I cover workers for the NYT. New Book: "Mutiny, the Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class." us.macmillan.com/books/97803…
Evanston, IL
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I have a story up today about why young college grads are feeling so angry: It’s more than just rising unemployment and the threat of AI. It’s a deep sense of betrayal. 1/ nytimes.com/2026/03/27/busin…
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A twist in the Teamsters story: Teamsters leadership has cited the Biden administration's role in preventing rail workers from striking in 2022 as a reason for their non-endorsement of Harris. The Teamsters affiliates that represent rail workers have just endorsed Harris.
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This is a fascinating development--the mine workers' union is urging Manchin to reverse his position on BBB. Up until very recently, they were a hard "meh" on BBB. Supportive of some elements, but avoided endorsing the whole thing.
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Starbucks Workers United picked up three more wins today, has now won 13 out of 14 union elections at the company. Three more tomorrow.
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Morning: Supreme Crt agrees to hear case that wld cripple public unions
Lunchtime: Gorsuch talks to group funded by same ppl funding case
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This biggest/most significant election upset I think I ever covered was Obama over Hillary in 2008. The Amazon vote on Staten Island feels like a waaaaaay bigger upset. An indie union that didn't exist until last year winning over arguably the most powerful company in the world.
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Me to 8-y-o: Who do you want to win, the Bengals or the Rams?
8-y-o: What difference does it make? It's not like the winner is going to solve climate change.
Super Bowl weekend in the Scheiber-Sullivan household got heavy real quick...
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NEWS: Biden admin releases long-anticipated rule making it more likely for millions of workers to be classified as employees. Could deal a blow to gig companies' business model. nytimes.com/2022/10/11/busin…
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In 2010, a killer whale named Tilikum dismembered a trainer at SeaWorld. When OSHA came knocking, future Labor Sec nominee Eugene Scalia defended the company. He lost in court, but there was one prominent judge who agreed with him: Brett Kavanaugh. nytimes.com/2019/07/19/busin…
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Starbucks announces pay increases, says it's prohibited from giving them to unionized workers. Labor experts says it may be illegal for Starbucks to discriminate against unionized workers that way. nytimes.com/live/2022/05/03/…
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$15/hour min wage initiative passes in Nebraska, which is a pretty striking statement about the popularity of substantial min wage increases.
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The stage of the Labor Notes conference tonight is arguably the epicenter of the US labor movement--Chris Smalls, Michelle Eisen of Starbucks and Sean O'Brien of the Teamsters.
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"One worker who died had taken Tylenol before entering the plant to lower her temperature enough to pass the screening, afraid that missing work would mean forgoing a bonus." nytimes.com/2020/05/10/busin…
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NEWS: NLRB has just denied Starbucks' request for an appeal in Mesa, AZ. Starbucks argued that all the stores in an area should have to vote in one union election; union wants, and will get, store by store elections.
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Turns out the NLRB has ruled that when your boss says he "hopes" you do something, it's basically an order. onlabor.org/2017/06/09/worke…
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Imagine a dystopian future when people over 40 can't get work because they don't even know which jobs are available. Well, that future has arrived! Introducing age-targeted job ads on Facebook. Many lawyers say it's illegal. nytimes.com/2017/12/20/busin…
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Several companies that cultivate progressive images--Apple, Starbucks, Trader Joe's, REI--appear to have really escalated their pushback against union campaigns, with formal discipline and firings. I have a new piece up explaining how and why nytimes.com/2023/05/22/busin…
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So, to recap: Yesterday Uber said it wouldn’t reclassify drivers as employees under California's new law b/c it doesn’t believe drivers are part of its “usual course of business.” Here’s how that argument played when Uber tried it before a judge in NY in 2017.
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Amazon Labor Union files unfair labor practice charge naming prominent Democratic consulting firm Global Strategy Group for its role in anti-union campaign on Staten Island.
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I don’t think the general public, and even people who follow this stuff, appreciate how high the stakes are in the bargaining that’s underway b/w Starbucks and its union. 1/
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Economists, standing amid the smoldering ruins of the unions they advised us to burn down, are just now realizing that unions may be good for the country after all bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
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Trump made coal miners central to his campaign. As their govt-backd health care expires, they wonder why he's silent nytimes.com/2017/04/19/busin…
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I count 50 Starbucks stores that have filed petitions for union elections around the country since Dec. 9, when the NLRB declared that the union had won its first Buffalo election.
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If NFL players protest today, they may have a powerful ally on their side: federal labor law. nytimes.com/2017/10/12/busin…
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More I think about it, more I believe Trump leaked his own returns. There is basically nothing incriminating here. 1/
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This is Schultz's full riff on concentration camps, so you have all the context that people in the room did.
