The Local: Oct. 3, 2024 news roundup
Welcome back to The Local, a publication of NYC-DSA Labor Working Group reporting every two weeks. As always, send any tips, corrections, and other feedback to thenyclocal@substack.com. In this issue, resident assistants at NYU organize an independent union, Gov. Hochul picks a Georgia-based company to take over the state’s home health care program, and the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) launches a historic strike (and kicks off this year’s edition of Striketober in spectacular fashion) by shutting down all ports from Maine to Texas.
ILA picket lines are up 24/7 at container terminals around the region (the Port of New York and New Jersey is, by several measures, the largest on the East Coast), including at the Red Hook Terminal at 70 Hamilton Ave in Brooklyn – sign up here if you’re interested in joining NYC-DSA’s picket line support efforts.
Also, if you are a public sector worker, our chapter is teaming up with chapters across New York state for an October 10 Zoom event on the Taylor Law and the right to strike. RSVP for that event here.
Organizing
Intimacy coordinators in the entertainment industry are organizing with SAG-AFTRA.
Starbucks workers at the 2 Broadway location in Manhattan are organizing with Starbucks Workers United.
Building service workers at Safety Facility Services and Sahara Operatives Corp. (both in the Bronx) are organizing with 32BJ.
A potential raid on a unit of security guards at Mount Sinai West and Mount Sinai Morningside hospitals as the Special and Superior Officers Benevolent Association petitions to represent the unit, with the National Security Officers Benevolent Association Local 971 listed as an intervenor.
IT department employees at nonprofit CAMBA Inc. are organizing with the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW Local 2325.
And a series of decertification petitions have been filed for a unit of production and maintenance workers at Phoenix Energy Management (Iron Workers Regional Shop Local Union 852) (although, as we reported last time, an RM petition was also recently filed for this unit, so it is unclear what would be decertified), a unit of first responders at Midwood Ambulance (Teamsters Local 707), and a unit of workers at Centerpark LLC (Teamsters Local 272, Garage Employees Union).
Rangers at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden in Staten Island voted 8-0 to join the Security Officers Union, Local 1.
Resident assistants at NYU voted 158-2 to form an independent union called Student Workers at NYU (SWAN).
Lab workers for Northwell Health voted 502-113 to join 1199SEIU.
Postdoctoral researchers at the Rockefeller University voted 167-75 to form the United Postdoctoral Researchers of Rockefeller (UAW).
After going public with their organizing campaign among drivers at the DBK4 facility in Queens (covered in our last post), the Teamsters announce that a majority of the drivers have now joined the union organizing drive.
The Association of Legislative Employees grows as the New York City Council voluntarily recognizes additional job titles for the bargaining unit.
Nonfiction television production workers at A+E Factual Studios unionize with WGA East.
Bargaining & Action
09/23: Musicians with AFM Local 802 reached a tentative agreement with the New York Philharmonic.
09/23: The Bird Union voted unanimously to ratify their first contract.
09/24: The Law360 Union with NewsGuild NY ratified their new contract by 98%.
09/28: Tabletop Workers United walked out of The Brooklyn Strategist for an informational picket.
10/1: At midnight, approximately 47,000 dockworkers up and down the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts walked off the job as the International Longshoremen’s Association demands wage and benefit increases proportional to the massive profits made by the shipping companies during the pandemic as well as job security in a new age of automation. [Jacobin]
Albany
Gov. Kathy Hochul announces that the contract to manage the state’s home health care program (serving about 250k New Yorkers) will go to Georgia-based Public Partnership LLC. The choice is controversial for, among other things, Public Partnership’s labor record – it currently faces a class action lawsuit for wage theft (Gov. Hochul’s office rebuts this by pointing out that, actually, wage theft is prevalent across the entire home care industry). [Gothamist]
Miscellaneous
The WGA East calls out CBS for laying off staff as CBS (and parent company Paramount) prepare to be sold to Skydance Media.
The staff union at Color of Change (represented by the Washington-Baltimore NewGuild) won a decision from an NLRB Administrative Law Judge ordering the nonprofit to reinstate 54 employees, with backpay, after they were laid off without bargaining with the union.
Job Listings
Department of Investigation - Investigator (Salary: $72,292 - $86,700)
Office of Labor Relations - Budget Analyst (Salary: $77,158 - $114,887)
The NewsGuild of New York - Organizer (Salary: $85,000)
A complete list of local union jobs can be found at unionjobs.com, alongside here is the complete list of New York City’s civil service exams. Additionally if you’re interested in taking a job in a strategic industry and want to be connected through the Labor Working Group, check out this form here.