Cuban Union Highlights Importance of Recognition and Union Strengthening

By: Olalekan Adigun
Published: November 27, 2023


In the 18th Plenum of the National Union of Workers in Education, Science and Sports (SNTECD) of Cuba, integral attention and moral recognition for those shining in their daily tasks in the educational and scientific sectors were the central points of discussion. The SNTECD, which boasts the highest membership in the country, reaffirmed the need for constructive and dynamic criticism within the functioning of grassroots unions.

Recognising Excellence

During the meeting, the syndicate agreed to improve the way awardees are celebrated in their own communities to enhance the value of recognition. The onus of this strategy is to strengthen the morale of educators and scientists, boosting the overall quality of education and research in the country.
Strengthening the Union

José Antonio Pérez Pérez, from the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba (CTC), urged increased efforts to fortify the union in anticipation of the 22nd Congress of the CTC in 2025. This call to action signifies a proactive approach towards improving union activities and ensuring representation for the members.
Education and Recognition

Several significant events in the education sector were highlighted during the session, from the inauguration of a child’s home in Bayamo to the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year with entrance exams for higher education centers. These events underline Cuba’s commitment to education and the recognition of successes, such as the outstanding results of students in the 2023 Matific International Olympiad.

Despite the challenges, including intense rains that affected seven teaching centers in Granma, educational activities continued unabated. This resilience is a testament to the dedication of Cuba’s educators and the importance placed on education by the country.

The meeting ended on a high note, with the recognition of the exemplary work of educational structures in the current academic stage. In a country where education is revered and respected, this recognition is of utmost importance.

Brazil’s politicians, unions, and workers can’t agree on how to protect gig labor

Brazil’s president promised an ambitious plan to regulate gig work. Experts fear the new rules make things worse.

A worker with the delivery platform iFood picks up a food order from a restaurant in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Victor Moriyama/Bloomberg/Getty Images

By LAÍS MARTINS
22 NOVEMBER 2023 • SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL

While on the campaign trail in 2022, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made it clear he wanted to take on gig work platforms. “We’re not against someone working [by] delivering food on a bike,” said Lula during a union event in April of that year. “What we’re against is them not being respected as workers. We’re against them not having rights.” As president, he vowed he would establish regulation to give the workers “a minimum of social security.”

A few months after he was sworn in, Lula called together labor groups, representatives for gig work platforms, and government officials to create a working group that would craft new rules for the industry — the first step in making good on his promise. But barely a year after winning the presidency, the dream of gig work regulation in Brazil may be slipping away. Lula’s working group disbanded prematurely in late September, and there is little consensus on how Congress should proceed. Experts now fear that Brazil may have missed a valuable chance to regulate gig work, potentially leaving workers even worse off than before.

“The committee definitely did not meet what was expected of a government that claims at all times to be in defense of workers’ rights and in defense of decent work,” Rafael Grohmann, principal investigator for Fairwork Brazil, a project that researches technology in the workplace, told Rest of World. “The government was unable to advance even on the basic issues regarding pay and work conditions because there was no definitive discussion.”

The working group’s main accomplishment was to divide gig work into two main industries: ride-hailing platforms like Uber, and delivery platforms like iFood. But the split resulted in only minimal progress: Ride-hailing platforms committed to a minimum wage (the specific amount is still to be determined) and pension benefits, while delivery platforms found no common ground with workers at all.

The biggest challenge to building a consensus approach to labor rights has been the workers themselves. A survey conducted by a University of Brasília research group earlier this year with delivery workers from the Federal District asked them how to best regulate their working relationship with gig platforms. Roughly 60% of the workers said they preferred to be categorized as autonomous, while just over 10% said they would like a formal labor contract under Brazil’s current laws. “It’s not that they don’t want rights, but there is a rejection in relation to what they understand a formal labor contract to be,” Ricardo Festi, one of the researchers who led the survey, told Rest of World.