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This fact-check of Kavanaugh's testimony from my colleagues is a tour de force of reporting. If anything, it understates the deception that was going on, but all in the name of being fair and authoritative. nytimes.com/2018/09/28/us/po…
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NEWS: FTC proposes a rule that would ban all noncompetes for U.S. workers—the latest move in Lina Khan’s ambitious reform agenda. nytimes.com/2023/01/05/busin…
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HUGE STORY: A Trump appointee got tripped up in a conflict of interest investigation instigated by Elizabeth Warren and Patty Murray and it completely changed the direction of US policy. Probably the biggest consequence of Dems exposing a conflict so far: nytimes.com/2018/02/26/busin…
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Tesla just fired several of the workers who announced they were seeking to unionize at its Buffalo plant on Tues. At least 18 have been fired in all. nytimes.com/2023/02/16/busin…
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I don't think I've ever seen this before--Starbucks just fired a worker *after* the NLRB issued a complaint against the company for retaliating against her for union activity by suspending and disciplining her. yahoo.com/entertainment/star…
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All going down at the Trump International Hotel, no less cnn.com/2017/09/28/politics/…
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NEWS: Employees at 3 Starbucks stores in Buffalo say they've filed petitions with the NLRB for a union vote in mid-September. Could represent the most serious challenge to Starbucks labor model in years. No Starbucks-owned stores in U.S. are unionized. nytimes.com/2021/08/30/busin…
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NEWS: Workers at an REI store in Manhattan filed for a union election on Friday. Would be the first REI in the country to have a union. nytimes.com/2022/01/23/busin…
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The number of people labeled "managers" has been growing much faster than the number of workers overall, and that accelerated during the pandemic. One reason: It's a way for employers to avoid paying workers overtime. nytimes.com/2023/03/06/busin…
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Big news just now on the video-game union front: Bethesda studios, which makes Elder Scrolls and Starfield, has just unionized. It's the first wall-to-wall union at Microsoft--meaning engineers, artists, designers, etc. Lots of quality assurance workers had unionized previously.
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NEWS: Jaz Brisack, one of the leaders of the Starbucks union campaign in Buffalo, says she's been forced out of her job as a barista. The union filed an unfair labor practice charge tonight. The company denies the allegation. nytimes.com/2022/09/13/busin…
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Tesla illegally fired a worker involved in union organizing, and Elon Musk illegally threatened workers' stock options, NLRB ruled today. nytimes.com/2021/03/25/busin…
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NEWS: US gov't accuses Starbucks of retaliating against pro-union workers. nytimes.com/2022/03/15/busin…
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Since the Great Recession, a lot of college-educated folks have had to take jobs at companies like Starbucks and Amazon. Guess who’s playing a key role in unionizing those companies? nytimes.com/2022/04/28/busin… 1/
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"Some of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers are adamant that the best way forward is to downplay the dangers of the disease. Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, has been particularly forceful in his view that the W.H. should avoid drawing attention to the virus." nytimes.com/2020/07/19/us/po…
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NEWS: Dancers at Star Garden, a North Hollywood Calif. strip club, have reached an agreement with management that paves the way for them to become the first unionized strip club in the U.S. since the 1990s. nytimes.com/2023/05/16/busin…
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More Amazon news: NLRB has found merit to the Amazon Labor Union's accusations that the company behaved illegally in its mandatory anti-union meetings. nytimes.com/2022/05/06/busin…
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NEWS: Starbucks has fired several workers involved in union organizing at a store in Memphis. Company says they violated safety and security policies. Union says the firings are in retaliation for organizing. nytimes.com/2022/02/08/busin…
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NEWS: Federal judge issues nationwide injunction barring Starbucks from firing workers for union organizing. nytimes.com/2023/02/17/busin…
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Apple is denying new health and other benefits to workers at the Maryland store that unionized a few months ago, according to Bloomberg. Starbucks took a similar approach w/new benefits and workers and the NLRB say it had a chilling effect on unionization. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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"Schultz noted that only a small portion of prisoners in German concentration camps received blankets but often shared them with fellow prisoners. 'So much of that story is threaded into what we have tried to do at Starbucks,' Schultz said, according to a transcript."
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Great reporting from @LaurenKGurley on Starbuck's mobilization against the union campaign in Buffalo. It's pretty rare to see an executive this senior turn up at chain stores in this context. vice.com/en/article/v7ekp8/i…
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Fascinating nomination by Trump for labor sec. Rep. Chavez-DeRemer is a genuinely pro-labor Republican--backed the PRO Act.
