Strike at SAM | Boeing recovery | Make Amazon Pay

Monday, December 2, 2024

STRIKES

► From the Seattle Times — Seattle Art Museum security staff goes on strike — Holding signs that said “Show me the Monet” and “A livable wage for all art workers,” Seattle Art Museum’s security staffers began their strike Friday morning. While the union made its latest offer on Nov. 28, lowering its starting wage proposal to $24.75 and deferring immediate restoration of retirement benefits, SAM said it was “unacceptable,” and maintained a no-strike clause and voluntary union membership (rather than union membership being a condition of continued employment) were requirements for a signed contract.

Editor’s note: in this article, SAM CEO Scott Stulen claims “union leadership” chose to strike. However, as reported in The STAND and elsewhere, 89% of the voting *workers* chose to strike. This is a disrespectful attempt from Scott Stulen to third party the union and a statement which falls far short of the museum’s claimed commitment to respect their employees’ rights. 

You can support the workers’ strike fund here. 

► From the Business Wire —Holiday Travel Alert: Strikes Affecting 27.5% of San Francisco Hotel Rooms Likely to Continue Through Holidays, UNITE HERE Says — “We’re issuing a holiday travel alert because we don’t want this strike to ruin anybody’s holiday season,” said Lizzy Tapia, President of UNITE HERE Local 2. “Months ago, we called on hotels to do right by guests, notify them of strikes, and offer refunds – but unfortunately, they rarely do. Nobody wants to spend the holidays at a hotel when you have to take out your own trash, restock your own sheets and towels, or deal with shuttered restaurants.” The union has created a travel guide and a live Labor Dispute Map at FairHotel.org, where guests can search hotels by name or city to learn whether a hotel is on strike and find alternatives.

LOCAL

► From the Bellingham Herald — Bird flu is racing through farms, but Pacific Northwest states are rarely testing workers — Washington and Oregon are two of six states where humans have tested positive for the avian flu, but infectious disease researchers suspect there are far more unreported cases because of a lack of testing by state and local health districts. “The ratios of how many herds and flocks have tested positive versus how many people have been tested, that stresses me out in every state,” said Elizabeth Strater, spokesperson for United Farm Workers, who is based in Los Angeles and previously worked on farmworker union efforts in Washington and Oregon.

► From KNKX — Seattle’s jazz community finds strength in togetherness — But it’s a family that requires active nurturing and sometimes tough love to maintain its bonds, especially as rising costs push artists out of traditional cultural neighborhoods. “We can’t separate the economics from the emotional and social aspects of what we do,” explained bassist Nate Omdal, president of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 76-493. “So much of what we seek emotional support for is drawn from the challenges we have economically.”

AEROSPACE

► From Investing.com — Boeing recovery picks up steam, says BofA By Investing.com — The number of 737s in pre-delivery flights is also said to have increased, with AAP/AIR projecting three more deliveries by the end of the month. Additionally, BofA says production activity is on the rise, with 14 737 rollouts identified this month, nine of which were delayed due to the strike but have now progressed through the Final Assembly Line.

► From KWCH Wichita — Union-represented engineers at Spirit AeroSystems accept 4-year contract offer — “These are the largest wage pools we’ve ever received from Spirit, going back to its formation in 2005,” said Rich Plunkett, SPEEA’s director of strategic development, who led the bargaining team in a news release from the union. “We didn’t get all that we wanted at the table, but we did get a lot to reward our members for their skills and hard work. This contract can only help Spirit attract and retain top-level engineering talent.”

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Seattle Times — Alaska Air, flight attendants return to bargaining with new urgency — A second mediation session is scheduled for Dec. 17-19, with a third from Jan. 7-9. The two sides are only meeting during sessions with a mediator in part because they’re working on a condensed timeline before joint negotiations with Hawaiian flight attendants, scheduled for March. Some of the 68% of members who voted to reject the contract [in August] said it didn’t go far enough to address longstanding problems with how and how much flight attendants are paid. They cited Alaska’s merger with Hawaiian Airlines and the million-dollar salaries of the airlines’ top leaders as signals that the airline could afford to pay them more than what was in the proposed contract.

ORGANIZING

► From the Baltimore Sun — Maryland video game studio reacts to volatile industry by unionizing — In 2022, Forbes reported that the video game industry generated more revenue than the film and music industries combined. Gaming earned just under $250 billion in 2023, and is already reporting $280 billion in 2024 even before the busy holiday season, according to Statista Market Insights,. Noor estimated that 14,000 video game developers had been laid off in 2024, as of mid-November. At the beginning of the year, Microsoft cut 1,900 staff from its gaming departments. In May, Microsoft shuttered three studios under the Bethesda banner and merged another.