When asked what they considered their priority demands, workers pointed to issues specific to platforms, such as the end of indisputable account blocks. “Demands that are traditionally brought up by unions appear last. It is significant to us that they don’t prioritize paid time off, the right to weekly days off, or a labor contract,” said Festi. Meanwhile, the government working group in Brasília focused exactly on these issues.

Splintered solidarity leaves unions unable to force platforms into a real negotiation. When the working group commenced, the biggest delivery app in Brazil, iFood, refused to discuss payment for the time workers were logged in to the app, according to labor group participants. Instead, iFood wanted any agreement to limit payment to the time workers spent actively delivering packages. For labor groups, payment for time logged in to the app was non-negotiable, which left the two sides deadlocked.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s plans to regulate gig work have faced a number of hurdles since he took office.

Nicolas Souza Santos, member of the National Alliance for App Delivery Workers and one of the committee participants, told Rest of World the issue was central. “It’s like expecting a waiter to be paid for only the moment he is taking an order to the table. When he’s waiting, he’s not earning anything,” he said.

Souza Santos attributes the deadlock to a few factors. For ride-hailing drivers, he believes there is more work demand and a lesser chance that they will be left without passengers, as has often been the case for delivery workers who have been left waiting for orders. But he also acknowledges the discussion came to a halt because of iFood’s dominance in Brazil — the app controls over 80% of the food delivery sector in the country. Colombia’s Rappi is the only plausible competitor in Brazil.

“IFood has a lot of weight on the table due to its predominance in the market and it simply would not concede,” Souza Santos said.

IFood declined to comment on the negotiations, but referred questions to the Brazilian Association of Mobility and Technology (Amobitec), an association that represents iFood, Uber, and other gig platforms in the region. “We saw the discussions evolve in a positive way,” an Amobitec representative told Rest of World, emphasizing the importance of “understanding that there are new forms of employment relationships that do not fit into existing legislation.”

Labor groups continue to push back against the idea of delivery work as a profession of informal, unattached workers. The way in which platforms have marketed gig work as “be your own boss” or as entrepreneurship has led workers to have a “frightening vision” of what a formal labor contract entails, Rodrigo Lopes, president of the Delivery App Workers’ Union of Pernambuco, told Rest of World. “Truth is, they barely know what a labor contract is,” he said.

“There’s a lack of consciousness among gig workers generally,” Carina Trindade, president of the App Drivers’ Union in Rio Grande do Sul, told Rest of World many workers don’t understand how much they’re giving up by embracing the platforms’ idea of informal gig work. “There’s a lack of consciousness among gig workers generally,” she said. “People will only become aware of this when, in the future, they need a pension, when they get blocked by the app, and seek the help of the union to unblock them because they have no money to pay for a lawyer.”

With the working group disbanded, the government’s labor ministry will take the next step. The department is expected to present a bill to Congress in the coming weeks to regulate app work for delivery workers, ride-hailing drivers, and package delivery workers that encompasses some of what was discussed by the committee. It will also determine the minimum hourly wage for drivers.

Workers had pushed for a minimum payment per hour and per kilometer traveled, according to Trindade, but relented when companies promised to implement and maintain places for drivers to stop and rest across Brazilian cities.

Still, workers who took part in the negotiations believe the government failed to adequately prepare for them and, more importantly, failed to be on the workers’ side. “It was a campaign promise and now it’s a matter of demanding people follow-up on their promises,” said Souza Santos.

“We’d never been seated at the high table, we had never had so much power,” he said. “Going back is not an option.”

Laís Martins is a Labor x Tech reporting fellow at Rest of World based in São Paulo, Brazil.

Sri Lanka tech workers demand pay in dollars or euros after rupee crashes

Entrepreneurs say local talent is too expensive and are outsourcing to countries like Peru.

Rest of World via Midjourney

By DIMUTHU ATTANAYAKE and ZUHA SIDDIQUI

27 NOVEMBER 2023 • COLOMBO, SRI LANKA

The Sri Lankan rupee fell sharply against the U.S. dollar during the country’s economic crisis in 2022. Now, tech workers are seeking salaries in dollars, euros, or pounds sterling to avoid being hit by a similar situation in the future.

