Labor News — 6/16/2022
The Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation Weekly Report comes out (nearly) every Thursday with news and updates relevant to the Gulf Coast labor movement. To subscribe, click here.
Houston ISD unions win big raises in new budget
After years of advocacy, Houston Federation of Teachers and Houston Educational Support Personnel won big at last week’s HISD school board meeting.
HFT won a historic 11% pay increase for teachers, putting them near the top of regional pay scales. HESP won up to 16% pay raises for support staff, and a $2,000 bonus
ALF Executive Director shares work to forge solidarity in the face of crisis on stage at AFL-CIO Convention
From Harvey to the winter freeze to COVID, Houston has experienced more than its share of crises in the last five years. But every crisis also represents an opportunity — and the unions of the Gulf Coast have stepped up.
Last weekend at the AFL-CIO Convention, ALF executive director Hany Khalil shared the work Houston-area unions have done to improve construction standards, keep working people in their homes, increase access to live saving vaccines, and rebuild a better community.
Shuler, Redmond make history with election to leadership of AFL-CIO
The historic election of Liz Shuler to a full four-year term as AFL-CIO President, the first woman to hold the role, and Fred Redmond as Secretary-Treasurer, promises a continuation of the national labor federation’s strong support as the Texas labor movement rises.
Texas AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Leonard Aguilar delivered a seconding speech, with Texas AFL-CIO President Rick Levy and other prominent Texas labor leaders.
The election of officers by acclamation started off the quadrennial AFL-CIO Convention with a bang (and a poignant pre-convention tribute to the late Rich Trumka warmed our hearts), but these are far from the last news coming out of the gathering in Philadelphia.
Shuler has already announced a new Center for Transformational Organizing, setting a goal of adding 1 million union members in the U.S. This is going to place higher emphasis on organizing throughout the labor movement.
“Liz Shuler has a broad vision for the labor movement of the future, and she will be an innovative, progressive and powerful leader for us in these challenging times,” Texas AFL-CIO President Rick Levy said. We are excited to support her and work with her to build the most powerful labor movement this country has ever seen.”
Three Texas Starbucks stores vote to unionize, as drive reaches 150 stores in six months
Just a week after workers at the 45th and Lamar location in Austin voted to become the first union Starbucks in Texas, two stores in Austin and San Antonio voted to join them this week.
Over the past six months, 150 Starbucks have now voted to unionize, despite an aggressive and very public union-busting effort by Starbucks management.
Port truck drivers are employees, not ‘independent contractor,’ Feds rule
More than 250 misclassified XPO/STG port truck drivers in Southern California are, in fact, company employees who have the legal right to organize for better wages, benefits and working conditions, a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled late Monday.
The precedent-setting decision, handed down by the regional director of NLRB’s Region 21, marks the first time an election has been ordered for port truck drivers who are misclassified as independent contractors when they are actual employees. It paves the way not only for other port drivers but for potentially millions of misclassified workers in other industries to be properly classified as employees of the companies that employ them.
Worker misclassification — or the misclassification of employees as “independent contractors” — is a deceptive tool used by employers to deny guaranteed wages, paid health care, retirement benefits and access to protected labor rights that enable workers to unionize.
How Border Deployment Led to Union Organizing In Texas
In a historic move, last month Texas National Guard troops deployed at the border announced they were organizing with the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU).
Union goals include a guaranteed end date for all Guard members on state active duty, full restoration of tuition assistance slashed by Abbott, and immediate access to the same healthcare coverage as other state employees, along with state subsidized coverage “for our families while on Texas Military state mobilization.” To achieve these objectives, they pledged to “build a union which gets stronger with every new member we sign up” and coordinate with other state employees who have a “proud history of organizing” as part of the 8,500-member TSEU.
Hunter Schuler, a Texas Guard member and medic who helped initiate the effort, was one of those labelled an “agitator” for doing so. “None of us would be unionizing if our jobs didn’t suck and without all the negative aspects of the mission,” he says. “There’s not great mechanisms for getting problems to the attention of the top leadership any other way.”
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Commissioners make $48 million investment in child care programs
Harris County is making a $48 million foray into child care, a move County Judge Lina Hidalgo said will help child care providers recovering from the pandemic.
Hidalgo said the measure also is intended to boost wages for child care workers and help women who left their jobs during the pandemic get back to work. The three-year program is expected to create 1,000 new child care slots for Harris County kids.
A GOP power grab shatters 30 years of political progress for Black voters in Galveston County
Carver Park in Texas City, created during segregation, is considered the first African American county park in the state. It sits on land donated by descendants of freedmen who survived slavery and pioneered one of Texas’ oldest Black settlements, the footprint of which sits just a few blocks away.
Until last year, the park sat at the heart of Galveston County’s Precinct 3 — the most diverse of the four precincts that choose the commissioners court, which governs the county along with the county judge. Precinct 3 was the lone seat in which Black and Hispanic voters, who make up about 38% of the county’s population, made up the majority of the electorate.
But the white Republican majority on the Galveston County’s commissioners court decided last November to dismantle Precinct 3. Capitalizing on its first opportunity to redraw commissioner precincts without federal oversight, the court splintered Black and Hispanic communities into majority-white districts.
Biden Administration’s Internet for All Initiative Will Shrink the Digital Divide, Create High Quality Union Jobs
The Biden Administration’s Internet for All Initiative, announced today by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, will ensure that the resources in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will be used as Congress intended — to bring reliable, high speed internet connections to every household in the United States while creating high quality union jobs in our communities.
As part of the initiative’s launch, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released a Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. The notice lays out the requirements for BEAD-funded state programs, following the guidelines established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law which, in a historic first for broadband funding, recognized the importance of ensuring that broadband providers and contractors that receive these funds must have proactive plans in place to ensure labor compliance and high quality training. In fact, fair labor practices are among the primary criteria for prioritization of projects.
“The BEAD requirements effectively address many of our concerns about the failure of past programs to bring reliable, high speed broadband and good, union jobs to rural and underserved communities,” said Communications Workers of America President Chris Shelton. “Once again, the Biden Administration has made it clear that they are listening and responding to working people and holding corporations accountable for the way they use federal dollars.”
