Posts Tagged ‘labor strike’
Seize the Beans!
Raise Your Voice Seize the Beans! By Peter Molenaar On August 1, 2022, a two-day strike commenced at the corner of Cedar Avenue and 47th Street. Starbucks workers had coalesced in their newly formed union, Starbucks Workers United (SBWU, SEIU) to demand negotiations. Here is a taste of their colorful pickets: Seize the Beans of Production! LIVING WAGE NATION NOW! and Union Coffee Tastes Better!. “This strike is a warning”, said strike captain Ethan Tinklenberg, “it sends a signal to management that we are capable of doing this.” We are told that management has systematically cut workers hours, changed opening and closing times, and has in recent memory, fired workers for resisting. Tinklenberg added: ”We are sick of management doing illegal things.” Indeed, Starbucks founder and on-again/off-again CEO Howard Shultz has a history of anti-union behavior. Naturally, this fact found its reflection [...]
Nurses Putting Patients Before Profits
Pickets ready to strike from the 2010 Nurses Strike / Photo from facebook.com/MinnesotaNurses Minnesota Nurses Association Authorizes Strike By HARRY, RN, MNA Union Steward On August 15th, the nurses of Minnesota’s union hospitals voted to authorize a strike. Here’s why: The world recognized the COVID pandemic as a war, the biggest global health crisis since the Black Plague. Healthcare workers, nurses in particular, were fighting on the front lines. But despite surviving this horror, and despite the hospitals sometimes lauding us, nurses were not given a hero’s parade. We got no GI Bill or significant wage increase for being battle-hardened survivors. Instead, we continue to face unprecedented workplace violence and a choice by hospitals to choose profits over patients. The Minnesota Nurses Association has been negotiating new contracts for nurses, the first new contracts since the pandemic. The hospitals that employ us, including Abbott Northwestern and [...]
Let’s get smart
Raise Your Voice By Peter Molenaar As it happened, I was assigned to do strike support work for the Anne Sullivan unit of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers strike. ON STRIKE FOR LIVING WAGES, ON STRIKE FOR MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORTS, ON STRIKE FOR SAFE STABLE SCHOOLS… I would hold up these picket signs on behalf of those needing a break. 33rd and Lake Street was the site. The Sonora Grill was our sanctuary. Passing motorists registered their honks in support. From the standpoint of justice, our teachers are defending our schools from the threat of corporatization. Moreover, they demand adequate funding and respectful remuneration for mental health staffers. Why? Hey, our kids have been traumatized by a pandemic in combination with stark images of police brutality. Looking beyond… Harmoniously, it is the unionized sector of the nursing trades which advances MEDICARE FOR ALL. This program would eliminate the labor redundancies inherent in the regime of private [...]