Around 190 tech companies operating in Sri Lanka have started offering salaries based on foreign currencies, according to Pegged Place to Work, a job database for IT professionals.

Local startups are coming up with workarounds to secure talent at affordable costs. Some have begun hiring remote workers outside Sri Lanka.

Tharaka Hettihamu, a product owner at Colombo-based software development startup Ifonix, was in the process of hiring for specialized developer roles at his company in 2022 when a devastating economic crisis hit Sri Lanka. As he browsed through the applications, he noticed a trend: Most candidates demanded that salaries be paid in foreign currencies.

These applicants were from Sri Lanka and were applying for a role at a local company, but they wanted to be paid in U.S. dollars, euros, or pounds sterling. “We hadn’t stated anywhere that we would pay them in foreign currencies because we couldn’t; we are a Sri Lanka-incorporated company,” Hettihamu told Rest of World.

He soon realized that getting paid in foreign currencies or in Sri Lankan rupees adjusted to these currencies was a matter of survival for many professionals at the time. The local rupee had tumbled to record lows — declining almost 45% against the dollar between February and May 2022. “Living costs were so high that they had no choice,” Hettihamu said. “Most people were just using that moment to try to leverage whatever they could and get the highest possible salary.”

A year on, even as the rupee has stabilized, the trend of Sri Lankan tech professionals preferring salaries in or pegged to dollars and euros has continued. In fact, it has become so widespread that entrepreneurs told Rest of World they were struggling to afford quality talent and had to come up with workarounds such as offering travel allowances, stock options, and upskilling staff to fill up roles. Some startups are even hiring in other countries because they feel they can get better talent for the amount they are being asked to pay by Sri Lankan techies.
“Because they wanted to retain their staff, they started offering them a pegged salary.”

“Startups have a hard time attracting talent to begin with because [larger] IT companies offer higher salaries,” Bernard Arulanandam, who works with Sri Lankan startups and IT companies in an advisory role, told Rest of World. “[Now] most rupee-funded startups have been struggling since the currency devalued.”

According to Pegged Place to Work, a database for IT professionals looking for jobs in Sri Lanka, 192 tech companies operating in the country now fully or partially pay salaries adjusted to foreign currencies. There are approximately 300 IT companies in the country.

The Colombo-based Calcey Technologies was one of the first companies to start paying salaries adjusted to U.S. dollars last year. “I, as a business owner, made a strategic business decision, which is to save the company,” Mangala Karunaratne, founder and CEO, told Rest of World. “Does that hurt the local startups from retaining people? Probably, yes. [But] we managed to save some of our most valuable assets, which [are] people.”

Software outsourcing companies that earned revenue in U.S. dollars, euros, and Australian dollars were the first to allow their staff to peg their salaries to foreign currencies during Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, Jiffry Zulfer, founder and CEO of digital mobility startup PickMe, told Rest of World. “Because they wanted to retain their staff, they started offering them a pegged salary,” he said. “Within a day, we had the Sri Lankan rupee devalued two times. It went from 200 rupees per dollar to 400 rupees. This created a lot of issues for a lot of people because they were paid in rupees.”

Shay Anthony, co-founder of collaborative email service startup Zapmail, which earns revenue in Sri Lankan rupees, has been struggling to match “dollar-based salaries in the market for both existing and new hires,” she told Rest of World.

“Instead of compensating with [just] cash, we allocate shares,” Anthony said. “We obviously try our best to kind of match the market but also it’s very difficult from the point of view of a startup because [we have] limited funding.”

192 

The number of tech companies that fully or partially pay salaries adjusted to foreign currencies.

Some startups have been upskilling workers, or hiring staff that is “slightly adjacent” to what they’re looking for. “A marketing person, even if they’re not an absolute digital marketing specialist, [companies] might take them in, spend a little bit of time to train them up on the job, and then you can get them for a lower price,” Arulanandam said.

Other tech startups have begun hiring remote workers — within or outside Sri Lanka — to keep costs in check.

