It’s no secret that union leaders have sent their recruitment efforts into overdrive lately, which is only one of the reasons why organizing in the food service industry has gone from barely existent to increasingly common in recent years. As Phil Wilson recently discussed on the Working Lunch Podcast, the Cemex decision has added new wrinkles to the uptick in food-service organizing, which has begun to affect the fine-dining world with fears of a Starbucks-like wave on the horizon.
Foodservice has led the way lately regarding the sheer number of petitions for union elections filed, but frankly, most industries have seen an increase, as the data below illustrates.
Source: LRIRightnow.com
Let’s peek at particularly aggressive examples of late:
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) heads to the doctor: As we previously discussed, an array of unions have been pulling physicians into organizing mode, and the AFT joined the party with a physician-organizing initiative. The union claims to have gathered 3,200 new members over the past year. These doctors report concerns about job burnout, wages and benefits, and workplace safety as motivation for organizing.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President April Verrett entered her new role a month ago and has already expressed hopes to increase membership by at least one million members by targeting every industry, from healthcare to prison workers, and tapping further into hospitality workplaces.
UNITE HERE is also entering a new leadership era with its first female president, Gwen Mills, in a union where a majority of members are women. In a recent interview, Mills stated she would double the amount of the UNITE HERE annual organizing budget to $20 million. Mills hopes to continue pushing for new contracts in the hospitality industry, including in Las Vegas, where a contract for 40,000 members will expire in August. UNITE HERE has been particularly active lately across the U.S:
- Local 11: In Long Beach, CA, the union won an election involving workers at 7 area hotels; in Anaheim, CA, 50 Disney Vacation Club workers petitioned for an election; and in Santa Monica, CA, hotel workers ended six months of striking with a new contract.
- Local 25: In Alexandria, VA, the union has been accused of ignoring “no soliciting” signs in apartment and condo buildings to endorse a Big Labor-friendly political candidate.
- Local 274: In Philadelphia, rallying concession workers, servers, and bartenders blocked traffic on a bridge in front of Aramark headquarters, where dozens of union members were apprehended and arrested by law enforcement.
The UAW Aims At Honda: Shawn Fain might still be licking his wounds over his Mercedes loss in Alabama but continues to target several other non-union automakers. Currently, the union’s efforts focus on 2400+ workers at an Indiana Honda plant in Indiana while trying to stack the deck in its favor and alleging that Mercedes reneged on raises after the union’s failed election. The NLRB, meanwhile, brought ULP charges against Honda over union insignia in the workplace. Honda denies allegations of wrongdoing and has accused UAW and the NLRB of using ULPs “to generate publicity and attention for their organizing campaigns.”
In closing, it’s clear that organizing has continued to ramp up since 2019 and will likely continue to do so in the foreseeable future, and this graph of total filed petitions tells that story.
Source: LRIRightnow
