Tag Archives: labor unions

Business

McDonald’s, In-N-Out, and Chipotle are spending millions to block raises for their workers

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New York
CNN
 — 

California voters will decide next year on a referendum that could overturn a landmark new state law setting worker conditions and minimum wages up to $22 an hour for fast-food employees in the nation’s largest state.

Chipotle, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, In-N-Out Burger and KFC-owner Yum! Brands each donated $1 million to Save Local Restaurants, a coalition opposing the law. Other top fast-food companies, business groups, franchise owners, and many small restaurants also have criticized the legislation and spent millions of dollars opposing it.

The measure, known as the FAST Act, was signed last year by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and was set to go into effect on January 1. On Tuesday, California’s secretary of state announced that a petition to stop the law’s implementation had gathered enough signatures to quality for a vote on the state’s 2024 general election ballot.

The closely-watched initiative could transform the fast-food industry in California and serve as a bellwether for similar policies in other parts of the country, proponents and critics of the measure argued.

The law is the first of its kind in the United States, and authorized the formation of a 10-member Fast Food Council comprised of labor, employer and government representatives to oversee standards for workers in the state’s fast-food industry.

The council had the authority to set sector-wide minimum standards for wages, health and safety protections, time-off policies, and worker retaliation remedies at fast-food restaurants with more than 100 locations nationally.

The council could raise the fast-food industry minimum wage as high as $22 an hour, versus a $15.50 minimum for the rest of the state. From there, that minimum would rise annually based on inflation.

California’s fast-food industry has more than 550,000 workers. Nearly 80% are people of color and around 65% are women, according to the Service Employees International Union, which has backed the law and the Fight for $15 movement.

Advocates of the law, including unions and labor groups, see this as a breakthrough model to improve pay and conditions for fast-food workers and overcome obstacles unionizing workers in the industry. They argue that success in California may lead other labor-friendly cities and states to adopt similar councils regulating fast-food and other service industries. Less than 4% of restaurant workers nationwide are unionized.

Labor law in the United States is structured around unions that organize and bargain at an individual store or plant. This makes it nearly impossible to organize workers at fast-food and retail chains with thousands of stores.

California’s law would bring the state closer to sectoral bargaining, a form of collective bargaining where labor and employers negotiate wages and standards across an entire industry.

Opponents of the law say it’s a radical measure that would have damaging effects. They argue it unfairly targets the fast-food industry and will increase prices and force businesses to lay off workers, citing an analysis by economists at UC Riverside which found that if restaurant worker compensation increases by 20%, restaurant prices would increase by approximately 7%. If restaurant worker compensation increased by 60%, limited-service restaurant prices would jump by up to 22%, the study also found.

“This law creates a food tax on consumers, kills jobs, and pushes restaurants out of local communities,” said the Save Local Restaurants coalition.

On Wednesday, McDonald’s US President Joe Erlinger blasted the law as one driven by struggling unions that would lead to “an unelected council of political insiders, not local business owners and their teams,” making key business decisions.

Opponents have turned to a similar strategy used by Uber, Lyft and gig companies that sought to overturn a 2020 California law that would have required them to reclassify drivers as employees, and not “independent contractors,” which would provide them with benefits such as a minimum wage, overtime, and paid sick leave.

In 2020, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart and others spent more than $200 million to successfully persuade California voters to pass Proposition 22, a ballot measure that exempted the companies from reclassifying their workers as employees.

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Business

Here are the companies that have laid off employees this year

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New York
CNN
 — 

Just this week, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, Microsoft

(MSFT) and Vox Media announced layoffs that will affect more than 22,000 workers.

Their moves follow on the heels of job cuts earlier this month at Amazon, Goldman Sachs and Salesforce. More companies are expected to do the same as firms that aggressively hired over the last two years slam on the brakes, and in many cases shift into reverse.

The cutbacks are in sharp contrast to 2022, which had the second-highest level of job gains on record, with 4.5 million. But last year’s job numbers began falling as the year went on, with December’s job report showing the lowest monthly gains in two years.

The highest level of hiring occurred in 2021, when 6.7 million jobs were added. But that came on the heels of the first year of the pandemic, when the US effectively shut down and 9.3 million jobs were lost.

The current layoffs are across multiple industries, from media firms to Wall Street, but so far are hitting Big Tech especially hard.

That’s a contrast from job losses during the pandemic, which saw consumers’ buying habits shifting toward e-commerce and other online services during lockdown. Tech firms went on a hiring spree.

But now, workers are returning to their offices and in-person shopping is bouncing back. Add in the increasing likelihood of a recession, higher interest rates and tepid demand due to rising prices, and tech businesses are slashing their costs.

January has been filled with headlines announcing job cuts at company after company. Here is a list of layoffs this month – so far.

Google

(GOOGL)’s parent said Friday it is laying off 12,000 workers across product areas and regions, or 6% of its workforce. Alphabet added 50,000 workers over the past two years as the pandemic created greater demand for its services. But recent recession fears has advertisers pulling back from its core digital ad business.

“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees. “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”

The tech behemoth is laying off 10,000 employees, the company said in a securities filing on Wednesday. Globally, Microsoft has 221,000 full-time employees with 122,000 of them based in the US.

CEO Satya Nadella said during a talk at Davos that “no one can defy gravity” and that Microsoft could not ignore the weaker global economy.

