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Unite Australia wins $112,000 for workers
Wed 5 Aug 09
UNITE (Australia) was inspired by Unite (New Zealand) and has been campaigning against convenience store giant 7-Eleven. It is starting to bring results.
After a series of protests and media publicity, UNITE has forced the Fair Work Ombudsman to take action against 7-Eleven franchisees that have been underpaying international students. Five 7-Eleven stores in Melbourne's CBD will reimburse 88 workers $112,000.
A sixth 7-Eleven store has been instructed to credit almost 1000 hours of annual leave back to 12 workers who were not accruing the entitlement but should have been.
The Minimum Wage and Unemployment
Wed 5 Aug 09
The U.S. minimum wage has just gone up by US70 cents (NZ$1) an hour and the usual claims from employers of higher unemployment are being heard. Dean Baker from the Center for Economic and Policy Research is having none of it:
"The impact of a rise in the minimum wage on employment is one of the most heavily researched topics in economics. Virtually all of this research shows that it will have little or no impact on employment."
Protect the jobs of Chicago Pizza Hut workers
Mon 18 May 09
Unite has been approached by Chicago Workers' Collaborative, an organisation that educates and mobilizes low-wage (mainly Latino immigrant) workers to understand work rights and immigration issues.
Unite is distributing information to Pizza Hut workers in NZ about the unfair terminations of Latino workers in Chicago. Over the past months, since February, more than 100 Pizza Hut workers in Chicago have been fired for no good reason. One of the employees had worked for Pizza Hut for 15 years. RBLNZ has no connection to these sackings, but Unite is calling on YUM International to stop the sackings and reinstate the effected workers immediately.
Twenty Unite members at RBL Contact Centre have lent their names to a letter we will be sending to YUM International.
Venezuela shuts down McDonald's
Fri 10 Oct 08
From the BBC News
Venezuela's government has shut all branches of restaurant chain McDonald's for 48 hours, citing tax irregularities, officials have said.
The head of the country's tax agency, Jose David Cabello, said the chain had inconsistencies in its accounts.
The 115 branches in Venezuela were closed from Thursday to Saturday.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is a fierce US critic and last month was at the heart of tit-for-tat US-Latin American diplomatic expulsions.
Since winning elections 10 years ago, Mr Chavez has increased taxes and often temporarily shuts firms accused of failing to pay.
Riot Cops Detain Starbucks Union Supporters
Wed 1 Oct 08
Starbucks Workers Union Files Unfair Labor Practice Charges against Mall of America, Metro Transit, City of Bloomington over Illegal Detention of Supporters day before Republican National Convention
The Starbucks Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World announced today that it is filing Unfair Labor Practice charges against the Mall of America, Metro Transit, and the City of Bloomington after fifty of its supporters were sealed onto a train by police at the Mall of the America station and denied the right to escort a union barista to his first day back on the job after an anti-union termination.
Lots of public support for 7-Eleven workers in Melbourne
Fri 19 Sep 08
Lots of public support for 7-Eleven workers in Melbourne
Last Friday UNITE staged another successful action against 7-Eleven. This time activists blockaded the 7-Eleven petrol station on Victoria Street in East Melbourne. The usually busy store did next to no business while the action was taking place.
About 50 people attended the action in protest against the poverty wages that 7-Eleven franchisees pay their workers. UNITE has recently revealed that some 7-Eleven workers are paid as little as $8 per hour!
Hundreds of leaflets were distributed to cars as they were stopped in traffic outside the store. Many more motorists tooted at our placards which displayed slogans like “7-Eleven: Low pay 24 hours a day” and “Big Gulp drinks – Big wages rip-off!”
Burger With a Side of Spies
Mon 12 May 08
By ERIC SCHLOSSER
Monterrey, Calif.
WHILE the Patriot Act has raised fears about government spying on ordinary citizens, the growing threat to civil liberties posed by corporate spying has received much less attention. During the late 1990s, a private security firm spied on Greenpeace and other environmental groups, examining activists’ phone records and even sending undercover agents to infiltrate the groups, according to an article in Mother Jones. In 2006 Hewlett-Packard was caught spying on journalists. Last year Wal-Mart apologized for improperly recording conversations with a New York Times reporter.
US wharfies take a stand against war in Iraq
Wed 16 Apr 08
US dockworkers are stopping work across the West Coast of America for eight hours on May Day to call for the end of the US war in Iraq.
Members of the the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to call a stop work in protest to what they call an "imperial action for oil in which the lives of working-class youth and Iraqi citizens are being wasted".
International Workers Day will be dubbed a "no peace, no work" holiday as the wharfies, some of whom are Vietnam veterans, make a political statement to the US government.
The protest comes just before contract negotiations and the union is preparing for the possibility of conflict during the negotiation period.
UNITE HERE Demands On-Site Testing for Diacetyl Risk to Restaurant Workers
Wed 2 Apr 08
United States based union Unite Here has responded to growing evidence of the danger of the flavouring chemical diacetyl to the health of restaurant workers by requesting government health and safety inspections in commercial kitchens in New York and Seattle.
Diacetyl is found in many cooking oils and sprays as well as in some butters and margarines and in popcorn. It has been linked to the fatal lung disease bronchiolitis obliterans, which attacks the airways and can inflame and scar the airways of the lungs. It is commonly known as "popcorn workers lung" because of incidents that involved workers who were exposed while making buttery flavoured commercial popcorn using diacetyl.
The big speed-up - Housekeeping work overloads
Mon 31 Mar 08
Since 2006 in the United States the union UNITE-HERE has been campaigning for hotel workers' rights. The problems highlighted in the piece below will be familiar to housekeeping staff in New Zealand.
- Hotel housekeepers are facing increasing injuries due to heavy workloads. In most hotels, housekeepers must clean 15 or more rooms per day.
- Hotel housekeepers must rush to meet a daily quota of cleaned rooms. They frequently skip rest periods and meals in order to finish, and even work off the clock to meet their quotas.
- In recent years, corporate hotel chains such as Hilton, Hyatt and Sheraton have increased both the pace and the amount of work performed by housekeepers.
