for courts to quickly halt labor practices contested as unfair under federal law.

The justices threw out a lower court's approval of an injunction sought by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordering Starbucks to reinstate the workers while the agency's in-house administrative case against the Seattle-based company proceeds.

Hundreds of complaints have been filed with the NLRB accusing Starbucks of unlawful labor practices such as firing union supporters, spying on workers and closing stores during labor campaigns. Starbucks has denied wrongdoing and said it respects the right of workers to choose whether to unionize.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2742219

Check out the article below:

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WASHINGTON—On the morning of June 5, a coalition of D.C. labor union locals led a picket action in front of the John A. Wilson Building on Pennsylvania Ave, which houses Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office and the D.C. Council. The picket action was one of the first labor-led demonstrations in the country featuring a coalition of unions fighting for a ceasefire resolution at a municipal level.

The coalition featured leaders and rank-and-file members from the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), SAG-AFTRA & Sister Guild Members for Ceasefire, IWW DMV Education Workers Organizing Committee, UAW, American Postal Workers Union (APWU), AFA-CWA, SEIU Local 500, ATU Local 689, and the Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees.

The demonstration follows nearly eight months of Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza and countless efforts by the D.C. for Ceasefire Now Coalition to get a councilmember to introduce a ceasefire resolution on the local level to join the over 100 municipalities across the United States that have already passed them.

To date, leaders of local labor unions like the National Nurses United, SAG-AFTRA, and CLUW have all participated in actions in an individual capacity, including press conferences, mass meetings, and disruptions of council proceedings but this marked the first official action by their unions. This is a major advance for the unions in the area on the ceasefire issue.

“As a union that stands for equality, social justice, human and labor rights, APWU members have been shocked and saddened by the tragic and ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine,” APWU President Mark Dimondstein said.

“A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza and worsening by the day. As a District resident and a labor leader, I join this urgent call on the D.C. Council to pass a ceasefire resolution now.”

“Rank-and-file workers and union activists have been in the streets of DC for months demanding a permanent ceasefire and self-determination for the Palestinian people,” Metro D.C. CLUW President Chelsea Bland said.

“It is past time for the D.C. Council to heed the call from residents, workers, and visitors of the District and be on the right side of history. With each passing day, we are watching absolute terror being rained down upon the people of Gaza. The Metro D.C. Chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women calls on the D.C. Council to pass a ceasefire resolution now.”

Leaders of Wednesday’s effort vowed to continue pressuring the D.C. Council and to involve the labor movement on a more consistent basis, potentially leading to a multi-day or weekly picket in front of the Wilson Building.

With the D.C. primary election season ending with a majority of pro-ceasefire candidates winning their races and the budget period ending on June 12, the Council now has a mandate from the D.C. community to finally speak out on this issue after several months of ignoring and being dismissive of their constituency.

Samsung Electronics workers are on strike. As The New York Times reports, Nationwide Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) has about 28,000 members, or about one-fifth of Samsung's workforce, walking out of the job on Friday. It's Samsung's first workers' strike.

Specifically, the walkout is in Samsung's chip division, which makes RAM, NAND flash chips, USB sticks and SD cards, Exynos processors, camera sensors, modems, NFC chips, and power and display controllers. Depending on how each quarter goes, Samsung is often the world's largest chipmaker by revenue thanks to this division, and its parts are in products from a million different brands. It's probably hard to find a tech product that doesn't have some kind of Samsung chip in it.

As you might expect, the union wants higher pay. Samsung's workers have gotten as much as 30 percent of their pay from bonuses, and there were no bonuses last year. UnionVP Lee Hyun Kuk told the Times that “it feels like we’ve taken a 30 percent pay cut.” The average pay for a union member is around $60,000 before bonuses.

This is officially a one-day strike, so it's not expected to hurt Samsung's output much. For now, this is more about a show of strength by the union in the hopes that Samsung will come to the negotiating table. Samsung reported a profit of $1.4 billion from its chip division in Q1 this year.

If this isn't resolved, what exactly would happen to the tech industry during a long-term Samsung strike is anyone's guess. Because of the ubiquity of Samsung's components, every tech hardware company would have to deal with this somewhat. Samsung has a lot of competitors in each market, though. For instance, for memory it's always battling SK Hynix and Micron, and a lot of manufacturers will use parts from the three companies interchangeably. Maybe Samsung's competitors could just pick up the slack. Samsung has never been on strike before, so we're in uncharted territory.

Learn the ropes before they hire you at 14 for some closing shifts. That way they don't waste money on training you