“We’re living through times of significant change, and as I meet with customers and partners, a few things are clear,” Nadella wrote in a memo. “First, as we saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we’re now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less.”

The publisher of the news and opinion website Vox, tech website The Verge and New York Magazine, announced Friday that it’s cutting 7% of its staff, or about 130 people.

“We are experiencing and expect more of the same economic and financial pressures that others in the media and tech industries have encountered,” chief executive Jim Bankoff said in a memo.

Layoffs are also hitting Wall Street hard. The world’s largest asset manager is eliminating 500 jobs, or less than 3% of its workforce.

Today’s “unprecedented market environment” is a stark contrast from its attitude over the last three years,, when it increased its staff by about 22%. Its last major round of cutbacks was in 2019.

The bank will lay off up to 3,200 workers this month amid a slump in global dealmaking activity. More than a third of the cuts are expected to be from the firm’s trading and banking units. Goldman Sachs

(FADXX) had almost 50,000 employees at the end of last year’s third quarter.

The crypto brokerage announced in early January that it’s cutting 950 people – almost one in five employees in its workforce. The move comes just a few months after Coinbase laid off 1,100 people.

Though Bitcoin had a solid start to the new year, crypto companies were slammed by significant drops in prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

McDonald’s

(MCD), which thrived during the pandemic, is planning on cutting some of its corporate staff, CEO Chris Kempczinski said this month.

“We will evaluate roles and staffing levels in parts of the organization and there will be difficult discussions and decisions ahead,” Kempszinski said, outlining a plan to “break down internal barriers, grow more innovative and reduce work that doesn’t align with the company’s priorities.”

The online personalized subscription clothing retailer said it plans to lay off 20% of its salaried staff.

“We will be losing many talented team members from across the company and I am truly sorry,” Stitch Fix

(SFIX) founder and former CEO Katrina Lake wrote in a blog post.

As the new year began, Amazon

(AMZN) said it plans to lay off more than 18,000 employees. Departments from human resources to the company’s Amazon

(AMZN) Stores will be affected.

“Companies that last a long time go through different phases. They’re not in heavy people expansion mode every year,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to employees.

Amazon boomed during the pandemic, and hired rapidly over the last few years. But demand has cooled as consumers return to their offline lives and battle high prices. Amazon says it has more than 800,000 employees.

At The New York Times DealBook summit In November, Jassy said he believes Amazon “made the right decision” regarding its rapid infrastructure build out but said its hiring spree is a “lesson for everyone.”

Even as he spoke, Amazon warehouse workers who helped organize the company’s first-ever US labor union at a Staten Island facility last year were picketing Jassy’s appearance outside the conference venue.

“We definitely want to take this opportunity to let him know that the workers are waiting and we are ready to negotiate our first contract,” Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls said, calling the protest a “welcoming party” for Jassy.

Salesforce

(CRM) will cut about 10% of its workforce from its more than 70,000 employess and reduce its real estate footprint. In a letter to employees, Salesforce

(CRM)’s chair and co-CEO Marc Benioff admitted to adding too much to the company’s headcount early in the pandemic.

– CNN’s Clare Duffy, Matt Egan, Oliver Darcy, Julia Horowitz, Catherine Thorbecke, Paul R. La Monica, Nathaniel Meyersohn, Parija Kavilanz, Danielle Wiener-Bronner and Hanna Ziady contributed to this report.

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US

NYC nurses strike ends after tentative deal reached with hospitals

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New York
CNN
 — 

A nurses strike at two private New York City hospital systems has come to an end after 7,000 nurses spent three days on the picket line.

The New York State Nurses Association union reached tentative deals with Mount Sinai Health System and Montefiore Health System, which operates three hospitals in the Bronx that had been struck. The nurses had been arguing that immense staffing shortages have caused widespread burnout, hindering their ability to properly care for their patients.

The union said the deal will provide enforceable “safe staffing ratios” for all inpatient units at Mount Sinai and Montefiore, “so that there will always be enough nurses at the bedside to provide safe patient care, not just on paper.” At Montefiore, the hospital agreed to financial penalties for failing to comply with agreed-upon staffing levels in all units.

Montefiore said the agreement also includes 170 new nursing positions, a 19.1% increase in pay, lifetime health coverage for eligible retirees and adding “significantly more nurses” in the ER.

The deals were announced in the early hours Thursday morning — at 3 a.m. ET for Montefiore and about 30 minutes later at Mount Sinai. The nurses were expected to be back on the job for the 7 a.m. ET shift Thursday, and Montefiore Medical Center said all surgeries and procedures and outpatient appointments for Thursday and after will proceed as scheduled.

Nurses will need to vote to approve the deal before it is finalized. But the union said the tentative deal will help put more nurses to work and allow patients to receive better care.

“Through our unity and by putting it all on the line, we won enforceable safe staffing ratios at both Montefiore and Mount Sinai where nurses went on strike for patient care,” the nurses union said in a statement. “Today, we can return to work with our heads held high, knowing that our victory means safer care for our patients and more sustainable jobs for our profession.”

Mount Sinai called the agreement “fair and responsible.”

“Our proposed agreement is similar to those between NYSNA and eight other New York City hospitals,” Mount Sinai said in a statement. “It is fair and responsible, and it puts patients first.”

