Portside

Union leaders say they take sexual harassment seriously. In addition to expanding staff training and counseling as needed, SEIU has established additional channels through which employees can report potential issues. At its executive council meeting in March, the AFL-CIO approved a new, stronger code of conduct and a new process for addressing issues like sexual harassment and requiring its state and local affiliates to do the same.

The confirmation hearing for Trump's Secretary of Labor nominee, Andrew Puzder, was scheduled to start January 17 but has been pushed back and may not happen until next month. It may be that worker protest is having an impact. Critics have revealed that Puzder's company has frequently violated wage and hour, and safety and health laws.

The Fight for 15 has grown into one of the nation’s largest progressive movements, alongside movements by undocumented immigrants, Black Lives Matter and environmental activists fighting global warming. Beginning with fast-food workers four years ago, the Fight for 15 now includes other groups, including childcare workers, home-care aides, airport workers and adjunct professors.

A $10 million effort backed by the Service Employees International Union and billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer will involve intense door-knocking and phone banking in working-class communities, with an emphasis on engaging African Americans, Asian Americans and Latinos around the issues of economic inequality and environmental degradation. The initiative part of a broader effort to expand collaboration between the labor movement and environmental activists.

A proposed deal between SEIU and Airbnb has been criticized by housing groups and labor activists, including some SEIU members, concerned that Airbnb has exacerbated housing crises in cities across the US, including in San Francisco, where Airbnb is headquartered.

Cal Winslow lays out the context for the breathtaking admissions of Dave Regan, President of SEIU UHW, regarding the forced transfer of 70,000 long-term care workers from UHW into the newly formed SEIU Local 2015.

The still fledgling campaign focuses on organizing to raise wages and delays question of union structure. No one seems sure about the shape of a fast-food union. Many formations are possible. Since wages and other employment laws differ by city and state, one could envision local or regional contracts that establish a basic compensation structure, benefits and freedom from arbitrary firing. A more ambitious version would be national in scope: a framework agreement...

Many of the janitors and leaders who fought in Century City were the Central American immigrants coming into LA from the wars. Their experience in their home countries was very important in their willingness to fight, and the use of the tactics of mass demonstrations and even CD in the street. They're one of the best examples of the way migration, for all the pain it causes migrants, has benefited our labor movement enormously.