The meteoric growth of the tech industry has, with few exceptions, created a new no-unions zone in the U.S. economy. Those exceptions, such as a group of Google contractors or Facebook's bus drivers, have largely been contract workers rather than direct employees of tech companies. So the successful unionization vote at Kickstarter is something of a first.
During the organizing drive, Kickstarter fired two union supporters and hired an anti-union law firm. The workers and their union, the Office and Professional Employees International Union, have alleged retaliation and filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board. The vote was close—46 to 37—and Kickstarter is a comparatively small company. There remain big questions about whether tech can be unionized to any significant degree. But progress is progress, and wins are to be celebrated.
● The next big grocery strike is knocking on Safeway and Giant's door, Hamilton Nolan reports:
On Wednesday, UFCW Local 400 announced that it will be holding a strike vote early next month for more than 25,000 workers at hundreds of Giant Foods and Safeway stores across DC, Maryland, and Virginia. The union has separate contracts with Giant and Safeway, but both of those contracts have been expired since last October. Negotiations in the ensuing months proved fruitless, and now the union is preparing for what could become the first large strike of 2020.
● Why are workers struggling? Because labor law is broken. (In some cases, though, it’s working exactly as intended: to disadvantage workers.)
● Ten out of 12 people killed in construction-related accidents in New York in 2019 were Latino. The New York Times tells the story of one worker’s death and his family’s loss.
● The Culinary Workers Union should take a gamble on solidarity, Gabriel Winant writes.
● Employment-based health care is an anchor around the neck of the U.S. working class.
from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/3bZp5p4
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