Andy Stern, the former head of SEIU, is using his resume in organized labor to support a group that explicitly aims to undermine teacher’s unions.
At the heart of the Green New Deal is a recognition that shifting to clean energy could leave many behind. That's why the plan protects workers' right to organize, calls for universal health care, retirement security and union jobs at a living wage.
Melissa Unger, executive director of SEIU Local 503 in Oregon, said the union chose to settle the lawsuit rather than go through a costly and time-consuming legal battle.
In the run-up to SEIU’s largest and most disastrous local union take-over—involving United Healthcare Workers (UHW)—some of the first punches where thrown at a Labor Notes conference in Dearborn, Michigan ten years ago this month.
The United Auto Workers won a union contract covering nearly 150 cafeteria workers at four Airbnb facilities. It’s the latest development in a unionization trend among tech companies’ sub-contracted staff. Share Better, a group backed by Unite Here, the hotel industry, housing groups and elected officials, said Thursday that the new Airbnb effort doesn’t go far enough.
It takes continuous organizational effort—in the form of training and recruitment, new leadership development, and structural change–to insure that the bullying, harassing, divide-and-conquer behavior of bosses, big and small, doesn’t infect and weaken the “house of labor” too.
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.
Fight for $15 organizers have a long list of grievances against SEIU. They say they themselves do not get $15/hour. They are worried about the instability of their jobs and a tendency of the union to ramp up staff for one campaign, then shift only some of the staff to the next project. Ultimately, some workers say, SEIU's position may undermine public support and open up lines for employer attacks. See SEIU's response below.
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