“From the outset, we came to the table committed to bargaining in good faith and addressing the issues that were priorities for our nursing staff,” Montefiore said in a statement. “We know this strike impacted everyone – not just our nurses – and we were committed to coming to a resolution as soon as possible to minimize disruption to patient care.”

The hospitals had stayed open during the three-day strike, using higher-cost temporary nursing services to provide care, and transferring other employees to take care of non-medical nursing duties. They had also diverted and transferred some patients to other hospitals and postponed some elective procedures.

The striking nurses have said they are working long hours in unsafe conditions without enough pay – a refrain echoed by several other nurses strikes across the country over the past year. They said the hours and the stress of having too many patients to care for is driving away nurses and creating a worsening crisis in staffing and patient care.

The union representing the nurses had reached tentative agreements offering the same 19% pay hikes at other New York hospitals, avoiding strikes by about 9,000 other nurses spread across seven hospitals in the city. But the nurses at the hospitals that went on strike said the pay raises weren’t the main problem, that the more severe staffing shortages at Mount Sinai and Montefiore needed to be addressed before a deal could be reached.

Both hospitals had criticized the union for going on strike rather than accepting offers they described as similar to those the union accepted at other hospitals in the city.

– CNN’s Chris Isidore contributed to this report

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US

Nurses from New York City hospitals set to strike as contract negotiations stall

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New York
CNN
 — 

A walk-out by more than 7,000 nurses at two major New York City hospitals is set to begin at 6 a.m. ET Monday after talks aimed at averting a strike broke down overnight.

Tentative deals had been reached in recent days covering nurses at several hospitals, including two new agreements late Sunday evening. But talks with Mount Sinai hospital in Manhattan and Montefiore in the Bronx failed overnight.

“After bargaining late into the night at Montefiore and Mount Sinai Hospital yesterday, no tentative agreements were reached. Today, more than 7,000 nurses at two hospitals are on strike for fair contracts that improve patient care,” the New York State Nurses Association said in a Monday statement.

Both hospitals said earlier on Monday morning that efforts to reach an agreement were unsuccessful.

“NYSNA leadership walked out of negotiations shortly after 1 a.m. ET, refusing to accept the exact same 19.1% increased wage offer agreed to by eight other hospitals, including two other Mount Sinai Health System campuses, and disregarding the Governor’s solution to avoid a strike,” Lucia Lee, a spokesperson for Mount Sinai, said in a statement to CNN.

Montefiore said it was “a sad day for New York City.”

“Despite Montefiore’s offer of a 19.1% compounded wage increase — the same offer agreed to at the wealthiest of our peer institutions — and a commitment to create over 170 new nursing positions … NYSNA’s leadership has decided to walk away from the bedsides of their patients,” the medical center said in a statement.

The tentative deals reached at other hospitals provide nurses with a combined 19.1% in pay increases over the three-year life of the agreements and includes promises by management to increase staffing to address the union’s major complaint of nurses being overworked and facing burnout.

Mount Sinai and Montefiore said they had agreed to meet the wage demands of the union, but the union claimed that staffing levels remain the sticking point in reaching deals at the two remaining hospitals.

“We need management to come to the table and provide better staffing,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said in a press call Sunday afternoon.

According to Hagans, Montefiore has 760 nursing vacancies, adding that “too often one nurse in the emergency department is responsible for 20 patients instead of the standard of three patients.”

On Sunday evening, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul had urged the management and the union to agree to binding arbitration as a way of avoiding the strike. Although the management of the two hospitals embraced the idea, the union did not.

“We will not give up on our fight to ensure that our patients have enough nurses at the bedside,” the union said in response to Hochul’s arbitration suggestion.

New York Mayor Eric Adams had encouraged all parties on Sunday night to “remain at the bargaining table for however long it takes to reach a voluntary agreement.”

The hospitals have been preparing for a strike since the nurses union gave notice of its plans 10 days ago. The affected hospitals plan on paying temporary “traveling” nurses to fill in where possible and some had already begun transferring patients.

Montefiore released a notice to staff, obtained by CNN, telling nurses how to quit the union and stay on the job if they wanted to continue to care for their patients.

Mount Sinai, which operates two hospitals that reached deals Sunday evening in addition to the one still facing a strike, started transferring infants in the neonatal intensive care unit at the end of this past week. Hospitals facing the possibility of strikes had already taken steps to postpone some elective procedures.

The union says the hospitals will be spending more on hiring temporary nurses at a significantly greater cost. It argues the hospitals should agree to their demands to hire more staff and grant the raises the union is seeking.

“As nurses, our top concern is patient safety,” Hagans said in a statement Friday. “Yet nurses … have been forced to work without enough staff, stretched to our breaking point, sometimes with one nurse in the Emergency Department responsible for 20 patients. That’s not safe for nurses or our patients.”

The hospitals say they are doing what they can to hire more nursing staff.

“Mount Sinai is dismayed by NYSNA’s reckless actions,” Mount Sinai said in a statement Friday. “The union is jeopardizing patients’ care, and it’s forcing valued Mount Sinai nurses to choose between their dedication to patient care and their own livelihoods.”

Nurses at the first hospital to reach a tentative deal, New York-Presbyterian, voted on Saturday. It was a close call with 57% of nurses voting yes and 43% against. The tentative deals reached over the last few days still need to be ratified by rank-and-file union members before they can take effect.