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 People’s World — Sudden plant closure forces Chicago Teamsters local to sue Pepsi — State officials got no notice, either. But plant managers warned the Chicago police a week in advance, just in case, one media outlet reported. They didn’t tell the union until the afternoon before, by email. “PepsiCo’s behavior is so egregious it is unimaginable,” Local 727 Secretary-Treasurer John Coli, Jr., told the parent union in a statement. “To the press, they said the building was 60 years old and not worth repairing. In our meeting, they told us the company is ‘over capacity,’ whatever that means. When pressed why they didn’t raise a potential closure in negotiations that ended less than six months ago. management had no answer.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From KUOW — Could Trump withhold federal funding to Washington state? Treasurer prepares for worst — Pellicciotti points to Trump’s last administration as an example of what could happen. In September 2020, Gov. Jay Inslee asked the Trump administration for FEMA aid for wildfire destruction, and was reportedly ignored. Earlier that year, Trump had called Inslee a “snake.” But it’s not just states. That same month, the Trump administration instructed federal agencies to look at restricting grants to so-called “anarchist jurisdictions,” e.g. cities such as Seattle.

► From Vox — Will Trump’s pick for labor secretary be able to act on her pro-union ideas? — Given Trump’s infamous lack of interest in details, he may give Chavez-DeRemer latitude with the daily tasks of the agency. That means Chavez-DeRemer could shift the agency in a more pro-worker direction in the regular operations she’ll oversee. Any major rule changes, however, are likely to need the backing of the president. As a result, it’s not evident that having a labor secretary more supportive of unions will translate to concrete protections in favor of workers if Trump himself isn’t on board.

► From CNN — Elon Musk publicized the names of government employees he wants to cut. It’s terrifying federal workers — “These tactics are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees. “It’s intended to make them fearful that they will become afraid to speak up.” “It’s his way of intimidating people to either quit or also send a signal to all the other agencies that ‘you’re next’,” said Mary “Missy” Cummings, an engineering and computer science professor at George Mason University, who drew Musk’s ire because of her criticisms of Tesla when she was at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

► From the Washington State Standard — Ferguson asks 3 agency leaders from Inslee administration to stay on — Ferguson said he will re-appoint Marcus Glasper as director of the Department of Licensing and David Puente Jr. as director of the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs. Also Wednesday, Ferguson named Secretary of Corrections Cheryl Strange as acting secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services. She ran the agency from 2017 to 2021 when Inslee appointed her corrections secretary.

► From the Washington State Standard — Yakima County has second lowest voter turnout in state as election results certified — Turnout was 67.3%, with only Adams County having lower turnout at 65%, according to the Secretary of State‘s Office. There were 89,573 total ballots counted in Yakima County in the 2024 general election, down by over 7,000 voters from the 2020 general election but up 8,000 voters from the 2016 general election.

INTERNATIONAL

► From the AP — Amazon workers in India join Black Friday strike action for better wages and working conditions — About 200 warehouse workers and delivery drivers rallied in the capital, New Delhi, under a “Make Amazon Pay” banner. Some donned masks of Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and joined hands against the Seattle-based company’s practices. The walkout on Black Friday, which starts one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year, was repeated at Amazon warehouses in other countries as workers called for higher wages, better working conditions, and union rights.

► From Amazon Labor Union IBT:

Amazon Teamsters across the country are taking action this #BlackFriday with Amazon workers around the world to #MakeAmazonPay! Workers are fed up and we are organizing to win the fair pay, safe jobs, and respect that we deserve. Join us! pic.twitter.com/qU2tigBE1N

— Amazon Teamsters (@amazonteamsters) November 29, 2024

► From CNN — Volkswagen’s woes mount as workers go on strike across Germany — The strikes, which are planned to last several hours, follow weeks of collective bargaining negotiations during which VW refused to rule out mass layoffs and plant closures in its home market — drastic measures the company says are necessary to prop up its fortunes amid competition from China and weaker European demand. A so-called “peace obligation” between workers and the company, which prohibited industrial action, expired Saturday, allowing strikes to take place from Sunday at virtually all of Volkswagen’s German factories.

► From NPR — Belgium becomes first country to give sex workers robust labor rights and protections — Belgium made history on Sunday as the first country in the world to allow sex workers to sign formal employment contracts — granting them access to sick days, maternity pay and pension. These changes were years in the making in Belgium. The sex worker union, which has been leading the effort, said that before sex workers had access to these benefits, workers felt they had to keep working several months into their pregnancy or past retirement age.

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