Sherman A1
Sherman A1's JournalTeamsters: Desperate To Prevent Employees From Exercising Free Speech, American Bottling Resorts To
Teamsters: Desperate To Prevent Employees From Exercising Free Speech,
American Bottling Resorts To Harassment
CHICAGO, June 18, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American
Bottling Company, a subsidiary of Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. (NYSE:
DPS) which is set to merge with Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. in July,
has crossed a line no one should ever cross.
Last week, a Dr Pepper manager singled out one of the union's female
business agents and allegedly threatened sexual assault against her,
her mother and her sister. According to the agent, a Dr Pepper
employee and manager said, "I'm going to f*** you, f*** your mother
and f*** your sister." When these unconscionable threats and sexually
explicit comments were promptly brought to the company's attention, Dr
Pepper responded not with the immediate launching of an investigation,
but by claiming the union was lying.
https://www.news-journal.com/ap/national/teamsters-desperate-to-prevent-employees-from-exercising-free-speech-american/article_256b8282-a8ea-550d-a455-9573ef979ddf.html
At the University of Pittsburgh, Graduate Students Are Organizing to Survive
Hillary Lazar, a 39-year-old graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, had to rely on food stamps to eat during her pregnancy. Her son, Benji, now 2, wouldn’t have health insurance if not for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program because the cost of adding him to the university health-care plan was more than half of her monthly take-home pay.
It’s been so difficult, she said, to balance her competing responsibilities as a researcher, educator, and parent, that she’s often thought about abandoning her studies. “I can’t tell you what it’s like, not knowing if we’re going to be able to provide food for my kid,” she said.
This story was produced for Student Nation, a section devoted to highlighting campus activism and student movements from students in their own words. For more Student Nation, check out our archive. Are you a student with a campus activism story? Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler at [email protected].
Lazar is not the only graduate-student worker at Pitt—or across the country—struggling to survive. Members of the graduate-workers union at the New School, who went on strike at the end of this past spring semester, claim they’re being compensated for just a fraction of the labor they provide for the university. Graduate students at Ohio University, where the minimum stipend paid for a full assistantship is one-third of a living wage, report paying a significant portion of their stipend back to the university in fees and health-care costs.
https://www.thenation.com/article/university-pittsburgh-graduate-students-organizing-survive/
Boeing won't recognize union win at North Charleston site as it appeals vote
Boeing Co. says it won't negotiate with the union that a group of North Charleston workers voted to join in May until its appeal of the election is decided, a move that could spark retaliation by the International Association of Machinists.
Flight-line employees at the 787 Dreamliner campus voted 104-65 to have the IAM represent them in collective bargaining with the aerospace giant. The National Labor Relations Board certified the election last week, but Boeing said it plans to appeal an earlier NLRB decision that let the voting proceed in the first place.
"We continue to strongly believe that this micro-unit is prohibited under federal law and we are appealing to the NLRB," Boeing said in a statement. "We do not intend to recognize the IAM as the lawful representative of our teammates while the appeal is pending."
Boeing has two weeks from the June 12 election certification to file an appeal. No appeal had been filed as of Monday, according to the NLRB's website.
https://www.postandcourier.com/business/boeing-won-t-recognize-union-win-at-north-charleston-site/article_9ab04aa0-7308-11e8-8f04-c7e1e00094f6.html
Discussing your salary at work
Q: I recently found out that one of my employees has been sharing his salary with other employees and posting it on his Facebook page. A few employees who make less than him have complained about their wages. The worst part is the morale in his department is suffering. Can I punish the employee for discussing his salary? Can I issue a written policy prohibiting employees from discussing their compensation with other employees and on social media websites?
A: The answer to both of your questions is no. While you may wish to keep the salaries and other details of your employees’ compensation confidential, both federal and state law protect an employee’s right to discuss compensation both inside and outside of the office, including on social media websites.
