Portside

2022 was yet another important year for the US labor movement, with organizing victories at major private employers and an increase in strikes across the country from the prior year.

Lodi workers are part of a larger trend of US workers seeking better conditions in food and hospitality.

“Seafarers are an invisible link in the global chain and are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation,” Faker said. “Workers in the Port of Tacoma were not going to let this vessel go anywhere while these workers’ lives were in peril.”

San Diego's only East County hospital recently voted to unionize 1,458 health care workers — but Sharp Grossmont officials are objecting to the election result.

Amid the upsurge of successful union representation elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, workers are still struggling to secure their first contracts—and real change in the workplace.

Two key questions confront labor: should unions focus on organizing workers with major strategic leverage in the economy? Or should they welcome any workers willing to fight, since that organizing can constitute a major catalyst for other workers?

Dancers at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in Los Angeles have received positive signs from the NLRB, which bodes well for their contested union drive. If all goes as expected, they will be the only unionized strippers in the country.

Arbitration agreements prohibit employees from vindicating their legal rights in courtrooms, and instead require them to pursue claims in private, confidential forums.

This decision was the result of a large-scale union campaign which made good use of a worker's survey to raise public awareness but also to mobilize around the issue of occupational cancers. 

“I’m feeling in shock, to be honest. It hasn’t quite hit me yet and I don’t think I’ll fully believe it until we’ve ratified,” And until I’ve hugged and cried in joy with my fellow strikers. But excited and nervous to get back to work! And to see the ripples this has across the industry.” Almost 250 workers had been on strike for 66 days.