Shenal Vanderwall, who launched his engagement solutions company, Meeedly, in 2022, told Rest of World he was forced to hire remote workers in the country. Early-stage startups like his rely on fresh graduates, he said, “and what happened with this inflation, with the U.S. dollar-pegged salaries, we couldn’t even get that workforce.” Vanderwall now has staff across Sri Lanka, though his company is headquartered in Colombo.

Hettihamu of Ifonix, meanwhile, has started hiring workers in Peru.

“We found that paying $1,000 in Peru for a high-end software developer would get us much further,” he said. “It didn’t make sense to hire local talent for the same cost because it would take us twice as much time [to complete tasks]. Whereas the people we are hiring [from Peru] are already specialized in what we need.”

Dimuthu Attanayake is an independent journalist and a researcher from Sri Lanka.

Zuha Siddiqui is a Labor x Tech reporting fellow at Rest of World based in Karachi, Pakistan.

U$A

A Labor Strike Over Shoplifting

The Wall Street Journal 

Opinion by The Editorial Board

A STRIKE THE JOURNAL CAN SUPPORT

Provided by The Wall Street Journal

Union walkouts these days are common for pay raises, but get this: Over the weekend hundreds of workers at three Macy’s stores in the Seattle suburbs went on strike to protest rampant shoplifting and risks to employee safety.

United Food & Commercial Workers Local 3000 says Macy’s “is not doing enough to address shoplifting, violent shoppers, and other safety threats to workers and customers.” Among other evidence, the union points to an incident involving Liisa Luick, a longtime employee at the Macy’s store some 20 miles north of downtown.

Ms. Luick says workers at her store “frequently observe shoplifting and even occasional violence,” and “the lack of security affects our customers too.” But when she called 911 about “a repeat shoplifter that even law enforcement was familiar with,” Macy’s suspended her without pay “for nearly three weeks,” she wrote in a letter to the Everett Herald last week. Now Macy’s workers “are afraid to call the police because we worry we’ll get in trouble or even lose our jobs,” she said.

Macy’s declined to respond to Ms. Luick’s claims but said “our top priority is to ensure the safety of our colleagues and customers in-store.” UFCW Local 3000 said it filed an unfair labor practice charge against Macy’s over its treatment of Ms. Luick and that the company “eventually provided back pay.”

Ms. Luick isn’t alone in worrying about crime. “Shoplifters and even violent customers are constant threats to our security,” wroteNicole Hardin, who has worked at the Macy’s cosmetics counter for more than 15 years. Yasmina Grainat, another longtime employee, told the Seattle Times that the stress of dealing with thieves isn’t worth her $20.73 hourly wage.

Macy’s and others can be forgiven for wondering if calling the cops is pointless. Theft up to $750 is a mere misdemeanor in the state, and many shoplifting cases are never prosecuted. Where crime is tolerated it proliferates.

A Forbes Advisor report last week ranked Washington as the worst state in the nation for retail theft: It “accounts for 48% more retail theft than expected based on its share of the U.S. population.” Last year Seattle ranked fifth among cities and metropolitan areas most affected by organized retail theft, according to the National Retail Federation.

UFCW 3000 ended its strike Sunday night, saying “our hope is that Macy’s will come to the table, ready to engage in good faith over solutions on safety” and other contract issues. The union could do more to ensure the safety of its members by exerting political pressure on Washington lawmakers to lower the felony threshold for shoplifting.

UK
North Lanarkshire wholesaler’s workers secure substantial pay rise


More than 400 staff at a Motherwell-based wholesaler is set to get a substantial pay rise following “constructive” negotiations between the union and management.

Workers at Brake Brothers in the North Lanarkshire town will take home an increase of between 19.3 per cent and 23.2 per cent.

The deal also includes the creation of a £300 December bonus and access to an attendance bonus of £750.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, commented, “Some workers will receive a rise of up to 23.2 per cent – Unite does what it says on the tin, we deliver better jobs, pay and conditions for our members.”