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Pretty clear that the biggest risk to Kavanaugh isn't the FBI investigation. It's that his testimony, which appears to have been calibrated for a quick confirmation vote, collapses on top of him in the coming week. nytimes.com/2018/09/28/us/po…
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News: Trump labor dept proposes making it much harder for workers at fast food restaurants and other franchises and contractors to sue parent companies over wage theft nytimes.com/2019/04/01/busin…
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Looking like a rout in Ithaca today for the Starbucks workers. First vote of three there today is 19-1 for the union.
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The wealthiest Americans have built a private tax system and saved themselves billions. Here’s how it works: nytimes.com/2015/12/30/busin…
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"After Mr Trump came to the defense of Mr Erdogan, the calls for action against Trump Towers Istanbul have stopped" nytimes.com/2016/11/26/us/po…
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Workers at the Barnes & Noble in Hadley, Mass have just voted to unionize. Second B&N to unionize, first that's directly owned by the company. masslive.com/news/2023/05/ha…
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How Facebook allowed employers like Amazon and Verizon to exclude millions of older Americans from seeing their job ads. A ProPublica/New York Times investigation nytimes.com/2017/12/20/busin…
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Country's biggest mine workers union says it won't fight the transition to renewable energy if the government makes commitments on jobs, financial aid and research into carbon capture. nytimes.com/live/2021/04/19/…
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Bernie writes letter to Biden calling on him to cancel Amazon's federal contracts because of its anti-union activity. (Amazon denies that it has engaged in illegal anti-union activity.)
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NEWS: Unions at architecture firms are now a thing. The New York firm Bernheimer Architecture has voluntarily recognized its union, creating the only private-sector architects' union in the country. nytimes.com/2022/09/01/busin…
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NEWS: Ben & Jerry's agrees to fair election principles for the union campaign at is flagship store in Burlington, VT, paves the way for the store to unionize. nytimes.com/2023/04/28/busin…
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NEWS: Apple store workers in MD vote to unionize--first Apple store in the country to do so. w/@trippmickle nytimes.com/2022/06/18/techn…
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A fourth NYC taxi driver facing financial oblivion takes his own life. This is getting truly horrific. Earlier story here: nytimes.com/2018/02/06/nyreg…
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If the union gets a contract with concrete concessions, it will demonstrate the benefits of being in a union and likely prompt more unionizing within the company and at other companies. 2/
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NEWS: Two days before ballots are scheduled to go out in a high-stakes union election at Buffalo-area Starbucks, the company asks the NLRB to stay the election. nytimes.com/2021/11/08/busin…
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NEWS: President Biden wades into the Kellogg strike, takes company to task for hiring permanent replacement workers. "Permanently replacing striking workers is an existential attack on the union and its members’ jobs and livelihoods,” he said. nytimes.com/2021/12/10/busin…
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Your next labor secretary insists Obamacare has caused a restaurant recession. The data insists the opposite nytimes.com/2016/12/09/busin…
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One underappreciated part of the non-endorsement story is the tension w/the Teamsters top priority of organizing Amazon. The Biden NLRB has made that much easier, thru its joint employer rule. If Trump wins, his NLRB will very likely undo that rule, making it much harder.
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Workers at a Smithfield pork plant say the line moves so fast they risk being disciplined if they pause to cover their mouths while coughing or clean the snot off their face after sneezing. They're suing Smithfield for not protecting them from Covid. nytimes.com/2020/04/24/busin…
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NEWS: Severance agreements that forbid you from speaking out about working conditions or disparaging your employer have been ruled illegal by the NLRB. nytimes.com/2023/02/22/busin…
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The union at Starbucks won all three Buffalo-area vote counts today. It's gone 6 for 7 in elections since December, despite enormous resources spent by the company during these campaigns. nytimes.com/2022/03/09/busin…
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I think there’s a lot of confusion about where unions are on vaccines and vaccine mandates. 1/
Teachers unions opposition to a vaccine mandate seems bizarre, but it follows directly from some of the weird ideas in circulation on the education left nymag.com/intelligencer/2021…
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NEWS: Amazon has suspended a few dozen employees who refused to work last night after a fire at its Staten Island fulfillment center. @amazonlabor plans to file unfair labor practice charges. nytimes.com/2022/10/04/busin…
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White collar workers have been saying *enough* throughout the pandemic, and now another group is standing up: Architects! Employees at the well-regarded SHoP Architects are seeking to form the only union at a prominent architecture firm in the US. nytimes.com/2021/12/21/busin…
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I wrote a profile of Jaz Brisack, a Starbucks barista and organizer who's played a key role in their union campaign. You're going to be hearing about her for at least the next several decades, so I wanted to get in on the ground floor. nytimes.com/2022/06/19/busin…
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I wrote about the frustration of staffers at The Ringer about the lack of diversity there. Bill Simmons shared thoughts by email. nytimes.com/2020/06/22/busin…
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Starbucks union went 6 for 6 in vote counts yesterday and today, bringing the total to 16 wins out of 17 union elections nationwide. nytimes.com/live/2022/04/08/…
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Behind the Bernie surge among Democratic voters appears to be a Bernie surge among union voters specifically. Many are rallying around him and are skeptical of Biden. nytimes.com/2020/01/30/busin…
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I have a new piece on how green jobs are often more like gig work than the middle-class jobs they’re made out to be. “It’s a lot of transient work--marginal, precarious and very difficult to organize,” one union leader told me. 1/ nytimes.com/2021/07/16/busin…
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Two very-worth-your-while pieces about an under-appreciated 2020 development: The deep sense of frustration among women who believe Elizabeth Warren is being hustled off stage prematurely. Here's @sullivanamy (who, full disclosure, is my wife): gen.medium.com/the-rush-to-w…
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NEWS: 1,000 workers at a GM-LG battery plant in Tennessee have just unionized. The card-check process that enabled the union win was made possible by a concession the UAW won during last year's strike.
