Latest news with #unionization
Bloomberg
23-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Whole Foods Union Certified by Labor Board First for Amazon's Grocer
A union has been certified at a Whole Foods Market store in Philadelphia, marking a US first for the Inc. grocery chain. The regional director of the National Labor Relations Board backed the union, overruling objections from Whole Foods, which, like other parts of Amazon, has campaigned against unionization among its staff. The decision tees up a legal battle.
Reuters
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Court gives go-ahead to Trump's plan to halt union bargaining for many federal workers
May 16 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court lifted an order on Friday that blocked U.S. President Donald Trump's administration from stripping hundreds of thousands of federal employees of the ability to unionize and collectively bargain over working conditions. A 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit put on hold, opens new tab an injunction a judge issued at the behest of the National Treasury Employees Union that had blocked implementation of an executive order Trump issued in March. The union and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling. Trump's order exempted more than a dozen federal agencies from obligations to bargain with unions. They include the departments of Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services. The union, which represents about 160,000 federal employees, argued the order violates federal workers' labor rights and the Constitution. But the appeals court's majority said the union had failed to show it would suffer the type of irreparable harm that would justify the preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman on April 25. U.S. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of Republican President George H.W. Bush, and Justin Walker, whom Trump appointed in his first term, said the injunction, if allowed to remain in effect, would also impede Trump's national-security prerogatives. Trump relied on a national security exemption to exempt agencies that he said "have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work." "Preserving the President's autonomy under a statute that expressly recognizes his national-security expertise is within the public interest," the appeal's court majority wrote. U.S. Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, an appointee of Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, dissented, saying the Trump administration had presented only "vague assertions" about potential interference with national security functions to justify its request for a stay of Friedman's decision. Trump's order affects about 75% of the roughly 1 million federal workers represented by unions, according to court filings. NTEU has said the order applies to about 100,000 of its members. The executive order significantly expanded an exception from collective bargaining for workers with duties affecting national security, such as certain employees of the CIA and FBI. The Trump administration has filed separate lawsuits seeking to invalidate existing union contracts covering thousands of workers.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Huntsville Starbucks headed for union vote
A barista making coffee. A group of Strabucks employees have organized a union drive at a shop in Huntsville. The union election is scheduled for Monday. (Getty Images) A group of LGBTQ+ baristas is working to unionize a Starbucks in Huntsville for what they hope will help create a more fair and equitable workplace for everyone. If successful, the store on Memorial Parkway would be the third organized Starbucks outlet in Alabama, after stores in Scottsboro and Birmingham. The organizing team wants to join Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), the union that represents over 570 union Starbucks stores, out of about 15,000 outlets in total. Questions at the Huntsville Starbucks were directed to a corporate media line. Messages sent by phone and email seeking comment were left with Starbucks. Huntsville union organizing team members Briar Wolf and Nox Ashes were initially drawn to Starbucks because of its long-standing reputation as an inclusive and supportive workplace, especially for LGBTQ+ employees. 'Starbucks is the place where queer people land and where trans people land because they've had a reputation for a long time as being a friendly place to work,' she said. 'You know, there's the joke about the whole blue hair, they/them baristas making the best coffee and all that. Starbucks had presented themselves as this, this paragon of acceptance for queer and trans people to be able to work there.' Wolf was also attracted by the company's benefits, including tuition reimbursement for a first-time bachelor's degree through Arizona State University and the company's health insurance plan. In 2018, Starbucks introduced a supplemental insurance plan that covered gender-affirming procedures like electrolysis, facial feminization, and other related health care, many with no co-pays or deductibles. The company provides travel reimbursements for gender-affirming care. But now, she said, that support has been slowly eroded. Fast Company reported in 2022 that many of the procedures covered by the supplemental plan were moved to a primary plan, which can include co-pays and in-network and out-of-network doctors. 'For one of the surgeries that I plan to have, to get a doctor that is even on WPATH's (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) recommended list, I'm going to have to go to San Francisco,' she said. 'They used to pay for travel, but now they only pay for a certain amount of travel, and only if it's approved, and only if there's not an in-network doctor within driving range. They've chipped away at little bits and pieces of it.' Starbucks said its benefits package has not changed. In a letter to the union sent in 2023, May Jensen, a Starbucks vice president, wrote that individual state policies led to shifts in coverage. 'Whether specific same-sex and gender affirming care, services, and procedures are covered as part of the Company's core health insurance plan or its additional wrap plan depends upon the state law applicable to the Company's plans and, more specifically, whether the care, services, and procedures are required to be part of Starbucks core health insurance plan offerings,' the letter said. SBWU bargaining delegate and Birmingham barista Naomi Wilson, whose Starbucks store is unionized, is part of the team drafting and negotiating SBWU's first collective bargaining agreement with Starbucks, as well as an active member of the union's Trans Rights Action Committee (TRAC). 'One of the biggest things that we want is the reinstatement of the trans health care supplemental plan that they took away in 2023,' Wilson said. 