The strike by clerical workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is over. This was a clear-cut case of union members fighting not for their own jobs as individuals, but for the
preservation of good jobs for others:
At issue during the lengthy negotiations was the union's contention that terminal operators wanted to outsource future clerical jobs out of state and overseas — an allegation the shippers denied.
Shippers said they wanted the flexibility not to fill jobs that were no longer needed as clerks quit or retired. They said they promised the current clerks lifetime employment.
During the strike, both sides said salaries, vacation, pensions and other benefits were not a major issue.
Workers
did make concessions on jobs:
The union agreed to allow employers to eliminate 14 jobs over the next 3 1/2 years through attrition, stepping back from a long-held demand that every retiring worker be replaced by a new union employee. The employers had sought to eliminate a far larger number of positions.
A fair day's wage
- Call center manager to pregnant employee: We don't "pay you to pee". The worker, who lost her job during a high-risk pregnancy, is suing.
- Citigroup is cutting 11,000 jobs.
- California Labor Commissioner Reaches $339,716 Settlement for Unpaid Wages at San Francisco Restaurants. The settlement covers 28 workers at Tsing Tao restaurant.
- My former boss, Karen Nussbaum, on new organizations for workers:
First, a boss is a boss. [...]
Conversely, a worker is a worker. [...]
Finally, all these workers, however they’re classified, need to have freedom of association in all its forms, present and yet to be imagined. Why are we bound by a law that says the only way to have a voice on the job is to have a majority of the workers in your workplace vote for a union in the face of daunting management hostility? That’s not a standard for workplace representation in any other industrialized nation. Why shouldn’t workers be able to form small groups in their workplaces or citywide associations, say, of retail workers? Workers should be free to set standards for their work however they can: with their employer, with their industry, through private or public authorities.
- Speaking of which, the New York Times' Eduardo Porter on unionizing at the low end of the pay scale, like the fast food industry.