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NEWS: The union wins 14-0 in an election at Blizzard Albany--the second group of quality assurance workers at gaming giant Activision Blizzard to unionize. Microsoft is in the process of acquiring Activision.
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Interesting development today at an REI store in Cleveland where workers filed for a union election. The company sought to challenge the election, potentially extending the process for weeks. Workers walked off the job this morning. REI backed down. Election is set for Mar. 3. 1/
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Both the union and Starbucks obviously get this. What’s under appreciated, I think, is how closely other companies are watching. 4/
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Totally agree with @DLeonhardt here. No real divisions among Democratic candidates, who are almost all running an a very likely-to-succeed economic message. nytimes.com/2018/05/27/opini…
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MORE BIG NEWS: NLRB has issued a very extensive complaint accusing Starbucks of unlawfully firing and retaliating against workers seeking to unionize, unlawfully intimidating and surveilling workers. nytimes.com/2022/05/06/busin…
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NEWS: The chair of the NLRB and its general counsel have written to Congress warning that the agency's funding situation is dire. "The NLRB has received the same appropriation of $274.2 million since FY2014. Adjusting for inflation, we have lost 1/4 of our purchasing power." 1/
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NEWS: Landmark study out today involving an experiment at Gap stores showed that giving workers more stable schedules *increased* sales-- dramatically nytimes.com/2018/03/28/busin…
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Workers at an Apple retail store in Atlanta filed for a union election today. From Amazon to Starbucks to REI to Apple, this has become a real contagion. nytimes.com/2022/04/20/busin… w/@Kellen_Browning
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NEWS: Amazon Labor Union VP @DerrickPalmer_ says several dozen Amazon workers are refusing to work their night shift at the Staten Island warehouse, b/c they're worried about fumes from a fire earlier today. Amazon spox said fire dept cleared building for normal operations. 1/
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The next phase of the conservative campaign against unions is a series
of class action lawsuits that would bankrupt them. And they're
being masterminded by a man trump has nominated to run a federal
agency. nytimes.com/2018/07/18/busin…
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United's Covid vaccine mandate has been remarkably effective. Fewer than 250 out of ~67,000 employees had not complied as of yesterday (or <.4% for those keeping official score). @NirajC and I tell the story of how it happened. nytimes.com/2021/10/02/busin…
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So this is a new one for me: Last week, federal judge issues nationwide injunction stopping Starbucks from firing workers bc they're trying to unionize. Today, citing unspecified "errors," judge redoes the injunction, narrows it from 9,300 stores to ... 1. nytimes.com/2023/02/23/busin…
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NEWS: More than 1,000 medical residents have filed for a union election at the University of Chicago.
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So many gross things in this remarkable Epstein story from my colleagues, but the kicker is truly breathtaking. nytimes.com/2019/07/13/nyreg…
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Bernie Sanders has just announced that the Senate HELP committee will hold a vote next Weds on whether to subpoena Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Sanders wants Schultz to testify about the company's response to the union campaign there.
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It was frmr Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's comments about the Holocaust at a meeting w/employees in Buffalo that left many of them mystified a few days before ballots go out in the union election.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/busin…
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NEWS: The feds have accused Starbucks of illegally closing 23 stores to squelch or discourage union organizing. Are seeking to force Starbucks to reopen the stores. nytimes.com/2023/12/13/busin…
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News: Remember that U of Washington study last year showing that Seattle's min wage increase was killing workers? Well, the authors took another look, and it turns out it's ... benefiting a lot of workers. nytimes.com/2018/10/22/busin…
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