Under the National Labor Relations Act, which applies to most private sector employers like you, employees have the right to engage in “concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” Discussing compensation is included in such concerted activities. The National Labor Relations Board has long considered employers who have pay secrecy policies or who retaliate against employees for disclosing their wages to be in violation of the Act.
New Hampshire law also protects employees who wish to discuss compensation by prohibiting employers from requiring that they refrain from disclosing their salaries as a condition of employment or requiring that they sign a document stating that they will not disclose their wages. New Hampshire law also prohibits employers from retaliating against an employee for inquiring about, discussing or disclosing the employee’s wages or the wages of another employee by, for example, demoting or terminating the employee.
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20180618/NEWS02/180619425
28% of Younger Workers Think They'll Never Retire
Many of us look forward to retirement and the opportunity to enjoy a lifestyle devoid of work-related demands. It's unfortunate, then, to learn that 28% of millennials are convinced they'll never manage to retire, according to data from TD Ameritrade.
On the one hand, this sentiment actually makes sense. Countless younger workers today are saddled with student debt to the point where it seems unshakable. Throw in the fact that younger workers tend to earn less than their older counterparts and their paychecks are often eaten up by debt payments and living expenses, and it's no wonder so many have written off retirement completely.
Though the idea of ever establishing enough of a nest egg to retire might seem undoable, one thing younger workers need to remember is that they have an extremely valuable weapon on their side: time. And if they take advantage of it, they just might manage to retire after all.
https://www.nwitimes.com/business/investment/personal-finance/of-younger-workers-think-they-ll-never-retire/article_97c41436-14be-562a-b19a-3fb2f6798274.html
Tecnocap workers continue strike near Wheeling
Thirty workers at a metal packaging facility near Wheeling have been on strike for more than two months, as the union representing them claims the company is unlawfully refusing to bargain in good faith.
International Association of Machinists Local 818 members in Glen Dale unanimously voted to strike against Tecnocap shortly after midnight on April 9.
The issues surrounding the strike remain largely the same, said John Carr, a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists’ eastern territory. Tecnocap, an international manufacturer headquartered in Italy, proposed to transfer one-third of the union’s membership into another bargaining unit, he said.
“We are the certified bargaining agent for that group — you don’t just cherrypick 15 members out of the group and say, ‘We’re moving you to this other union,’” Carr said. “It doesn’t work that way. We were forced to take action on that alone right there.”
https://www.wvgazettemail.com/business/tecnocap-workers-continue-strike-near-wheeling/article_1b54a331-bddd-5ec2-a020-780f84e560f3.html
Unions Did Great Things for the Working Class
Politically and economically, unions are sort of an odd duck. They aren’t part of the apparatus of the state, yet they depend crucially on state protections in order to wield their power. They’re stakeholders in corporations, but often have adversarial relationships with management. Historically, unions are a big reason that the working class won many of the protections and rights it now enjoys, but they often leave the working class fragmented and divided -- between different companies, between union and non-union workers, and even between different ethnic groups.
Economists, too, have long puzzled about how to think about unions. They don’t fit easily into the standard paradigm of modern economic theory in which atomistic individuals and companies abide by rules overseen by an all-powerful government. Some economists see unions as a cartel, protecting insiders at the expense of outsiders. According to this theory, unions raise wages but also drive up unemployment. This is the interpretation of unions taught in many introductory courses and textbooks.
First, even back in the 1970s, some economists realized that unions do a lot more than just push up wages. In a 1979 paper entitled “The Two Faces of Unionism,” economists Richard Freeman and James Medoff argued that “by providing workers with a voice both at the workplace and in the political arena, unions can and do affect positively the functioning of the economic and social systems.”
