Daily Kos: Labor

Democratic candidates in key battleground states benefited from a massive ground game by UNITE HERE, the hotel and hospitality workers union, which knocked 2.7 million doors in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Georgia (where it’s still going for the Senate runoff). But in Philadelphia, the canvassers didn’t just talk to people about the elections—they offered opportunities to train for union jobs.

“Members of the Unite Here Philadelphia campaign passed along information about the labor union’s hospitality worker training program—which offers the guarantee of placement in a union job—before even discussing the election with potential voters,” Rebecca Rainey reported at Bloomberg Law. “Since March, they have placed 99 workers in union jobs as part of the effort in Philadelphia, according to the union.”

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They weren’t mostly the highest-profile things on the ballot on Tuesday, but this year’s elections did include a number of ballot measures relevant to workers. The outcomes were a mixed bag.

In Illinois, a workers’ rights amendment looks likely to pass. That measure would affirm the right to organize and ban any law that “interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.” Like, say, so-called right to work laws. On the flip side of that, Tennessee, which has long had such an anti-union law, voted to put it in the state constitution. But back to good news, in Michigan, Democrats won the state legislature and are reportedly planning to repeal the free rider law its Republican legislature passed in 2012.

Nebraska raised its minimum wage, which will reach $15 by 2026. Nevada raised its minimum wage to $12, eliminating a tiered system in which employers that offered “qualifying” health plans could pay $1 less per hour—a system that wasn’t working out for workers, because often that $1 an hour was being taken off the minimum wage for health plans that were still unaffordable. Washington, D.C., voters raised the tipped minimum wage to the full minimum wage. But Portland, Maine, voters rejected a measure that would have raised the minimum wage to $18 and eliminated the tipped minimum wage.

San Diego voters repealed a ban on project labor agreements, a remnant of the city’s more conservative past.

Please chime in with anything I’m missing.

More than 35,000 academic workers at the University of California voted to strike in what would be the largest strike of this year and the largest academic strike ever in the United States if it happens.

“We are taking this step because the University’s unlawful bargaining practices are preventing us from reaching agreements on fair pay, affordable housing, and workplace equity for international scholars and working parents,” Connor Jackson, a University of California at Berkeley graduate student and union steward, told The Daily Californian in an email. “We do the majority of teaching and research at UC, yet most of us are severely rent burdened because we are so underpaid.”

”On average, [academic student employees] spend over half of our income on rent, including those of us who reside in university housing,” according to UAW Local 2865. “And ASEs are not alone. Postdocs, Student Researchers, and Academic Researchers also face high rents and low pay. Now is the time to address compensation and the cost of living crisis to ensure an equitable access to opportunity at UC.”

Things are wild over at Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform. The company is laying off up to half of its workforce, which would amount to around 3,700 people. As layoffs started, former Twitter employees wasted no time filing a class action lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court. Meanwhile, Musk continues to troll and whine all over the platform he is rapidly tanking.

Musk sent all Twitter employees an email on Thursday alerting them that layoff notifications would come Friday. People won’t even need to open the emails to know their fate because if they’re being fired the email will go to their personal accounts, while if their job is safe for now the email will go to their company accounts. But some people didn’t have to wait until Friday to find out: Their remote access was cut off Thursday night. 

RELATED STORY: Elon Musk supporters flood Twitter with the N-word following closure of the billionaire’s $44B deal

Starting on Nov. 1, employers in New York City are required to list salary ranges in job ads. It’s another move toward equal pay, as well as helping job applicants know that they’re not wasting their time applying for a job that won’t pay enough to live on. But employers are already skirting the law in a really brazen manner.

According to the law, “employers advertising jobs in New York City must include a good faith salary range for every job, promotion, and transfer opportunity advertised,” where “good faith” means what the employer “honestly believes at the time they are listing the job advertisement that they are willing to pay the successful applicant(s).” The law applies to all businesses with four or more employees, and to job categories, including full- or part-time employees, interns, domestic workers, independent contractors, and more. It also applies to ads for remote workers if those workers might be in New York City, though it doesn’t apply to New York-based businesses applying for workers located outside the city.

RELATED STORY: Young women out-earn young men in a few cities. Time will tell if it’s a sign of progress