“The Brake Brothers wage deal is an excellent example of how is Unite negotiating a substantial pay increase for our members. Some workers will receive a rise of up to 23.2 per cent. Unite does what it says on the tin, we deliver better jobs, pay and conditions for our members.”

Brake Brothers provides wholesale food distribution services from the Newhouse facility to the hospitality as well as retail sectors. The line products include dairy, fresh produce, fish and seafood, snacks, drinks and alcohol.

Unite has also agreed to work with Brake Brothers on its development plans which would see an additional £10m invested on a site extension for 2026. The investment is designed to extend the Newhouse facility by 50,000 square feet to enable the company’s growth in Scotland and could see the creation of up to 100 new jobs.

Unite industrial officer Pat McIlvogue said, “Unite is delighted to deliver a major pay victory for over 400 workers at Brake Brothers. The pay offer was made following constructive negotiations with the company after our emphatic mandate for industrial action at the Newhouse facility.

“Unite will also work with Brake Brothers on its proposals to secure £10m of investment into an extension of the facility which could create a further 100 jobs on site.

Union announces staff at Motherwell food wholesaler secure 23.2 per cent pay rise

1 day ago

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Workers at Brake Brothers in the North Lanarkshire town will take home an increase of between 19.3 and 23.2 per cent following “constructive” negotiations between Unite the union and management.

WISCONSIN

Lambeau Field Service Workers Seek Union

A National Labor Relations Board-supervised election will be held on Sunday.

By Joe Schulz, Wisconsin Public Radio - Nov 27th, 2023 

A statue of Curly Lambeau stands tall as fans walk in to Lambeau Field to watch the Green Bay Packers play the New Orleans Saints in a preseason football game Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, in Green Bay, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

Service workers at Lambeau Field are scheduled to participate in a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election on Sunday to determine if they will be granted union representation.

The workers are employed by Delaware North, the food service partner of the Green Bay Packers. Although many game-day positions are done by volunteers, Delaware North employs around 70 vendors in the concourses who sell beer and other beverages.

In late September, a majority of those workers notified Delaware North and the Packers that they were unionizing, according to Peter Rickman, president of the Milwaukee Area Service & Hospitality Workers Organization, or MASH. The Lambeau workers would join MASH, which represents workers at Fiserv Forum and other hospitality venues in the Milwaukee area, if they voted in favor of unionization.

When a majority of workers express interest in joining a union with written cards, the employer is required to immediately bargain with the union or seek an election, according to the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB.

Last month, Delaware North requested an election, and the federal agency sent a notice of an election on Nov. 7. The Packers have declined to comment on the election. Delaware North did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rickman said he believes Delaware North, by forcing a formal election, is disregarding a “supermajority” of vendors who signed cards saying they wanted to form a union.
Get a daily rundown of the Milwaukee stories


“Unfortunately, Delaware North has hidden behind these legal bureaucratic maneuvers to keep workers from having their union,” Rickman said. “These kinds of elections allow plenty of questionable conduct that isn’t unlawful.”

In its election petition, Delaware North had said it entered into an agreement with the Workers United “pertaining to beer vendors at Lambeau Field,” according to a document filed with the NLRB.

But Workers United also filed a document in the case, saying it wanted to “disclaim any and all interest in representing any of the company’s employees at Lambeau Field.”

Rickman characterized the move as the company essentially trying to choose a union for the workers, rather than allowing workers to choose their union.

“When that other union notified the NLRB and the company that it had no interest in being a part of it, that should have been the end of the story,” Rickman said. “That should have been the point where Delaware North turned around and said, ‘OK, well, there doesn’t need to be an election here.'”

The election will be held inside the conference room in Delaware North’s offices at Lambeau Field on Sunday, Dec. 3. Rickman said he fears that could give the company an unfair advantage in the election to shape workers’ preferences.

“Having to march past the boss’ office, where they can see who’s going in to vote and they can be looking at you conveying, ‘Hey, don’t vote for a union’ — it’s just a broken process,” he said.


“Folks are looking at this election with some resolve to try to win it, but this is a stacked deck,” he continued. “It’s an uneven playing field, and it’s not the way that Lambeau workers should be treated and, frankly, doesn’t square with the values of the Green Bay Packers.”