Strikes have become more common nationwide, as tight labor markets and unhappiness with work conditions have prompted unionized employees to flex their muscles more often at the bargaining table.

There were 385 strikes in 2022, up 42% from 270 in 2021, according to the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. The US Labor Department, which tracks only major strikes by 1,000 or more workers, recorded 20 strikes in the first 11 months of 2022, up 33% from the same period in 2021.

Numerous nursing strikes were among the recorded work stoppages, with many unions citing instances of burnout and health problems among members.

Four out of the 20 strikes reported by the Labor Department last year involved nurses unions. The largest was a three-day strike by the 15,000 members of the Minnesota Nurses Association involving 13 hospitals in the state.

— CNN’s Tina Burnside, Artemis Moshtaghian and Ramishah Maruf contributed to this report.

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US

Rail unions warn of election consequences with labor deal in Senate

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Leaders of the rail labor unions that have voted not to ratify the tentative labor deal tell CNBC that as the Senate moves closer to a vote on Thursday afternoon on legislation to prevent a rail strike, senators need to realize this is a humanitarian issue and their members will not forget who supported them. The three unions, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS), SMART-TD, and Brotherhood of Maintenance Way Employees Division represent more than half of all railroad labor.

“Our membership is going to support whoever stands with them,” said Tony Cardwell, president of the Brotherhood of Maintenance Way Employees Division. “It’s looking like the Democrats are standing with our members and making sure that our members get sick leave. If that’s the case, we will. If Republicans are bold enough to step out, stand with labor, stand with the blue-collar workers, and vote with our members, then it’s likely that they can gain votes as well.”

On Wednesday, the House passed the tentative rail labor agreement and additional legislation to add seven paid sick days, which has been one of the most important issues to rail workers in the breakdown of negotiations with freight rail companies.

All three union presidents say they understand why President Biden had to push Congress to pass the tentative agreement. But Cardwell said, “We hope that he stands by us on sick pay and that he’s pushing the Senate to vote for the sick leave proposal that’s on the floor.” 

U.S. President Joe Biden greets negotiators who brokered the railway labor agreement after U.S. railroads and unions secured a tentative deal to avert a rail shutdown, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, September 15, 2022.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Senate leaders said they were moving closer to voting on the deal on Thursday afternoon, covering amendments for a 60-day extension of the cooling-off period and seven days of paid sick leave, and the House-passed underlying tentative agreement, though it was not clear if votes were there for passage of the amendments.

“This is a humanitarian issue,” said Michael Baldwin, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, said. “People throughout the country have employers who pay them sick time. We have our employer, the railroads paying management paid sick days, and you can’t come to the table and bargain with your rank and file for the same? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Some members of the House have called the addition of sick pay a gimmick or poison pill. Cardwell noted that 80% of American workers have sick leave, including Congress. “They (Congress) have it, their staffers have it. Many government employees have it. Most corporations provide some form of sick leave for their employees. So I find it completely irritating that they would call it a gimmick,” he said.

Jeremy Ferguson, president of SMART-TD added, “It’s time for the Senate to say, let’s put these union workers in a good place where there is sick pay, so in the event that we have another pandemic or whatever the case may be, so we can keep the supply chain moving and do it adequately.”

The railroads and the Biden administration have focused on the significant wage increases included in the deal. But Ferguson said it should not be an either/or. “We were not interested in trading away any of the general wage increases … Cost of living and where everything else is at, including record profits for big rail, they can afford seven or five extra sick days a year without us having to give that up out of our daily earnings,” he said.

Biden’s PEB deal ‘missed the mark’

Ferguson said the Presidential Emergency Board rail labor deal “missed a few marks and sidestepped a few, mainly our attendance policy issues.”

He said those issues are a result of precision scheduled railroading, a model that more Class I freight rails adopted in recent years to improve their efficiency and cut costs, and which has been scrutinized by both unions and government agencies.

“The railroads tighten the attendance policies down to such drastic measures that we have members that are only getting one day off a month where they used to get five or six. And then you know, they (the PEB) also passed on the sick days,” Baldwin said.

The three union presidents all said they raised paid sick time as an issue during negotiations, pushing back against comments made by Association of American Railroads (AAR) president and CEO Ian Jefferies, who told reporters after Biden urged Congress to avert a strike, “If the unions are interested in a holistic discussion for structural changes as it relates to their sick time, I think absolutely the railroad carriers would be up for a holistic discussion but [they] have not done it.”

Brendan Branon, National Railway Labor Conference chairman, recently told CNBC the future of collective bargaining is in the hands of Congress and urged that the legislation follows the recommendations of the PEB, a board created by Biden in July to resolve the ongoing dispute between major freight rail carriers and their unions. The board crafts its recommendations under a principle known as pattern bargaining, which is a collective bargaining principle used to promote settlement of disputes.

Now that 8 of the 12 unions have ratified the agreement, what is known as a “pattern” has been established. In this case, railroads argue that the pattern of unions approving tentative agreements based upon the PEB, that is the only acceptable path to resolution.

“Pattern bargaining promotes stability in collective bargaining, and it encourages settlement,” Branon said. “There’s any number of arbitrators and PEBs who have recognized that this is not only acceptable, this is the most appropriate form to settle complex negotiations, especially multi-employer, multi-craft agreements,” he added.

Cardwell strongly disagreed with this assessment.

