NEWS ROUNDUP

More organizing at Starbucks | Fed aims for recession | Wells Fargo worries

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

 

LOCAL

 

► From the Spokesman-Review — Shadle Starbucks petitions to unionize — Starbucks workers at the company’s Shadle location in Spokane filed a petition to unionize with Starbucks Workers United, a campaign to organize Starbucks workers across the country. In a letter addressed to Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan, the workers described a “lack of follow through and accountability from management,” as well as decreased wages and diminishing morale, among other things:

“We are tired of being treated as expendable, replaceable, and frankly disrespected. We are unionizing to take a stand against this mistreatment.”

EDITOR’S NOTE — There are now 399 Starbucks stores in 42 states that have filed to unionize, and 300 Starbucks stores in 37 states have won union elections. Just 73 stores have lost an election. In Washington state to date, 24 stores have filed for union elections and Starbucks workers have voted “Union Yes!” in 19 stores, with just two rejecting the union.

Are you tired of being treated as expendable, replaceable, and frankly disrespected? Get more information about how you can join together with co-workers and negotiate a fair return for your hard work. Or go ahead and contact a union organizer today!

► From KLCC — Eugene REI store could be among first in the nation to unionize — Workers there filed a petition last week to set the process in motion. Employees will choose whether to join the UFCW, which represents over a million workers nationwide.

► From the NY Times — Mass layoffs and absentee bosses create a morale crisis at Meta — Workers at Facebook’s parent have been increasingly alarmed by job cuts and the company’s direction.

The Stand (March 30) — Ahead of closure, Meta café workers protest layoffs

 

AEROSPACE

 

► From Reuters — Analysis: Boeing’s latest production problem compounds operational headache for U.S. carriers — Carriers are already grappling with shortages of pilots, air traffic controllers and new planes, making it harder to add more flights. They are leaning on bigger planes that can accommodate more passengers to get around operational challenges. Boeing’s latest supplier problem, identified last week, affects a portion of the 737 MAX family of airplanes, including the bestselling MAX 8.

 

THAT WASHINGTON

 

► From the LA Times — How Julie Su’s successes and setbacks in California shape her contentious nomination for Labor secretary — In the eyes of Julie Su’s supporters, President Biden’s pick to be the next Labor secretary personifies the promise of California: A daughter of immigrants who made groundbreaking advances in protecting workers rights. Her detractors (corporate lobbying groups) also paint Su as an embodiment of California. In their telling, though, she would replicate the state’s over-regulation of business, bloated bureaucracy and coziness with organized labor on a national level. The increasingly contentious Senate confirmation, which begins on Thursday, mirrors many of the partisan fights in Washington, with the fate hinging on votes of a handful of conservative Democrats.

TAKE A STAND — Please sign this AFL-CIO petition is support of Julie Su’s nomination as Secretary of Labor.

► From the AP — Biden signs executive order to improve access to child care — President Joe Biden has signed an executive order containing more than 50 directives to increase access to child care and improve the work life of caregivers, the White House said Tuesday.

► From the AFL-CIO — AFL-CIO applauds new executive actions on the care economy

► From the Washington Post — Economy stumbled after banking crisis, stirring renewed recession fears — The U.S. economy wobbled in the weeks after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, as consumers spent less, factories slowed their assembly lines and bankers grew more cautious about making loans. If those trends continue, the recession that many analysts have predicted for much of the past year will finally arrive in the coming months. “If we get a recession, it is the Fed’s fault,” said William Spriggs, chief economist for the AFL-CIO. “There is nothing else on the horizon that gets us a recession.”

► And right on cue, from Reuters — Fed’s Bullard discounts recession talk, favors more rate hikes — The U.S. central bank should continue raising interest rates on the back of recent data showing inflation remains persistent while the broader economy seems poised to continue growing, even if slowly, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said.

► From HuffPost — GOP defends Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas amid disclosure failures — “It happens all the time,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said of the conservative justice and his ties to a billionaire donor.

► From the Washington Post — Clarence Thomas can do no wrong (by Jamelle Bouie) — If Thomas were an ordinary federal employee — or even an ordinary federal judge — he would probably have to answer to authorities for his failure to disclose income from a real estate sale for nearly a decade. As it stands, it is apparently enough for him to amend the form in question, as he did in 2011 after he failed to report the more than $686,000 his wife, Ginni Thomas, earned from the Heritage Foundation between 2003 and 2007. It is apparently no harm and no foul for a justice of the Supreme Court to show willful and repeated indifference to disclosure requirements under the law.

 

NATIONAL

 

► From the AP — Ben & Jerry’s workers announce plan to unionize in Vermont — About 40 workers at the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop in the Vermont city where the company was founded announced Monday that they plan to form a union. They said they have the support of the upstate New York & Vermont chapter of Workers United, the union that started the Starbucks unionization campaign in Buffalo, New York.

► From Bloomberg — Wells Fargo privately worries union ‘resurgence’ could reach its workers next — Wells Fargo leaders are privately expressing increased concern that a yearslong effort to unionize the bank’s employees (CWA) could soon start notching victories — and have made plans to spend millions addressing the “pain points” that can fuel organizing efforts. The company has estimated the extra expense of having unionized workers, and drafted plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on staffing improvements, the manager said, describing contents of meetings on the subject.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Ready for better pay and “staffing improvements” at your job? Get more information about how you can join together with co-workers and negotiate a fair return for your hard work. Or go ahead and contact a union organizer today!

► From NPR — ‘We’re just at a breaking point’: Hollywood writers vote to authorize strike — Members of the Writers Guild of America have voted to authorize a strike if their talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers don’t end in a new contract by midnight May 1.

► From Jacobin — Electing union members to office is good, actually (by Liza Fatherstone) — Some fear Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s new mayor-elect, as a longtime union organizer, can’t serve the public. That’s exactly wrong: the public is served by electing workers and trade unionists to office.

The Stand (April 12) — WSLC continues building ‘Path to Power’ — Hundreds of union members and supporters have learned how to run a successful campaign for public office via the WSLC’s candidate training program.

► From Jacobin — You’re paying taxes today. The rich aren’t. — Today is Tax Day, the deadline for Americans to pay their taxes. One group that won’t be paying much today: the rich, who have stashed $2 trillion in offshore tax havens.

► From Bloomberg — One in five Americans use buy now, pay later to afford groceries — With inflation squeezing budgets, more consumers are turning to instant credit apps to make ends meet.

EDITOR’S NOTE — And Rep. Katie Porter explains why…

 

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.

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