'Everybody is like, yeah, we're getting that. I haven't seen anybody say that, 'no, that's too much.' Everyone in our union says we are going to get that.' Another key issue driving Huntsville's union effort are allegations from Wolf and Ashes of workplace discrimination against transgender workers. They say coworkers are misgendered by management, and despite multiple corrections every day, it continues without response. Starbucks refers to employees as 'partners.' 'At some point, it really does become malicious, and partners who were more outspoken about the way things were being run were being misgendered very frequently and sort of pointedly,' Ashes said. The baristas say that logistical issues also plague this location. On Starbucks' website, the Memorial Parkway location is supposed to close at 6 p.m., but the baristas say it regularly closes at 2 p.m. because of staffing issues. Wolf said workers who are scheduled for those shifts have to use PTO to make up the hours. Ashes said turnover in the store, which left everyone 'fed up,' also contributed to the union push. 'I just didn't feel safe anymore,' she said. 'Suddenly my job security did not exist.' Despite concerns about risking her job, benefits and education, Wolf began organizing just three weeks into the role. 'I decided to go ahead with it, because it's just the right thing to do,' she said. 'Showing people that folks look down on and consider unskilled labor, whatever that is, because all the labor is skilled labor, that they do have power and that they can organize. (…) My life's mission is to organize and empower marginalized people and people who work at Starbucks, people who work at whatever fast food places, they're marginalized people. People look down on them.' The organizing team recently filed for a union vote, which grants them legal protections against retaliatory firings. If they are fired during this period, they can file charges with the National Labor Relations Board. Ashes said she hopes a union will give them guaranteed hours, proper staffing and power for workers. 'We're having p.m. workers who have been working p.m. for a year plus, sometimes several years are now being forced to work a.m. because they're being told that their hours don't exist anymore,' Ashes said. 'The power to take all of those issues and say, this needs to be fixed, and if you don't fix it, your store is not going to run. We need to be respected. We were hired to work this. We can work this. We desire to work, but you need to let us and support us' Wilson has worked at the unionized Birmingham Starbucks location for a year and a half. She said she has greater job security but that the union has led to greater scrutiny from the company. 'People are scared to say the word 'union,'' Wilson said. 'It was dark. It was like saying the word 'union' was like a bad word in our store.' But Wilson said the union gave her a heightened sense of responsibility in her workplace and a stronger community. 'By participating, you actually give people a fighting chance to have a good workplace, a stable workplace,' she said. 'And by burying your hand in the sand, you're leaving everyone vulnerable to like, harassment, firings.' In a report released in January, the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, cited Starbucks as engaging in union busting, citing 771 open or settled unfair labor practice tactics before regional offices of the federal National Labor Relations Board through February 2024. Workers at the Huntsville location are starting to report documents on unions are being hung up around the store. They report that two documents were hung up in their store recently, including one listing ten negative things about joining a union. Local labor organizations have expressed support for the Huntsville Starbucks, including the North Alabama Democratic Socialists of America, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and The North Alabama Area Labor Council. 'Starbucks workers in Huntsville have realized what more than 10,000 Starbucks workers across the country have realized — that a voice on the job is important, and that they do deserve it,' said Jacob Morrison, president of the North Alabama Area Labor Council. The union election is scheduled for May 12. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
National Post
07-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
Ottawa childcare centre fires early childhood educator in attempt to undermine union drive by workers
Article content OTTAWA, Ontario — Instead of teaching and caring for children – as she has done for two decades – early childhood educator Amanda Quance is currently out of work. She was fired from Charlotte Birchard Centres of Early Learning (CBCEL), an Ottawa childcare centre, after trying to organize her coworkers to build their power as part of a union. Article content Article content Last fall, Quance started having conversations with co-workers about challenges they face as childcare workers, and how forming a union could help address them. Workers at CBCEL's are experiencing the same province-wide childcare crisis that all childcare centres are facing: not enough ECEs, poverty level wages, and burnt-out workers. Article content 'These workers want to assert some control over their workplaces and their lives. This transparent union busting tactic is exactly why these workers need the protection of a collective agreement,' said Athina Basiliadis, a unionized childcare worker at another day care centre in Ottawa, and a member of CUPE's childcare committee. 'The $10-a-day childcare program has fundamentally changed the childcare landscape for families, but it's created an urgent crisis among workers who aren't earning a fair wage and operators who are running deficits. Unions give workers the vehicle they need to advocate for the jobs, workplaces, and compensation we need and deserve.' Article content The unionization push had made strong inroads among parents, as fair treatment of workers goes hand-in-hand with high quality childcare. Quance was one of its most vocal leaders, and in response to her firing, hundreds of parents, childcare workers, and allies signed an online petition demanding she be reinstated and dozens joined a solidarity picket outside of the Westboro site. Article content CUPE – which represents over 5,500 childcare workers across Ontario – has welcomed hundreds of childcare workers in recent months, as workers assert agency amidst the financial uncertainty in their sector. In December, more than 300 childcare workers at the Learning Enrichment Foundation joined CUPE after their pay was unilaterally cut. Over 125 workers across 17 Good Beginnings daycare sites in Woodstock joined CUPE in February. Most recently, another 125 childcare workers across four Toronto Day Care Connection centres joined CUPE in April. Article content 'Unions can be a constructive force. We embraced it when our workers started to talk about organizing, and we are a better workplace for it,' said Alana Powell, executive director of the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO), which joined CUPE in 2023. 'When workers have a voice, they bring their creativity and passion to improve the workplace.' Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content
