Union Perspectives

Union Theological Seminary (UTS), thought to be a progressive institution that promotes racial justice and care for its workers, is being accused to union busting tactics against the security guards, who make $17 an hour living in New York. During the worst part of this pandemic, while other employees were hunkered down in the safety of their homes, the guards were expected to keep working to save the Seminary grounds. However, when the guards contracted Covid-19, the institution did not support them. One guard was hospitalized with his Covid and missed a month of work. He says the institution did not support him in any way, especially financially. The guards get one week of paid vacation, he was in the hospital four weeks. The guards were essential enough to remain on the job, but not essential when they inevitably became sick. Once healed, this guard began organizing his co-workers to unionize. His efforts paid off with a 95 percent return of signed cards, they can now petition to un...

This is the best time in the last fifty years for the union people to get better contracts and for the nonunion workers to get their first union contracts. The stars have alined in the workers’ favor with unemployment at its lowest and lots of jobs not being filled. There are lots of jobs not being filled. There are lots of low-end jobs out there ready to be filled so now is the time for the $15 to $24 hour wage to be established. If employees don’t receive this then they should strike like the food workers—essential workers—at Ralph’s, Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions. The owners offered employees a 60 cent per hour increase. The workers want $5 per hour. This walk out would be grocery clerks, meat cutters, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. They are represented by seven locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union with 47,000 workers in all. Albertsons owns Safeway, which became unionized beginning in 1935. Despite Albertsons making better-than-expected qua...

Finally the Building Trades have taken a look back at union history and have seen how union shops have started, which was mostly by union members who wanted to be their own boss. These people already knew what the union was about and knew the trade, and if treated properly, they’d become good union shops. One way to get a union sheet metal shop in their area is for workers to start their own shop. It’s not as hard as it might seem. I started out as a so-call shop boy and then I became a journeyman sheet metal worker. After gaining some experience a friend and I opened our own sheet metal shop. We did stripe malls, custom houses, housing tracts, and multi-story apartments. We were and stayed union and had good union workers. It’s not as complicated as it might seem. The person who hired me as a shop boy was a sheet metal worker and started his shop, True Temp in Ventura County. Then there was a shop started by a worker in Oxnard-Ventura County, and there were four shops started by sh...