Santa Maria’s city center, with its gritty mix of old Western-wear stores and chain mall outlets, is the place where the valley’s farmworker marches always start or end. A grassy knoll in a small park, at the intersection of Broadway and Main, provides a natural stage for people to talk to a crowd stretching into the parking lot and streets beyond.

This March 30, the day before Cesar Chavez’s birthday, a high school student named Cesar Vasquez walked up the rise. He was surrounded by other young protesters, all from Santa Maria farmworker families, 80 percent of whom are undocumented. He turned to face the several hundred marchers who’d paused there, and began reciting a stream of consciousness poem, fierce gestures punctuating his emotion-filled words. The noisy crowd before him grew silent.

“We’re meant to work in the fields,” he cried out. “[And told,] ‘Don’t be too loud because then you’re seen as just the angry brown kid ’ . . . The system has pushed us onto our knees into the rows of dirt where the berries lie. We are tired of being called essential workers but not even treated as essential humans . . . We are going to do something about it . . . We can no longer be suffocated. It is our time to breathe, our time to rise, our time to fight!”

Brave words, given that he’d helped organize the day’s march to counter pervasive fear in Santa Maria of immigration raids and detentions and worry over how growers are hiring more and more temporary guest workers from the H-2A visa program.

Concepcion Chavez, who went on strike briefly in 2024, described that impact. “The company always keeps them [the H-2 workers] separate from us. If we don’t work hard, the supervisors say we will be replaced, they will send in the H-2As.”

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/39994633

Their new contract includes raises of 20 percent over four years and an additional $2,500 signing bonus.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/31040306

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/39995024

Unionized quality assurance testers at video game holding company ZeniMax announced Friday that they have reached a tentative contract agreement with Microsoft, which acquired ZeniMax in 2021.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/comments/1kznqn7/stanford_nurses_saving_lives_by_day_sleeping_in/

In September-October 2024, hundreds of workers led a 38-day strike at the plant under the leadership of the Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU) after the management objected to its registration.

The workers of the Samsung India’s Chennai plant secured a landmark wage revision agreement after a long battle with the company management on Monday, May 19. Samsung management was forced to agree to revise the wages of all workers at the plant, increase leave, and improve the overall working conditions at the factory.

The agreement was negotiated by the newly formed Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU) with the company management, under the mediation of the Tamil Nadu state government, where the plant is situated.

Announcing the agreement, A. Soundararajan, president of the Tamil Nadu Center for Indian Trade Union (CITU), with which the SIWU is affiliated, congratulated the workers and the SIWU leadership for the victory. He also warned the company management against pursuing anti-worker policies moving forward because the workers will not hesitate to launch more struggles in the future for their rights.

As per the terms of the agreement, the wages of the workers at Samsung’s Chennai plant would be raised up to Rs 18,000 (about USD 210) over three years in direct salaries, and an additional Rs 4,000 (about USD 47) in experience-based incentives.

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Approximately 55,000 of Los Angeles County's workers have taken to the streets downtown in a massive, two-day protest -- affecting a range of industries, from public services and health care to libraries and park management.

Members of the labor union SEIU Local 721 began the strike on Monday night, saying in a press release that failed contract negotiations and 44 alleged labor law violations sparked the walkout.

Amazon is facing its second workers’ union vote in as many months as laborers at a warehouse in suburban Raleigh, North Carolina, decide this week whether they wish to collectively bargain with the retail giant.

Workers at the five-year-old warehouse in the city of Garner will vote through Friday to join or reject the upstart Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, or CAUSE, which seeks to push Amazon for higher wages, longer breaks and more scheduling flexibility, among other things. They will need a simple majority among voters to join the union.

In January, workers at a Whole Foods store in Philadelphia voted to unionize, the first successful organizing effort at the national grocery chain that Amazon acquired in 2017 for nearly $14 billion.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/54890600

My workplace is voting on a union in two weeks, and we have an unusual amount of people we haven't talked to. It seems like a tossup at moment. I'm hopeful but not at all confident.

Management has officially been nice once the vote was triggered, but it seems a few of our workplace bullies who have carved out priveledged positions, and who don't show respect to other coworkers, have sided firmly on the anti-union side (I wonder why?) and are running around the store talking shit to everyone (and throwing in some transphobic bullshit while they are at it).

Some of them have showed up at our meetings to start sealioning and wasting people's time. Others are posting long screeds in the breakroom lying their asses off and basically acting on behalf of management.

After the first meeting I explained my experience and poured my heart out thinking they were there in good faith and I would be taken seriously, but of course not. Next meeting same fucking questions and pretending no one answered.

Some of it is continueing to ask for specifics we can't give, because it depends on the negotiating process and workplace surveys. All we can say is "It's up to us to decide that during negotiations". Is there a better answer we can give?

Has anybody else dealt with this shit? Any tips?

Our current plan is to not engage with them as as possible and kick them out of the next meeting if they show up.

My office realized that while other offices have a CBA, we do not (despite eligibility). From what I could find, union contracts are with IFPTE (International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers).

Just wondering if anyone has had experience with IFPTE or similar?

I read through some of the other CBA’s, and while most of the articles are addressed in actions management already takes, I like the articles around legal representation and protections about how work is contracted externally.

It seems like a good idea, I have at least a few colleagues bought in within my discipline, and am going to start floating it to others. Then hopefully get the ball rolling!

I’m quite uninformed on this topic. I’ve (technically) been in unions before as a subcontractor working for a unionized prime contractor, but never actually had this opportunity before. One of my friends helped lead their coffee shop unionization effort, so I have some personal resources too at least.

Thanks!