“Of course, we try to stick to the recommendations. But when they aren’t satisfactory on either side, both parties have made arguments … That’s the point of negotiations. The PEB recommendations are just that, recommendations that are not binding. The PEB is not the negotiator. We are. And it’s the parties’ job to come together on these issues. Not the PEB.”

Precision railroading needs to be addressed

After the House passed the tentative agreement and additional legislation to add the seven paid sick days, SMART-TD released a statement saying Congress also needs to take a look at precision railroading.

But Ferguson said this would not be asked of Congress in this agreement.

“There’s a lot of work to be done to correct precision scheduled railroading,” Ferguson said. “Instead of trying to run 10,000-foot trains every six hours, they would rather run a 20,000-foot train every 12 hours. So they can save on crews and they can save on locomotives, but they don’t recognize the fact that the infrastructure will not accommodate a train that is four miles long. And that bogs down the rest of the supply chain all the way from LA to Chicago or wherever it’s going.”

“They will tell the government otherwise, but we’re the ones running the trains every day we can say so. That is part of precision scheduled railroading, run longer, with less crews and less locomotives,” he said.

Supply chain congestion and rail embargoes

The unions argue that precision railroading and the lack of labor are the reasons behind congestion in the supply chain. The Surface and Transportation Board is calling Union Pacific management including CEO Lance Fritz to appear at hearings December 13-14 about the freight railroad’s use of embargoes.

The STB, an independent federal agency with oversight of surface transportation, wants to question Fritz and other Union Pacific top executives about UP’s increased use of embargoes that the regulatory body characterizes as “substantial.”

According to STB data, UP’s use of embargoes to control congestion has increased from a total of five in 2017 to more than 1,000 to date in 2022. The agency said it has received numerous reports that the embargoes are hampering shippers’ operations and adding to supply chain problems.

UP carries nearly 27 percent of freight served by rail and nearly 11 percent of all long-distance freight volume. 

Union Pacific said in a recent statement to CNBC that due to its geographic span, number of yards, customer facilities, and commodity mix, “embargoes are one of the few tools, and last steps, to manage and meter customer-controlled railcar inventory levels, helping alleviate network congestion.”

“I have all the confidence in the chairman of the STB, [Marty Overman] that he will question them adequately, he will drill down and get the facts and find out the reasons for all these embargoes,” Ferguson said. “But I know that the end result is going to be once again precision scheduled railroading and the operating ratios for the quarter trying to achieve better results every chance that you get.”

“When Marty gets into this, I’m sure he’s gonna say that they do not have adequate staffing levels, contrary to what they have reported that they’ve been trying to do. They haven’t kept up with the rate of attrition. And it’s going to go to show when these facts come out here,” Ferguson said.

Correction: This story has been updated to properly attribute a quote on the Presidential Emergency Board to Jeremy Ferguson, president of SMART-TD.

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US

Biden ‘confident’ rail strike will be avoided though congressional hurdles loom

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CNN
 — 

President Joe Biden said Tuesday he is “confident” a rail strike will be avoided while meeting with the top four congressional leaders, though any one senator could slow down the process of approving legislation that would avert such a strike – and at least one said he was planning to do so.

“I asked the four top leaders in Congress to ask whether they’d be willing to come in and talk about what we’re gonna do between now and Christmas in terms of legislation and there’s a lot to do, including resolving the train strike,” Biden said while meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“It’s not an easy call but I think we have to do it,” Biden said. “The economy is at risk.”

On Monday, Biden called on Congress to “immediately” pass legislation to avert a railroad shutdown by officially adopting a September tentative agreement approved by labor and management leaders. Rank-and-file members of four unions have rejected the agreement and are prepared to go on a railroad strike on December 9 without either a new labor agreement or congressional action.

Biden, a longtime labor ally, along with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and other administration officials helped unions and management reach a tentative deal averting a freight railroad strike in September.

A railroad strike could clog supply chains and lead to a spike in prices on necessities such as gasoline and food – dampening an economy that many fear is heading toward a recession. It could also cost could cost the US economy $1 billion in its first week alone, according to an analysis from the Anderson Economic Group.

Michael Baldwin, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, one of the four unions whose members voted no on the deal, said Tuesday that Biden has let the union and its members down.

“We’re trying to address an issue here of sick time. It’s very important,” Michael Baldwin, the president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on “Newsroom.” “This action prevents us from reaching the end of our process. It takes away the strength and the abilities that we have to force bargaining or force the railroads into a situation to actually do the right thing.”

Pelosi said Tuesday the chamber could vote as soon as Wednesday on legislation to adopt the September tentative agreement and avert a possible rail strike. Once passed, Senate action could occur later this week or next, several Senate sources have told CNN. The Senate is expected to have the votes to break a filibuster on the bill to avert a potential railway strike, the Senate sources also said. There are likely to be at least 10 Republicans who will vote with most Senate Democrats to overcome a 60-vote threshold.

After the meeting, McConnell expressed openness to backing the legislation, and told reporters “We’re gonna need to pass a bill.”

But any one senator can slow the process down as timing agreements to move along legislation typically require unanimous consent from all 100 members of the chamber. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, criticized the proposed deal to avert a rail strike on Tuesday. Sanders reiterated his threat to slow down rail measure unless he gets sick-leave amendment vote in a tweet Tuesday afternoon.

