The Teamsters’ “win” at Breakthru Beverage sure doesn’t look like it was great for workers:
For over 80 days, workers at three Teamsters locals picketed over alleged ULPs at Breakthru Beverage. That strike ended this week, and Sean O’Brien is claiming a contract “win” while adding, “The power of our solidarity is undeniable.” That was part of a vague announcement claiming that “wage increases” are part of the deal. The union didn’t offer details regarding the percentage of those increases, so what gives?
Well, KMOX-AM in St. Louis reported that the deal is for “a 4-percent wage increase over the next 4 years.” Presumably, they meant 4 percent per year, which is higher than 4% spread over 4 years, but neither figure is worth writing home about when the Teamsters took drivers off the job for nearly three months. KMOX added that the two sides agreed to “circle back to negotiations on health and welfare benefits in the next 90 days,” which also doesn’t look like a hard-hitting union victory on any front at all.
Ex-UAW presidents made an endorsement, and it’s not Shawn Fain:
It wouldn’t be a Friday Five in this year’s union convention season without an update on the hot mess of the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) presidential race. That grand jury subpoena for testimony from federal monitor Neil Barofsky likely has plenty to do with ongoing accusations against Shawn Fain, and three former UAW presidents are watching it go down.
To that end, Ray Curry, Rory Gamble, and Ron Gettelfinger issued a joint statement, in which they questioned the 2023 election that installed Fain as president over incumbent Curry. As the trio pointed out, only 11% of the UAW’s eligible membership cast ballots, and they believe the election proceedings had “numerous issues” that could have changed the outcome.
The group also listed their concerns in several bullet points, including, “We’ve seen the infighting, and we’ve read every word in the Monitor’s Report to the Court and listened to the podcasts.” And then they endorsed 20-year UAW organizer Tricia Geiger for president.
As expected, Fain wasn’t pleased. In a response, he declared that the trio only wants to steer the UAW back to “the old, failed ways of doing things.”
Another strike coming from The Pharmacy Guild:
In fall 2023, scattered CVS stores saw pharmacists walk off the job for a short-lived strike that didn’t disrupt business all that much. Three years later, The Pharmacy Guild (TPG) is now back for another round after dubbing the previous effort as “pharmageddon.”
In California, Rhode Island, and Arizona, CVS pharmacists, who are TPG members, authorized a strike while citing contract negotiations that have dragged on for two years. The union blames the company for staffing shortages while a CVS spokesperson countered, “We’re committed to ensuring there are appropriate levels of staffing and resources at our pharmacies.” The company further believes that this strike authorization does not pose a threat to their customer service.
California rideshare drivers will be unionized, whether they like it or not:
Earlier this year, Massachusetts one-upped California by certifying the so-called “App Drivers Union,” a joint invention from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the International Association of Machinists (IAM). Now California is catching up with the California Gig Workers Union (CGWU), and a 30-day waiting period has begun, after which the California Public Employment Relations Board will certify the union.
CGWU is a creation of SEIU, and Uber and Lyft stated that they will cooperate with the union, but as with the Massachusetts union, the CGWU also comes with small print. Drivers will remain independent contractors but will be bound to a union constitution, meaning that they will be paying union dues, and to what end? That remains to be seen, but they’ll lose freedoms associated with being contractors and have no guarantee of receiving benefits associated with being employees.
There’s also the whole “active driver” distinction with CGWU claiming to have gathered signatures from over 30% of that group. However, it’s a misleading term that allowed the Massachusetts App Drivers Union to only gather 12.5% support from the state’s gig drivers while claiming to have reached 25%. If that pattern holds up, only about 15% of California gig drivers signed cards for CGWU, but soon, they’ll all be bound to a union.
Are your workers checked out, via their calendar?
A newish study from Owl Labs is making the rounds and points toward a trend that is worth some pondering by leadership teams. That is, 35% of surveyed workers admit that they use so-called “calendar blocking” to avoid engaging at work. That number is highest among millennials at 61%, followed by Gen X-ers at 22%, Gen Z-ers at 14%, and Boomers at 3%.
Elsewhere in that study, surveyed managers who admit that their main worry is employee engagement feel that way about both in-office (31%) and remote (29%) workers. Are these two sets of data related? Perhaps to some degree, but the calendar-blocking issue likely occurs for multiple reasons, which would differ according to reflections by any given leadership team who reads the survey. However, surveyed workers averaged 5 in-person and 5 remote meetings per week. That’s a lot of meetings!