In professional sports, Rickman said franchises have a lot of leverage to take action behind closed doors to support workers’ ability to organize.

He said the Packers could direct Delaware North to acknowledge the union and call off the election.

“They could make a phone call or (have a) conversations in a conference room with Delaware North saying, ‘Hey, respect the workers, respect their union. Sit down and bargain a union contract with them.’ Because a clear, strong supermajority of the vendors who serve our fans — the best in the world — are demanding it,'” Rickman said.

Listen to the WPR report here.

Service workers at Lambeau Field scheduled to participate in formal union election Sunday was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.

U$A

Calhoun Republic Services Workers Vote to Unionize

By Blake Silvers 

BSilvers@CalhounTimes.com
Nov 26, 2023

Local workers hold a union banner outside Calhoun’s Republic Services facility.

According to Teamsters Local 728, workers at the Calhoun Republic Services facility have voted to unionize.

Union officials say the 42 local commercial and residential drivers are seeking “higher wages, health care benefits, improved safety, better working conditions, and respect,” according to a release.

“I voted to become a Teamster because I want a voice to better my career,” said six-year Republic employee Michael Shipley, a roll-off driver and organizing committee member. “I am ready to fight for a fair contract to improve our workplace and give us the respect we deserve.”

Union organizers claim the company employed several “union-busting” tactics during the process.
“I have never seen a company willingly allow their unit observer to threaten workers with bodily harm and damage to their property,” said Chuck Stiles, Director of the Teamsters Solid Waste and Recycling Division.

Stiles said the union may choose to seek legal action against Republic.

“If a union supporter acted as Republic’s unit observer did on election day, they would have been terminated on the spot,” Stiles said. “We will be considering the appropriate course of legal action.”

In response to these employee statements, Republic Services released the following following a media inquiry from the Calhoun Times:

“Republic Services respects our employees’ rights under federal labor law, including the right to choose to be represented by a union. We do not promote or tolerate threatening or unlawful conduct. The NLRB election process ran smoothly, and we do not know of any information to the contrary from any direct source. We intend to bargain in good faith with the union as the employees’ elected representative.”

AUSTRALIA
Shocking PTSD rates causing mass police exodus: union

IT'S A GLOBAL CRISIS

Story by Rebecca Peppiatt •

The prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder in the WA police force is contributing to record numbers of officers quitting, the WA Police Union said on day one of its annual conference on Monday.

President Paul Gale opened the two-day event by saying the emotional and mental toll on officers was bigger than ever before, which had led to the union partnering with the PTSD Research Foundation of WA to develop a research study which seeks to establish the prevalence of the condition in this state.



Police Minister Paul Papalia, WA Police Union president Paul Gale and Wa Police Commissioner Col Blanch.© Rebecca Peppiatt

While the study is ongoing, other statistics show police officers are almost three times more likely to have PTSD than the general public, and are more likely to suffer from the condition than those in the armed forces.

“Our officers are regularly encountering high-stress incidents, traumatic events, and emotional challenges,” Gale said.

“It becomes crucial to recognise and address the toll these experiences can take on our mental wellbeing.”

Gale said record numbers of officers resigned from WA Police in 2022-23.

He said 417 officers resigned, and 99 officers retired in the 12 months to June 30.

“This resulted in the worst attrition rate for sworn officers since 1969-70,” he said.

“The rate of sworn officers to population in 2022-23 was also the lowest in 10 years. More importantly, this rate has generally been declining over the past 30 year
But Police Minister Paul Papalia, who attended alongside Police Commissioner Col Blanch, said recruitment was also “at record numbers”.

“There are 1600 Western Australians who have applied to join the Western Australian police force right now,” he said.

“There are 1480 UK, Irish and New Zealand officers who’ve applied, and we’re currently building up to about 440 at the Academy by January, and 1000 will be going through the academy over the next 12 months, growing the police force by 15 per cent above attrition.


“So the force will grow – that will help people’s conditions. The more officers out there the better.”

