Tag Archives: union

Events, Home

Online Event: Fighting COVID / Building Power: Workers & Unions on the Frontlines (5/19)

Tue. May 19 * 9:00am-10:15am
Online Forum via ZOOM

RSVP HERE

Speakers include:

Angeles Solis * Make the Road New York
Director of Worker Organizing
@AngeMariaSolis @maketheroadny

Eric Loegel * TWU Local 100
Vice President, Rapid Transit Operations (RTO)
@EricEddy100 @TWULocall100

Mark Henry * ATU Local 1056
President / Business Agent
#ATULocal1056 #1u

Nikki Kateman * Local 338 RWDSU/UFCW
Political & Communications Director
@nmkateman @Local338

Joshua Freeman * School of Labor & Urban Studies
Distinguished Professor of History @cunyslu #CUNYSLU

Diana Robinson * School of Labor & Urban Studies
Union Semester Coordinator @Ddee1985 @cunyslu

RSVP & JOIN US ONLINE

CWOP, Home, Labor Studies, Urban Studies

TWU Proposes School Bus Coop

School bus maintenance and driving has long been a tricky business in New York City. In the face of mounting maintenance costs, excessive emissions and flatlining wages, the Transit Workers Union (TWU) has proposed a novel — and potentially transformative — solution for the city’s school buses.

This week, TWU international president John Samuelsen and Manhattan New York City Council member Daniel Garodnick outlined the plan in the New York Daily News:

Here’s our plan. Let’s establish a unionized, worker-owned cooperative to transport students in non-polluting (and air-conditioned) electric school buses. For the pilot, we envision the worker cooperative entering into a contract with the Board of Education to provide service on approximately 15 existing routes that are not permanently assigned to any private company. Continue reading TWU Proposes School Bus Coop →

Home, Labor Studies, Student Work

Reflections from the Verizon Strike

After 45 days on strike, nearly 40,000 Verizon workers have agreed to head back to work. Having reached a tentative agreement with the communications giant, the workers state that they have achieved their goals: raising working families’ standard of living, creating over 1,300 new union jobs and achieving a first contract for retail store workers.

The largest strike in recent history, this Communications Workers of America (CWA) action marks a significant display of the strength of collective action.

During the strike, the company scrambled to fill positions with non-unionized and non-specialized personnel. Workers and their allies engaged in frequent rallies and demonstrations, holding space and making their position known. In the end, it more than paid off: besides winning the workers a raise, reversing cutbacks and creating jobs, the successful strike asserted the importance of workers in making communications infrastructure work, and re-asserted the role that organized labor can play in securing rights for workers.

Before the settlement was announced, CWA Local 1101 member, Verizon Striker and Murphy Alum (Cornell-CUNY Labor Relations Certificate, 2014) Christopher Vilardo shared this statement with the blog:

Here we are, over 10 months from when negotiations began and only one thing has changed: we are on the street. Continue reading Reflections from the Verizon Strike →

Home, Labor Studies

And a Union: Minimum-Wage Victories & the Fight for Worker Power

This article originally featured at Jacobin. Reprinted with permission.

By Stephanie Luce

The Fight for 15 movement claimed its biggest victories to date last week, with both New York and California passing major minimum-wage increases.

California’s rate, currently one of the highest in the country at $10 dollars per hour, will rise incrementally and reach $15 dollars by 2022. In New York, the wage floor will go up according to business size and location: larger New York City employers (ten or more employees) must pay at least $15 by the end of 2018, while smaller employers in the city (fewer than ten employees) will have until the end of 2019 to meet that mark.

Westchester County and suburban Long Island wages will hit $15 by 2022. And upstate New York employers will have to pay employees at least $12.50 by the end of 2020, after which the state will determine how to get to $15.

It’s disappointing that the $15 requirement won’t cover all of New York state for some time, and that upstate New York workers won’t see a $15 minimum for several years at least. Unlike California, New York also still allows tipped workers to be paid a lower wage. But considering the trajectory of the US minimum wage over the past four decades, these are enormous wins. Simply put, the US has never seen an increase this large. Continue reading And a Union: Minimum-Wage Victories & the Fight for Worker Power →

Home, Labor Studies, Urban Studies

On Escalation, Dying-In and the Fight to Fund CUNY

By David Unger

“C-U-N-Y…Don’t Let CUNY Die!”

Over the past few years, we have been lying down on the pavements of New York. In Grand Central Station, in front of Barclay’s Center, in the middle of streets in Brooklyn, near Union Square, in Harlem and in the Bronx.  We have been asked to lie down — to Die In — in order to demand recognition of Black Lives, to condemn violence against and killing of people of color, many of whose names are by now familiar in a tragic way: Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin…and on and on. 

Many times, everyone has been asked to die in, to lie down.  Other times, white allies have been asked to stand in silence.  Either way, the impacted communities have been calling the shots and leading the way. 

At times, the die-ins have been done by “other groups,” including the Fight-for-15, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), and others, marching in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives and calling out the intersection between racial and economic violence. Each time, no matter what intersections have been highlighted, the violence against people of color has been the primary concern of the actions. Continue reading On Escalation, Dying-In and the Fight to Fund CUNY →

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CUNY On Strike?

By Sarah Hughes

If you’ve been around Murphy recently, you’ve probably heard rumblings about the PSC contract battle. As a labor school, Murphy Institute faculty, students and staff study and put into practice the fight for labor rights. Now, as members of the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY and AFSCME District Council 37, Murphy community members are in a fight for fair labor conditions all our own. To give a bit of context, we’ve assembled an explainer. Read on to learn how we got here — and where things might be headed.

What’s going on with CUNY?

Since 2010 CUNY workers, faculty and staff, have been without a contract. Our union, the Professional Staff Congress, has been working the regular routes to a contract: members have written countless petitions and letters, endorsed a pro-labor mayor, endorsed the governor, lobbied for a new, labor-friendly chancellor, held mass meetings and rallies, got arrested and lobbied tirelessly in Albany.

In the meantime, Gov. Cuomo and the legislature has underfunded CUNY to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, and is threatening something much more drastic this spring. Continue reading CUNY On Strike? →