Amazon’s union busting | Legislative staff contract | Slaughterhouse workers

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

STRIKES

► From KATU — Largest healthcare strike in Oregon history continues into new week — At an ONA rally on Sunday, supporters including state representative Travis Nelson, hyped up the workers on strike. “Providence is likely committing unfair labor practices by walking away from the bargaining table. They’re lying to them saying they had to walk away so they could prepare for a strike. When we all know that this is a tactic,” Nelson said.

► From On The Line:

Across Oregon over 5,000 workers are on strike with @oregonnurses. The burnout crisis due to poor pay and working conditions has pushed workers to their limit as they fight for the pay and resources needed to care for their patients pic.twitter.com/Wa7jlsRlqP

— On the Line (@laborontheline) January 13, 2025

LOCAL

► From KOMO — King County Council signals support for more police, safety protections on Metro Transit — “Operators are out here on their own with no support,” driver Latrelle Gibson told the council. “Drivers open their door to who knows what every day. Safety hasn’t been number one for a long time and our operators need to see that something is going to happen.” The Amalgamated Transit Union 587 (ATU) has asked for an increase in officers on the Metro Transit Police, as well as fortified compartments for bus drivers to prevent them from passenger assaults.

► From the Bellingham Herald — Whatcom County crew among firefighters attacking LA blaze larger than the size of Bellingham — Four firefighters from South Whatcom Fire Authority joined 11 strike teams from Washington state who left Friday for an 18-day deployment to the fire-stricken region, the Washington Military Department reported online. South Whatcom’s crew consists of Lt. Jen Squire and firefighters Sean Hecker, Annie Leete and Ethan Gerard. All four hold “red card” certifications for wildland firefighting, as well as structural fire certifications and are emergency medical technicians.

► From My Northwest — Healthcare company pays Washington more than $1M for overbilling — The AG’s Office stated a Medicaid Fraud Control Division investigation revealed Lincare Inc., which provides oxygen tanks to patients, overbilled its patients. Therefore, the company was ordered to pay out $1.15 million. “This will reimburse the state’s Medicaid program for Lincare’s fraudulent overbilling of leased oxygen equipment,” the AG’s Office said.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Cascade PBS — WA legislative staffers approve union contracts ahead of session — Josie Ellison, a communications specialist with the House Democratic Caucus, said support swung from 0% to 100% between September and January, largely due to protections the unit won in the grievance process that allow for arbitration over contract disputes. “We feel really strongly that we need an external third party,” Ellison told Cascade PBS in an interview.

► From the Guardian — A bargaining breakdown and strikes: the ongoing union fight at Starbucks — [CEO] Niccol’s pay package includes up to $113m in total compensation, 10,000 times the median salary of a Starbucks barista, with a $10m sign-on bonus, $75m in stock options plus a remote office in southern California and access to the company’s private jet to travel to Starbucks headquarters in Seattle, Washington. “It’s almost laughable. It comes off as a joke almost. My annual raise is going to come out to about 30 cents an hour. The difference it makes in my paycheck from a month ago and now, it just would not be enough to cover a $7 Starbucks drink let alone gas, my bills, rent, anything else I have to worry about,” Diego Franco, a barista at a Starbucks in Chicago for five years and a bargaining representative for the union, told the Guardian.

ORGANIZING

► From Slate — Workers say Amazon is now deploying its union-busting “science” at Whole Foods — “Let me tell you, Amazon has this union-busting process down to a science,” Girmay said. There’s the “free food and fake smiles,” she said, but it’s paired with an air of menace: “They’re posting anti-union propaganda on every inch of wall space in the store backroom; they replaced all our store leadership and team leads with Whole Foods union-busting pros; [and] are using strangers to monitor us and incite fear.”

► From Forbes — From Mental Health To Class Solidarity: Workforce Trends To Watch In 2025 — 2025 is the year where more workers start telling the stories of how disabling work can be, and how important organizing is to ensure we have safeguards from greedy corporations who simply won’t protect us. We saw it spark nationwide in 2024 – labor organizers telling the stories of why there is a need for a greater safety net — and in this coming year will explode under a new administration that we know plans to attack disabled people from the start.”

READY FOR A VOICE AT WORK? Get more information about how you can join together with co-workers and negotiate for better wages and working conditions. Or go ahead and contact a union organizer today!

NATIONAL

► From the Hollywood Reporter — SAG-AFTRA Donates $1 Million for L.A. Fires Relief — “The very essence of a labor union is solidarity: that we all work to elevate each other during times of stability, and we’re there for each other in times of crisis,” said the union’s national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland in a statement. “The devastation is hard to fathom, even for those of us living in it. We’re so fortunate to have the SAG-AFTRA Foundation as a resource and a place our members can turn to in times of need.”