“At a time of record profits in the rail industry, it’s unacceptable that rail workers have ZERO guaranteed paid sick days. It’s my intention to block consideration of the rail legislation until a roll call vote occurs on guaranteeing 7 paid sick days to rail workers in America,” he wrote.

Any one member can delay a quick vote and potentially put off final action until after the December 9 deadline to avert a strike.

Some Republicans are still skeptical of congressional intervention, arguing they would rather the issue be dealt with administratively.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a frequent swing vote, told CNN that the measure “deserves careful consideration.”

“I’m going to wait and listen to the debate at lunch today before reaching any kind of conclusion,” she said.

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, a member of GOP leadership, also told CNN she was still evaluating the plan.

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Business

Twitter Africa employees accuse Elon Musk of discrimination over severance terms

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CNN Business
 — 

Laid-off employees at Twitter’s Africa headquarters are accusing Twitter of “deliberately and recklessly flouting the laws of Ghana” and trying to “silence and intimidate” them after they were fired.

The team has hired a lawyer and sent a letter to the company demanding it comply with the West African nation’s labor laws, provide them with additional severance pay and other relevant benefits, in line with what other Twitter employees will receive.

They have also petitioned the Ghanaian government to compel Twitter to “adhere to the laws of Ghana on redundancy and offer the employees a fair and just negotiation and redundancy pay,” according to a letter to the country’s Chief Labour Officer obtained by CNN.

“It is clear that Twitter, Inc. under Mr Elon Musk is either deliberately or recklessly flouting the laws of Ghana, is operating in bad faith and in a manner that seeks to silence and intimidate former employees into accepting any terms unilaterally thrown at them,” the letter states.

Twitter laid off all but one of the African employees just four days after the company opened a physical office in the capital Accra following Musk’s takeover. But the staff of about a dozen were not offered severance pay, which they say is required by Ghana’s labor laws, based on their employment contracts. They also claim they were not informed about the next steps — unlike employees in the United States and Europe — until a day after CNN reported on their situation.

CNN contacted Twitter for comment but received no response.

In the letter to Twitter Ghana Ltd, obtained by CNN, the African employees rejected a “Ghana Mutual Separation Agreement” from Twitter, which they say was sent to their personal emails offering final pay that the company claims to have been arrived at after a negotiation.

Several members of the team and their lawyer told CNN that there was no such negotiation on severance pay. They claim it was below what is required by law and contradicts what Musk tweeted that departing employees would receive.

“Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required,” Musk tweeted. Twitter informed the Ghana-based employees in early November that they would be paid until their last day of employment — December 4. And they will continue to receive full pay and benefits during the 30-day notice period.

“It was very vague, did not talk about outstanding leave or paid time off, and just asked us to sign if we agree. I never bothered to go back to the document because it is rubbish and is still in violation of labor laws here,” one former employee told CNN on condition of anonymity.

The Accra-based team accuses Twitter of dealing with them in bad faith, not being transparent, and discriminating against them compared to laid-off employees in other jurisdictions.

“The employees are distressed, humiliated, and intimidated by this turn of events. There are non-Ghanaian employees, some with young families, who moved here to take up jobs and have now been left unceremoniously in the lurch, with no provision for repatriation expenses and no way to communicate with Twitter, Inc. and discuss or plead their case,” the notice to Ghana’s Chief Labour Officer says.

Their attorney, Carla Olympio, says the sudden termination of almost the whole team violated Ghanaian employment law because it is considered a “redundancy” which requires three-month notice to authorities and a negotiation on redundancy pay.

“In stark contrast to internal company assurances given to Twitter employees worldwide prior to the takeover, it seems that little attempt was made to comply with Ghana’s labor laws, and the protections enshrined therein for workers in circumstances where companies are undertaking mass layoffs due to a restructuring or reorganization,” she wrote in a statement to CNN.

The employees said in their appeal to Ghana’s Chief Labour Officer that Twitter’s formal entry into the continent started with “great fanfare and with the support of the government,” and they expect similar attention to their plight now.

They are demanding 3 months’ gross salary as severance pay, repatriation expenses for non-Ghanaian staff, vesting of stock options provided in their contracts, and other benefits such as healthcare continuation that were offered to staff worldwide.

CNN has reached out to Ghana’s Employment and Labor Relations ministry for comment.

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Business

Former SpaceX employees file labor-law complaint

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CNN
 — 

Eight former SpaceX employees filed labor-law complaints, alleging that Elon Musk’s space company unlawfully fired workers after they wrote company management a letter begging them to publicly condemn Musk’s “harmful” behavior on social media.

The former workers allege that SpaceX terminated their employment for participating in “concerted protected activities.” Those protected activities included putting together an open letter in June that alleged SpaceX’s “current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values.” According to a copy of the letter attached to one of the complaints, the former employees claim Musk’s public comments were a “frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us.”

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment, nor has it responded to routine requests from reporters in years.

The company, which Musk founded in 2002, is one of the most influential and powerful commercial space companies in the world. It holds billions of dollars worth of contracts with the US military and NASA, including deals to deliver astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station as well as a contract to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface as part of the space agency’s cornerstone Artemis program.

The existence of the letter, which was signed by at least 400 other employees, was first reported by The Verge, and the New York Times broke the news Thursday that eight of nine employees who allege they were fired for their involvement in drafting or sharing the letter were filing formal NLRB complaints. SpaceX has nearly 10,000 total employees, according to an NLRB complaint.