Freeman and Medoff cite data showing that unions reduced turnover, which lowers costs associated with constantly finding and training new workers. They also show that unions engaged in political activity that benefitted the working class more broadly, rather than just union members. And they showed that contrary to popular belief, unions actually decreased racial wage disparities. Finally, Freeman and Medoff argue that by defining standard wage rates within industries, unions actually reduced wage inequality overall, despite the cartel-like effect emphasized in econ textbooks.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-13/unions-did-great-things-for-the-american-working-class?cmpid=socialflow-facebook-business&utm_source=facebook&utm_content=business&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic
The First Black-Led Union Wouldn't Have Existed Without This Woman
Rosina Corrothers Tucker was born in 1881 in Washington, D.C. She married a preacher, and might have lived a quiet life, except the preacher died, and when she remarried it was to a man whose job put the couple in just the right place and time to make history.
Rosina’s husband Berthea Tucker was a Pullman porter. In the 1920s, the Pullman Palace Car Company was the nation’s largest single employer of black men. Pullman porters formed the first black-led union to be formally recognized by the American Federation of Labor, and eventually led the charge on civil rights — and Rosina Tucker became one of the most influential female labor and civil rights organizers in American history.
George Pullman started the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1862. He was a pioneer in vertical integration: he not only built the cars but operated them. And he brought the same approach to personnel matters, building and maintaining a company town in Illinois for his workers to live in and company stores for them to buy from.
His business was a massive success, but its profit model relied largely on cutting labor costs, which led to widespread worker dissatisfaction. Sometimes he even neglected to pay his workers enough to afford rent on properties of which he himself was the landlord. In the 1890s, nearly starving after a round of wage cuts, Pullman workers staged a massive strike that rocked the city of Chicago. Protests were chaotic, and federal troops were called in to violently suppress the strikers. Other workers across the country went on strike in solidarity with the Pullman workers, and the labor stoppage and property damage cost Pullman a fortune.
https://timeline.com/rosina-tucker-pullman-porters-37ba63c2b9eb
Study: Pay disparity for women making films
As a Hollywood script supervisor with nearly three decades of experience, Dawn Gilliam has worked on major blockbusters including “Black Panther” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” But even with a stellar resume, Gilliam said she still experiences condescension and bias on a regular basis.
Some of the affronts are casual in nature, including being pejoratively called “scripty” on set. “It kind of devalues what the job is,” Gilliam said during a break in the Philadelphia shoot of “Creed II.” “We sit with the director. Our notes go to the producer.”
She said more pernicious bias comes in the form of pay disparity. “When you ask for more money — a higher hourly rate — they say, ‘We don’t have it.’ It’s discouraging,” Gilliam said.
Her experience is not isolated. A new report commissioned by her union shows certain female-dominated craft professions such as script supervisors and art department coordinators typically receive hundreds of dollars per week less than counterparts in comparable male-dominated crafts. In addition, the report found that sexual harassment and other forms of gender bias are prevalent in these professions.
http://www.columbian.com/news/2018/jun/17/study-pay-disparity-for-women-making-films/
In California, more and more companies want to recruit autistic employees
Staring at his screen, Dakota Jordan adds the last touches to the cartoon he has been working on assiduously for weeks. “When I am creating, it is as if I suddenly have the world in my hands. It is a feeling of absolute freedom!” explains this young man, an autistic graphic artist and film fan, who one year ago joined Exceptional Minds, the Californian school of digital animation and special effects.
Based in Sherman Oaks, a few kilometres from the biggest studios in Los Angeles, the school trains talented young people on the autism spectrum who dream of working in Hollywood and who are now more and more sought after by the film industry.
Founded seven years ago, Exceptional Minds now has its own animation studio where some of the school’s young graduates work. They are regularly called on to collaborate with the giants of the animated films industry: from Nickelodeon to HBO, as well as Sony, Netflix and the Marvel Studios, a division of Disney.
“Some of these companies are particularly keen to get us to work on their special effects,” explains Jennifer Giandalone, the studio coordinator. “For example, our team has the job of re-working their images, painstakingly removing tiny, undesirable details from the screen, such as some unflattering frizzy curls from the head of an actor, or mountains in the background.” Such details can take hours of work and unwavering attention.
https://www.equaltimes.org/in-california-more-and-more#.Wyf0UC-ZNdt
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