More than 70 motions were put forward to be discussed at the conference, including better pay, incentives, a bid to disaffiliate the WA Police Union from UnionsWA and a vote to put forward a police officer to be a candidate at the next state government election.

CALIFORNIA

USC and graduate students union reach tentative pact with big pay boosts, bias protections

Teresa Watanabe
Mon, 27 November 2023 

USC and its graduate student workers, who picketed on campus this month, reached a tentative agreement with big pay boosts and anti-harassment protections. 

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

USC and about 3,000 newly unionized graduate student workers who teach, grade and do research reached a tentative labor agreement Sunday evening with big pay boosts and antiharassment protections, averting a threatened Tuesday strike weeks before final exams.

The tentative pact — hammered out after more than six months of negotiations — would raise minimum wages for the lowest-paid academic workers from $35,700 a year to $40,000 beginning next year, establish the first ever grievance and arbitration process, offer child-care stipends and provide semesterlong parental leave and other benefits.

It represents "the best contract in the private sector of higher education, made possible by mass participation" from members of the Graduate Student Workers Organizing Committee — United Auto Workers, said Stepp Mayes, a fifth-year doctoral student in environmental engineering and bargaining team member. Union members are expected to vote on the agreement next week and will not strike.

"Graduate student workers’ first contract will improve the lives of thousands of workers at USC and create a culture of accountability," Mayes said. "This agreement marks the beginning of a stronger USC."

USC also hailed the agreement and commended the graduate student workers for their “reasoned, responsible” negotiations and campaign.

“Right from the beginning, it was our objective to come to a fair agreement that recognizes the value that we see in our graduate students and the contributions they make to our university,” said Andy Stott, vice provost for academic programs and dean of the graduate school. “What the contract represents is the level of USC’s commitment to graduate education and the fact that we are a premier doctoral institution.”

USC teaching assistants, research assistants and assistant lecturers voted to form their first ever union in February, part of an unprecedented surge of labor organizing among academic workers across the nation. A historic strike last year by 48,000 University of California teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral scholars brought substantial gains in pay and benefits and helped energize fellow academic workers to step up union activism at their campuses.

Read more: UC strike energizes unprecedented national surge of union organizing by academic workers

Like their peers at UC and other institutions, the USC academic workers said that high housing costs in Los Angeles made it extremely difficult to make ends meet on their current stipends. A union survey found that 88% of graduate student workers were "rent-burdened," paying more than 30% of their income for housing costs, with an average of 54%.

Mayes said he pays $1,700 a month, or 70% of his income, for a small one-bedroom apartment in West Adams. Jacqueline Johnson, a fifth-year doctoral student in cinema and media studies, says she pays $1,400 in rent, or nearly half her monthly income, and saves money by forgoing a car — yet that forces her to rely on sometimes unreliable public transportation. José Múzquiz, a doctoral student in political science and international relations, has begun to house-sit to eliminate housing costs, which had created such financial pressures he used food banks to have enough to eat.

Anand Balakrishnan, a sixth-year doctoral candidate in computer science, said he had been paying $1,200 monthly for a shared two-bedroom apartment near USC. But rent increases and high inflation have forced him to move to a cheaper apartment, cut down on eating out, drive up his credit card debt and finally ask his parents for financial help.

As they organized a union, Mayes said the USC graduate student workers pored over contracts forged at UC and other institutions to shape their demands. The union's demand for an independent arbitrator to handle discrimination and harassment complaints, for instance, was buttressed by similar provisions in place at UCLA, the University of Washington and New York University. USC insisted that complaints be first processed under the university's internal Title IX office — which many students said they mistrusted because of delays and other deficiencies.

In the compromise, USC agreed to meet with complainants and their representatives within 90 days of a complaint being filed to discuss both interim measures and grievance resolution, Mayes said. The university also agreed to what Mayes called "industry-leading transparency standards" regarding reporting on the number of claims filed, their status and the duration of the investigation. Peer-led training on preventing harassment and discrimination will also be launched.

