Category: Labor

The American Federation of Teachers Lays Out a Bold Vision of a Just Recovery as San Diego Green New Deal Alliance Launches

By Jim Miller

This summer I was proud to see that my national union, the American Federation of Teachers, was thinking big at its biennial convention in late July. Clearly, the activist spirit sweeping the country was in the (virtual) air.

Building on some of the work my brothers and sisters and I did here in San Diego along with others in our statewide union, the national AFT followed the lead of California and passed both a resolution endorsing the Green New Deal and a wide ranging call to move beyond the necessary but narrow bread and butter response we have seen from the national and local AFL-CIO to thinking comprehensively about how we should pivot and seize the opportunity that this crisis presents to build a better future.

The resolution in support of a Green New Deal calls on the 1.7 million members of the AFT

Originally posted April 29, 2019

By Jim Miller

The majority of Americans don’t know much about May Day or they simply associate it with the state sponsored holiday in the former Soviet Union. For the most part, it’s lost down the memory hole. But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll discover a whole forgotten history of American workers and their struggle for basic dignity and rights in the workplace and in society.

The truth of the matter is that May Day has deep American roots. It started in 1866 as part of the movement pushing for the 8-hour day.

Monday morning, April 13, nurses and other medical staff staged a work action to protest the layoffs of nurses by Palomar Medical Center.

At least 83 registered nurses and 63 health care workers were given temporary layoffs by the Palomar Health management. This seems like such an outrageous act by Palomar in the middle of this public health crisis.

The action was sponsored by Palomar Health registered nurses and health care workers and members of California Nurses Association and Caregivers and Healthcare Employees Union. The protest was at Palomar Medical Center in Poway, at 15615 Pomerado Road.

The protesting medical workers also spoke of the lack of PPE and other protections for frontline health care workers.

A big surge in orders isn’t the only reason Amazon is struggling to keep up

By Casey Newton / The Verge / April 1, 2020

It’s been clear for weeks that Amazon faces an unprecedented challenge in coping with the fallout from COVID-19. With tens of millions of Americans now dependent on online delivery for their food, medicine, and other essential items, the nation’s No. 1 e-commerce company is buckling under increased demand.

And as fulfillment center employees are diagnosed with the virus across the country, Amazon’s already-restive workforce has escalated its efforts to win better pay and safer working conditions. Among other things, employees at affected locations have simply walked off the job.

UFCW Local 135 demands that their essential members be designated as emergency frontline personnel in the state of California

Working long hours and exposed to large volumes of customers and patients, essential retail store workers, and pharmacy and other healthcare professionals are unsung heroes on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now more than ever, leadership from the state, county, and cities in San Diego, must do everything in their power to support and protect them.

UFCW Local 135 calls on the state of California to designate their essential members as emergency frontline personnel. This must include, at a minimum:

By Jim Miller

If you’ve been paying attention to the news about labor over the last year or so, you’d think we were in an era of a resurgent union movement. We’ve seen a wave of inspiring, militant teachers’ strikes from West Virginia to Los Angeles along with a successful autoworkers’ strike against General Motors and lots of other signs of life from grocery workers’ actions to pushes for minimum wage increases across America. Unfortunately, the latest numbers on union membership paint a more disappointing picture.

As the Washington Post reported last week:

Union membership in the American workforce was down to 10.3 percent from 10.5 percent in 2018, according to statistics released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The continued slide shows how energy and momentum around the labor movement is not translating into equivalent growth for unions, whose memberships have fallen sharply as a percentage of the U.S. workforce over the past roughly 40 years. In 1983, unions represented about 1 out of 5 workers; now it’s 1 in 10 workers.

Labor Unions’ First Amendment Rights Upheld by Federal Judge

Bill Evans – the owner of Evans Hotels, which owns three major hotel resorts in San Diego, – wants to double the size of one of them, his Bahia Resort in Mission Bay. In order to accomplish this Evans would remove public parking and public access to the bay. The local community has been fighting him on this issue over the last couple of years, calling it a public-land grab. Remember, Mission Bay is public property – it belongs to all of us.

Joining the community fight against the Bahia expansion were a couple of San Diego labor organizations, Unite Here Local 30 and the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council.

By Brett Warnke

In a 1991 article John Celardo writes, “Luisa Moreno sensed the local uneasiness created by [World War II], particularly in San Diego. Housing was in short supply, rations became a nuisance, transportation became a problem, and racial conflicts in the Navy and around San Diego became more intense.”

Luisa Moreno was born and died in Guatemala but spent the 1940s and 1950s as one of San Diego’s tireless and brave local labor organizers. She challenged the bogus tranquility of our quiet little paradise in the sun. She understood the divisions and attempted to forge friendships across the city but, like most greats, she had all the right enemies.

Kroger and Albertsons Workers Ratify New Contract That Raises Hourly Wages, Improves Benefits, and Protects Customer Service – All With Strong Customer Support

This week, members of the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) from Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new contract that improves the lives of hard-working grocery workers and their families across Southern California.

Marc Perrone, the President of the UFCW International, released the following statement:

By Jim Miller

These last few years have been particularly challenging times for the American Labor movement as we’ve faced everything from a host of anti-labor policies coming from Washington to a Supreme Court decision designed to gut public sector unions. The good news is that despite all of that, the union movement has persevered and the number of Americans who support unions and say they would like the opportunity to join one is the highest it has been in decades.

Of course, the difficulties that unions face aren’t just the product of the politics of the present. They are, as labor writer Steven Greenhouse observes, the product of what he calls an American “anti-worker exceptionalism” that makes us stand out in comparison to most other developed nations with our lack of things like national laws guaranteeing maternity leave, paid sick days, or vacation time.

The United States also has one of the lowest minimum wages

Grocery workers throughout San Diego County have voted to authorize their union to call a strike if negotiations with supermarket chains stall. They were joined in the call by thousands of their fellow workers across Southern California in voting overwhelmingly to give the okay to the leaderships of their union, the United Food and Commercial Workers.

97 per cent of grocery workers in San Diego County voted to approve a strike.

There is no strike yet. But it definitely could happen if the major chains fail to negotiate a new contract successfully with the unions who represent the people who run the stores.

Which major stores are we talking about? Ralph’s, Albertsons and Vons – and Pavilions (an upscale version of Vons). Alone, Albertsons has over a 1,000 stores across North America. This would include no doubt the Vons on Midway Drive.

What is the status of the negotiations? They’re on hold as of right now after weeks of being stalled, but are scheduled to begin again July 10 and go on for several days.

Whether there is a grocery strike in San Diego – and other parts of Southern California – could very well be decided on June 24 when union members from 7 different locals vote on whether to authorize a strike or not. If there is a strike, it would be against 3 major grocery chains, Albertsons, Albertsons-owned Vons, and Kroger-owned Ralphs.

The San Diego local, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135, will vote at the Scottish Rite Center in Mission Valley, near Local 135 offices. If a strike is authorized by the membership, a strike could be called at any time by the leadership.

The other UFCW locals involved in the contract negotiations are Local 8, based in Bakersfield; Local 324 of Buena Park, Local 770, based in Los Angeles; Local 1167 of Bloomington; Local 1428 of Claremont; and Local 1442 of Inglewood.