A lawyer representing Paige Holland-Thielen, one of the terminated SpaceX workers who held the role of lead avionics operations and automation engineer, sent CNN a copy of her complaint and said the allegations in the other seven complaints are “substantially the same.”

Of the eight employees alleging wrongdoing, only Holland-Thielen and Tom Moline, a former senior engineer at SpaceX, agreed to go on the record.

In a statement, Holland-Thielen said that she “experienced the deep cultural problems firsthand and spent countless hours comforting my peers and colleagues going through the same things and worse.

“We drafted the letter to communicate to the executive staff on their terms and show how their lack of action created tangible barriers to the long term success of the mission,” she said. “We never imagined that SpaceX would fire us for trying to help the company succeed.”

Moline said that management used an “‘ends justifies the means’ philosophy to turn a blind eye to the ongoing mistreatment, harassment, and abuse reported by my colleagues, much of which was directly encouraged and inspired by the words and actions of the CEO.

“I hope that this … claim will demonstrate that no one is above the law, and empower SpaceXers to continue to speak up and fight for a better, more equitable workplace,” Moline said in a statement.

Their letter asked SpaceX management to make it publicly clear that Musk’s statements — particularly on Twitter — did not reflect the views or values of the company or its employees and asserted that SpaceX’s so-called “No Asshole” policy was unevenly enforced.

SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell described the “No Asshole” policy in a commencement address last year, saying, “These kinds of people — assholes — interrupt others; they shut down or co-opt conversation; and they create a hostile environment where no one wants to contribute. … Embrace the ideas of your fellow workers, especially when they differ greatly from yours.”

In the weeks leading up to the letter, Musk posted tweets that mocked newly surfaced reports that he exposed himself to a female flight attendant on a private jet (he also called the allegations “untrue”); suggested creating a university with the acronym “TITS”; made sexual jokes at the expense of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and a US senator; appeared to pillory the use of pronouns and gay pride flags during pride month; posted a meme that dismissed the idea that “mansplaining” exists and another that compared the Canadian prime minister to Hitler. It was also around the time Musk was embroiled in the will-he-won’t-he phase of his decision to buy Twitter.

The letter was circulated among employees before it was sent to management, and SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell responded in an email to staff, alleging that a survey revealed that the letter and requests for signatures had “upset many.”

“That is, the letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views,” Shotwell’s email, sent June 16, reads.

The same day the letter was sent, Holland-Thielen and four others were fired, according to the NLRB complaint.

“After this initial wave of wrongful retaliatory terminations, over the next two months SpaceX continued its campaign of retaliation and intimidation by interrogating dozens of employees in private meetings and falsely telling them that the conversations were attorney-client privileged and could not be disclosed to anyone,” the complaint reads, referring to the meetings as “unlawful coercive interrogations.”

Laurie Burgess, another attorney representing the former employees, called the events “shocking” in a statement.

“It’s shocking that SpaceX appears to believe that its mission of getting humans to Mars justifies turning a blind eye to workers’ basic civil rights,” Burgess said. “I’m proud to represent the brave employees who stepped up to challenge SpaceX’s conduct by collectively advocating for basic workplace protections.”

When an NLRB claim is filed, the board launches its own investigations of the claims that includes “interviewing witnesses and requesting documents,” Anne Shaver, a San Franciso-based employment attorney representing the eight former SpaceX workers, told CNN. The process typically takes seven to 14 weeks, according to its website. If the charges are found to have merit, the NLRB will then file its own complaint appoint an attorney, Shaver added, and the matter will go to a hearing before an administrative law judge unless there is a settlement.

This isn’t the first time Musk has elicited allegations of violating labor laws, which are designed to protect workers from harassment, discrimination and unsafe working conditions. The NLRB has already taken action against Tesla, Musk’s electric car company, for attempting to prohibit workers from wearing clothing that bears the insignia of a labor union. The labor relations board has also ordered Musk to delete an old tweet that was overtly anti-union, and a judge last year deemed that Musk illegally fired employees who attempted to unionize.

Tesla, which does not have a communications team, did not respond to reporters’ inquires about those developments.



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Business

Starbucks workers strike at about 100 stores on Red Cup Day

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New York
CNN Business
 — 

More than 2,000 employees at 112 Starbucks locations are set to go on a one-day strike Thursday, according to the union which has been organizing stores for the last year.

The union says it is striking to protest the retaliation taken against union supporters nationwide. It is also protesting what it characterizes as the company’s refusal to bargain with the union on a first labor deal. There are 264 stores that have voted in favor of union representation. But no contracts have yet been negotiated even at stores which voted nearly a year ago.

“This is to show them we’re not playing around,” said Tyler Keeling, a 26-year old union supporter who has worked at a Starbucks in Lakewood, California — near Los Angeles — for the last six years. “We’re done with the their anti-union retaliation and them walking away from bargaining.”

Keeling and other union supporters say that it was up to each individual store as to whether or not to participate in the nationwide strike. Many stores have staged brief strikes already over specific issues. But this is the first nationwide action.

“There’s a lot of fear before a store decides to go on strike,” said Michelle Eisen, an organizer of the first Starbucks store to vote in favor of the union last December. “Starbucks has been retaliating against union leaders across the country. But despite that fear, over 2,000 workers across the country are striking today and standing up for one another.”