The new provisions are in addition to USC's current Policy on Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation, which a USC spokesperson called "a model for best practices in higher education," providing clear paths for reporting prohibited conduct, responding to it and giving feedback on the policy and process.

Read more: Cal Poly Humboldt students live in vehicles to afford college. They were ordered off campus

On pay, USC academic workers receive stipends at different minimum levels depending on the school they are employed by. Under the tentative agreement, those at the lowest level of $35,700 would receive a 12% increase to $40,000 in 2024-25 and others at higher levels of pay would get a 4.5% increase. All workers would receive a minimum 3% raise in 2025-26 and in 2026-27, along with a signing bonus of more than 1%.

The tentative pact would provide a 25% increase over four years for the lowest-paid workers, compared with what USC called a "not economically practical" initial union demand of 35%.

"USC Graduate School is charged with ensuring the success of all students, not only the 2,700 represented by the union," the university posted on its website. "While providing competitive benefit and stipend packages for our graduate student workers, we must also invest in other areas of the graduate school, ensure we are achieving our academic and research goals, and support the broader university community."

The two sides agreed to ask the National Labor Relations Board to decide the contested issue of how many graduate student workers may be included in the bargaining unit. The union initially asserted that 3,200 students should be counted while USC says 2,700.

USC also agreed to stronger protections for international students, including a fund to aid those who lose their visa status during their appointment.

Balakrishnan, an international student from India, said those protections, along with the stronger anti-harassment policies, were a huge relief.

"These are big things, for as an international student, the constant sort of fear that we have is that we lose our student status out of nowhere, and then we just have to pack up and leave — which is really scary," he said. "But if we have a strong protection for this along with the nondiscrimination article, then we can be a lot more confident."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

U$A

WAGE THEFT

Oconomowoc apartment project workers are getting $1.2 million. Labor laws were violated


Tom Daykin, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Mon, November 27, 2023 

Workers who helped build Oconomowoc's Hackney House Apartments are getting another $1.2 million in wages after a Labor Department investigation.

Construction companies that worked on a large Oconomowoc apartment development are paying an additional $1.2 million to 142 workers following an investigation of federal labor law violations.

Those subcontractors were hired to help build the 302-unit Hackney House Apartments, which opened in 2022 at the Pabst Farms site.

Hackney House, developed by Milwaukee-based Mandel Group Inc., was insured by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development − subjecting it to the Davis-Bacon Act, according to a U.S. Department of Labor statement.

The Davis-Bacon Act requires workers on federally assisted construction projects be paid no less than local prevailing wages.

A Labor Department investigation found the project's prime contractor, Rosemont, Illinois-based McShane Construction Co., violated the act by failing to provide subcontractors with accurate information on wage rates to pay workers in certain job classifications.

A McShane executive didn't immediately respond Monday to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's request for comment.

The department's Wage and Hour Division investigated 23 subcontractors − with 13 firms paying 142 workers $1.2 million in prevailing wages, and an additional $30,472 in overtime back wages.

“Our recovery of an average of $8,694 per worker will benefit these workers and their families financially and make a positive economic impact in their communities,” said Wage and Hour Division Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri. “Employers on a federally funded project must comply with all federal guidelines for prevailing wages and benefits.”

The division also is doing outreach on prevailing wage compliance. That includes training for employers through the Associated General Contractors of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Builders Association, Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin, and the National Association of Minority Contractors − Wisconsin Chapter.

Workers are being contacted through the University of Wisconsin-Madison School for Workers program, Voces De La Frontera, Workers for Justice Wisconsin and the Mexican Consulate in Milwaukee.

“Unfortunately, we often see violations in the construction industry related to employee misclassification, prevailing wages, overtime pay and the use of subcontractors and laborers who may not understand their rights,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Kristin Tout.

“The payment of Davis‐Bacon prevailing wages reduces pay discrimination in construction, provides workers with fair wages and better benefits, and promotes economic prosperity in the region," Tout said.

Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram, X and Facebook.


This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Labor law violations bring $1.2 million for Milwaukee-area workers