Folks,
Greetings from the Burgh, where I just returned from attending a book chat for MSNBC Host Chris Hayes' book "The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource."
Buy a copy of his book from Bookshop.org.
Alamo Drafthouse Workers Expand Strike
During the pandemic, movie theaters took a big financial hit. Major movie studios found they could make more money by allowing patrons to rent new releases directly on streaming platforms, resulting in cinema closings and mass layoffs throughout the industry.
The Alamo Drafthouse offers its patrons high-end dining and beverage options and is one of the few profitable movie theater chains. However, they are now laying off workers, but the layoffs only affect the chain's unionized locations in Denver, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.
Workers say that the layoffs are retaliatory and go on strike until the layoffs are repealed.
"This is not the Alamo Drafthouse we have supported and built over the years. This is Sony, their new corporate owner pulling the strings, attempting to silence our collective voice and strip us of our power. But we refuse to be silent, and we refuse to be powerless," said union bargaining committee member Josh Reitze in a statement.
For more, check out Hollywood Reporter.
North Carolina Amazon Workers Defeated in Landslide
In Garner, North Carolina, this week, Amazon workers voted against unionizing with the independent Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment by a margin of 829 to 2,447
The union accused Amazon of illegal intimidation and vowed to continue organizing.
"We're not going to stop organizing, this was just the first step," Amazon worker and CAUSE member Italo Medeliust told WTVD. "We at least now know that we have around 1,000 people that support us inside that building that's a lot of people so we're going to go back we're going to regroup and we're going to make sure that RDU1 knows that our presence hasn't been defeated."
No.10 Downing Street Workers to Strike
Over in the United Kingdom, workers at No. 10 Downing Street, the residence of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, are going on strike for the next month. They are protesting the outsourcing of their work to private contractors.
The strike highlights how Starmer, the head of the British Labour Party, has angered many with his neoliberal policies.
"After all the hand-wringing, it turns out Keir Starmer is going to oversee the first strikes in a generation at Downing Street," said the Public and Commercial Service Workers union in a statement. "It's time for the Government to stop slamming workers and come to the table and talk."
For more on the strike, check out the Telegraph.
Utah Governor Signs Collective Bargaining Ban
In Utah this week, the Governor signed a bill that would ban collective bargaining in the state even if the municipalities where they were employed wanted to bargain collectively.
"Despite overwhelming opposition, Governor Spencer Cox and the Legislature ignored the voices of thousands," the Utah Education Association said in a statement. "This is a blatant attack on public employees and our right to advocate for the success of our profession and students."
Undocumented Workers Who Helped Build Elon Musk's Texas Gigafactory
Finally, Bloomberg has a look at the undocumented workers, who helped build Elon Musk's Texas Gigafactory. From Bloomberg:
Cristy was in her early 50s when she took a job with a cleaning subcontractor on a construction project, reporting for 12-hour shifts vacuuming, mopping floors and scrubbing toilets. Despite her exposure to dust and other debris, most days she wasn't provided with gloves, face masks or other personal protective gear, and she had only limited access to water. The shifts included two 15-minute breaks and a half-hour lunch, with managers keeping strict watch on the time. Workers who were tempted to complain had to mind the threat of deportation.
Conditions such as these are commonplace for the nation's vast undocumented workforce, which underpins pillars of the American economy—construction, agriculture, manufacturing, meatpacking. What made Cristy's stint as a cleaner remarkable was the figure atop the operation where she worked: the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, who over the past year has stoked and harnessed anti-immigrant sentiment to vault himself to political power alongside President Donald Trump.
Cristy was one of many undocumented workers who powered the rapid expansion of Musk's business empire on the outskirts of Austin, according to interviews with labor advocates, contract construction managers, and unauthorized laborers themselves. Bloomberg Businessweek spoke with 10 undocumented immigrant workers who said they'd been employed by outside companies to work at Tesla and SpaceX facilities in the Austin area. (Cristy asked that Businessweek withhold her last name, while other unauthorized workers quoted in this story have been identified only by a pseudonym to shield them from reprisal. Several other sources were granted anonymity to protect professional relationships.) To verify workers' ties to Tesla, Businessweek reviewed photos and videos some had taken on the job; a few people spoke alongside friends and family members who confirmed details of their stories. Nine of the sources worked on Tesla's massive site in Austin. Another helped build a SpaceX outpost. Sweeping debris, laying plumbing and pouring concrete, these workers built facilities that helped make Musk's roughly $400 billion fortune, sometimes at great personal sacrifice.
For more, check out Bloomberg.
News & Headlines Elsewhere
- Judge grants narrow temporary restraining order against striking King Soopers employees
- DHS memo requests Treasury Secretary to deputize law enforcement and IRS criminal investigators to assist with deportations
- 500 Lumen Field workers unionize in Washington State
- First Florida HBCU forms union during Black History Month
- Twitter is blocking links to Signal, a secure messaging platform used by federal workers
- French video game developers stage first industry-wide strike
- Finally, workplace advocates commemorate the 13th anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster, which killed 1,300 workers in Bangladesh.
Alright, folks, that's all for today.
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Melk
