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The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take collective action such as strikes. Central to the act was a ban on company unions. The act was written by Senator Robert F. Wagner, passed by the 74th United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. A collective agreement reached by these negotiations functions as a labour contract between an employer and one or more unions, and typically establishes terms regarding wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs. Such agreements can also include 'productivity bargaining' in which workers agree to changes to working practices in return for higher pay or greater job security.
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors. The union has 27 locals in Canada via CWA-SCA Canada representing about 8,000 members. CWA has several affiliated subsidiary labor unions bringing total membership to over 700,000. CWA is headquartered in Washington, DC, and affiliated with the AFL–CIO, the Strategic Organizing Center, the Canadian Labour Congress, and UNI Global Union.
In Canadian labour law, the Rand formula is a workplace compromise arising from jurisprudence struck between organized labour and employers that guarantees employers industrial stability by requiring all workers affected by a collective agreement to pay dues to the union by mandatory deduction in exchange for the union agreement to "work now, grieve later."
Permatemp is a U.S. term for a temporary employee who works for an extended period for a single staffing client. The word is a portmanteau of the words permanent and temporary.
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Founded in 1937, the RWDSU represents about 60,000 workers in a wide range of industries, including but not limited to retail, grocery stores, poultry processing, dairy processing, cereal processing, soda bottlers, bakeries, health care, hotels, manufacturing, public sector workers like crossing guards, sanitation, and highway workers, warehouses, building services, and distribution.
Japanese labour law is the system of labour law operating in Japan.
The Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) is a labor union in Pennsylvania that represents about 8,300 nurses and allied health professionals.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) is a trade association based in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, that represents over 350 American television and film production companies in collective bargaining negotiations with entertainment industry trade unions that include, among others, SAG-AFTRA, the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America West and East, the American Federation of Musicians, and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.
Communications Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that, in a union security agreement, unions are authorized by statute to collect from non-members only those fees and dues necessary to perform its duties as a collective bargaining representative. The rights identified by the Court in Communications Workers of America v. Beck have since come to be known as "Beck rights," and defining what Beck rights are and how a union must fulfill its duties regarding them is an active area of modern United States labor law.
Members-only unionism, also known as minority unionism, is a model for trade unions in which local unions represent and organize workers who voluntarily join rather than the entire workforce of a place of employment. In such a model, a union election is not held by the entire workforce to determine whether a majority wishes for the workforce to be represented by a local branch of a national union, but a union can nonetheless exist to support members who pay dues.
Tensions between the multinational technology company Google and its workers escalated in 2018 and 2019 as staff protested company decisions on a censored search engine for China, a military drone artificial intelligence, and internal sexual harassment.
Some warehouse workers of Amazon, the largest American e-commerce retailer with 750,000 employees, have organized for workplace improvements in light of the company's scrutinized labor practices and stance against unions. Worker actions have included work stoppages and have won concessions including increased pay, safety precautions, and time off. There are unionized Amazon workers in both the United States and Europe.
A tech union is a trade union for tech workers typically employed in high tech or information and communications technology sectors. Due to the evolving nature of technology and work, different government agencies have conflicting definitions for who is a tech worker. Most definitions include computer scientists, people working in IT, telecommunications, media and video gaming. Broader definitions include all workers required for a tech company to operate, including on-site service staff, contractors, and platform economy workers.
Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), also informally referred to as the Google Union, is an American trade union of workers employed at Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, with a membership of over 800, in a company with 130,000 employees, not including temps, contractors, and vendors in the United States. It was announced on January 4, 2021 with an initial membership of over 400, after over a year of secret organizing, and the union includes all types of workers at Alphabet, including full-time, temporary, vendors and contractors of all job types.
The Campaign to Organize Digital Employees or CODE-CWA is a project launched by the Communications Workers of America to unionize tech and video game workers in January 2020. It sprung out of conversations with Game Workers Unite (GWU) and employed at least two full time staff, including GWU co-founder Emma Kinema and veteran SEIU organizer Wes McEnany. In 2022, Jessica Gonzalez joined, a former Activision Blizzard QA tester.
Trade unions have historically been unrecognized by IBM. Since the company's foundation in 1911, it has not recognized any in the United States, despite efforts by workers to establish them from 1970 onward. In Australia, Germany and Italy, several trade unions have limited recognition from IBM. IBM has been able to minimize membership even in traditional union strongholds in Western Europe.
Apple Inc. workers around the globe have been involved in organizing since the 1990s. Apple unions are made up of retail, corporate, and outsourced workers. Apple employees have joined trade unions and or formed works councils in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States.
ABK Workers Alliance is a group of organized workers from video game company Activision Blizzard. Formed in response to a July 2021 state lawsuit against the company for harassment and discriminatory work practices, the worker advocacy group A Better ABK organized walkouts and demonstrations against the company's policy and practices. The quality assurance workers of subsidiary Raven Software went on strike in December after part of the team was fired. The striking workers announced their union as the Game Workers Alliance in late January 2022 and offered to end the strike pending their union's recognition.
Microsoft recognizes 4 trade unions in the United States at its video game subsidiaries Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax Media since 2022. Microsoft South Korea recognizes its union since 2017. German employees have elected Works Councils since 1998. Microsoft workers have been active in opposing military/law-enforcement contracts with their employer.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Van Jaarsveld, Danielle D. (April 2004). "Collective Representation Among High‐Tech Workers at Microsoft and Beyond: Lessons from WashTech/CWA". Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society . 43 (2): 364–385. doi:10.1111/j.0019-8676.2004.00334.x. ISSN 0019-8676.
- ↑ Lewis, Mike; Bishop, Todd (March 31, 2021). "Same as the old boss: How Amazon honed its anti-union bent at a Seattle call center 20 years ago". GeekWire .