When Keeling’s store staged a one-day strike in August, Starbucks

(SBUX) workers from nearby non-union stores joined the picket line, he said, and some customers brought food and drinks to the strikers.

It’s not clear how many of the stores affected by Thursday’s action will be able to stay open during the strike.

The protest comes on “Red Cup” day at Starbucks, when it gives out reusable holiday cups with certain drink purchases that entitle customers to discounts and extra bonus points on future purchases.

“Culturally Red Cup Day is an important day at Starbucks. People do go crazy over it,” said Keeling. He said holding the strike on a day that has such a heavy volume of customers is a great way call attention to anti-union activities.

The union is calling its strike a “Red Cup Rebellion” and is handing out red Starbucks Workers United union cups to customers instead.

At a store across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, workers walked the picket line even though their store isn’t having a union vote until Dec. 8. The store was open, with the help of managers brought in from other stores, according to the strikers. Staff on the job in the store wouldn’t comment on the strike.

Aaron Cirillo, a 23-year old working at the store since August, said he’s not discouraged by the fact that the store was able to stay open or that many customers crossed the picket line.

“We’re not trying to intimidate them. We just want them to hear our story about the need for a fair contract,” he said. Asked what he would tell customers if he could, he responded, “I would urge them to think about showing support by not getting a coffee this one day, or to go to any other store in the city for a coffee.”

The strikers chants were enough to prompt some customers to turn away, but there was a good flow of customers in the store.

The company was not immediately available for comment on the strike early Thursday. In the past it has denied it has retaliated against any employee for their support of the union, and it has blamed the union for lack of progress at the negotiating table. Starbucks has defended the firings of union supporters that have taken place as proper enforcement of rules that apply to all of its employees, who it refers to as “partners.”

“Interest in a union does not exempt partners from following policies and procedures that apply to all partners,” Starbucks said in an earlier statement.

But this week, the National Labor Relations Board — which oversees union representation votes — filed in federal court for a national cease and desist order to prevent Starbucks from retaliating against union supporters.

The NLRB filing said that there had been a “number and pattern of Starbucks’ unfair labor practices … particularly discharges” against union supporters at it stores.

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Business

1,000 food workers at San Francisco airport are on strike

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CNN Business
 — 

Workers who provide food and drinks to travelers at San Francisco International Airport are on strike, seeking what they say would be their first raise in four years.

The 1,000 strikers are members of Unite Here Local 2, a Bay Area union with 15,000 members. The airport workers work under a multi-employer joint labor agreement that covers 30 different employers spread among 84 different locations at the airport.

“Passengers should bring their own food and grab coffee before arriving at SFO,” said Anand Singh, president of the union, who said the union has been in negotiations for nine months.

“Almost all of SFO’s food and beverage outlets are closed. Workers are tired of jobs that aren’t enough to live on, and we’re prepared to strike for as long as it takes to win better wages and affordable health care.”

The negotiating team for the restaurants did not immediately reply to a request for comment Tuesday. Airport management, which is not a party to the talks, issued a statement apologizing to passengers for any inconvenience.

The most recent session was last week and management’s offer wasn’t close to meeting union demands, Singh told CNN Business. He would not disclose what percentage increase the union is seeking, but said that unlike some recent strikes and labor talks that focused on working conditions, this one is first and foremost about wages.

“This really is at the end of the day about economics,” he said. “Jobs at the airport used to be great jobs. They have a benefit package you can’t find a lot of other places. But members are having to take second jobs at the airport to supplement their income.”

The majority of its workers make $17.05 per hour, according to the union, just pennies above San Francisco’s $16.99 per hour minimum wage. There is now a higher minimum wage of $19.15 an hour for jobs on city-owned properties, which includes the airport, but these union workers are still under the 2018 contract.

The current wage doesn’t provide a livable wage in the San Francisco Bay Area, the union says, and wages were well above the $15 an hour minimum level in effect when the last contract was negotiated in 2018. The contract includes fully-paid health care and a traditional pension plan.

“I’m on strike because I want to quit my second job and have more time with my family,” said Kristine Mauricio, a barista at both Peet’s Coffee and Black Point Cafe. “I have to work two jobs to support my son, and it means I barely get to be with him because I am always at work. My pay for a whole hour of work is less than the price of just one meal. That is 100% unfair.”

Strikes have been on the rise across the US and in multiple industries so far this year. A database kept by Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations shows 283 strikes this year, up 82% from 155 in the same period of 2021.

Workers have been emboldened by a strong labor market, with about twice as many job openings as there are unemployed job seekers, which makes it difficult for employers to hire replacement workers to take the place of strikers.

Only 1.2% of workers at restaurants and bars are members of a union according to Labor Department data for 2021, compared to 6.1% of workers at businesses overall.

Wages in the sector are typically low, with Labor Department data showing that median weekly wages nationwide are $607 for nonunion workers, and $725 for the small percentage of workers who represented by a union.

The food service sector has a particularly high turnover rate among unhappy employees, with twice the rate of workers quitting as at businesses overall, which has helped to feed unionization efforts at other companies. A union effort has won votes at more than 200 Starbucks stores nationwide, and last month workers at a Chipotle in Lansing, Michigan voted to join the Teamsters.

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