► From the New York Times — Capital One Is Accused of Cheating Customers Out of $2 Billion — For years, Capital One held interests artificially low in the high-yield product, to 0.30 percent annually last summer, for instance, even as the Federal Reserve raised rates above 5 percent. The bank operated two separate, nearly identically named account options — 360 Savings and 360 Performance Savings — and forbade its employees from volunteering information about or marketing 360 Performance Savings, the higher-paying one, to existing customers.

► From the Minnesota Star Tribune — USDA says pig, poultry workers have high injury risk at certain processing speeds, staffing levels — More than 80% of poultry slaughterhouse workers and half of hog processing employees testing faster line speeds are at high risk of developing chronic conditions like arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, according to recent U.S. Department of Agriculture reports on line speeds and worker safety. “Reducing piece rate, by increasing job-specific staffing or decreasing job-specific line speed, may reduce musculoskeletal disorder risk for workers,” the agency said.

► From the New York Times — Mastercard Agrees to Settle Pay Discrimination Suit for $26 Million — The settlement, if approved by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, will resolve claims that Mastercard underpaid roughly 7,500 employees across the country starting in 2016. Female, Black and Hispanic employees were paid less than their male and white counterparts for doing the same or similar work, according to the proposed class action complaint, which was also filed on Tuesday.

► From Axios — American workers’ job enthusiasm hits 10-year low — Workers had a rough 2024. Many of them felt stuck in jobs as hiring slowed, while others were forced back to the office full-time or felt a spun out by a lot of internal restructuring. The pandemic changed everything. Engagement has been falling since 2020 as everyone adjusted to a rapid series of changes in the workplace, from the rise of remote work, to a wave of resignations and hiring, and then a subsequent slowdown.

► From the Seattle Times — OPINION: Big companies backtrack on DEI — with a notable NW exception — Now, with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office in a week, companies and educational institutions seem to be falling over themselves to show how much they are willing to obey the new administration in advance. Over the past year, huge corporations like Toyota, Meta, Molson Coors, John Deere, Walmart, Ford, Lowe’s and, most recently, McDonald’s, announced they would roll back diversity efforts.

Editor’s note: while the Entire Staff of The STAND is not going to praise a company (negotiate with your workers, Costco!!) Ishisaka’s broader point is well taken: the decision to obey in advance, to comply with with what we think may be coming, only empowers fascists and anti-worker politicians. 

► From the Seattle Times — IRS is sending out automatic stimulus payments. Who is getting them? — The IRS said it’s distributing these payments to taxpayers who failed to claim a Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 tax returns. The Recovery Rebate Credit is a refundable credit for individuals who did not receive one or more Economic Impact Payments (EIP), also known as stimulus payments. “Looking at our internal data, we realized that one million taxpayers overlooked claiming this complex credit when they were actually eligible,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Seattle Times — Biden signs executive order aimed at growing AI infrastructure in the US — The executive order directs federal agencies to accelerate large-scale AI infrastructure development at government sites, while imposing requirements and safeguards on the developers building on those locations. It also directs certain agencies to make federal sites available for AI data centers and new clean power facilities. Those agencies will help facilitate the infrastructure’s interconnection to the electric grid and help speed up the permitting process.

► From the Washington State Standard — WA’s newest state Supreme Court justice is sworn in — [Sal] Mungia, born in Tacoma to immigrants from Mexico and Japan, served 38 years as a civil trial and appellate attorney in private practice before joining the court. He also clerked for a state Supreme Court justice. He was on the committee of attorneys that drafted a court rule adopted in 2018 to diminish racial bias in jury selection in Washington courts.

► From the Seattle Times — What to know about Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson — Consumer protection, antitrust actions, drug decriminalization and civil rights were focuses for Ferguson, as the attorney general, which is often referred to as the state’s “top cop.” Under Ferguson, the size and reach of the Attorney General’s Office increased with the office recording 800 lawsuit wins and $2.8 billion in recoveries from drug, food and other companies.

INTERNATIONAL

► From the BBC — Shein: Inside the Chinese factories fuelling the company’s success — We found that the beating heart of this empire is a workforce sitting behind sewing machines for around 75 hours a week in contravention of Chinese labour laws. These hours are not unusual in Guangzhou, an industrial hub for rural workers in search of a higher income; or in China, which has long been the world’s unrivalled factory. Last year [Shein] admitted to finding children working in its factories in China.

The Stand posts links to local, national and international labor news every weekday morning. Subscribe to get daily news in your inbox.