Last Week in Southern Labor: 10/31 – 11/7

Jacob Morrison

Here’s what workers in the US South and the colonies were up to in the weeks between Friday, October 31 and Friday, November 7

Union Elections

  • The National Labor Relations Board continues to be shut down, but workers are still organizing. Workers from eight St. Louis area Kaldi’s coffee locations announced their intent to unionize with UNITE HERE Local 74, and workers at the House of Blues in downtown Houston voted to unionize with IATSE Local 51 (they held the vote with a third party since the NLRB is shut down)

Grievances, Unfair Labor Practices, & Court Cases

  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports that “the United Automobile Workers (UAW), Communications Workers of America (CWA), and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) filed a lawsuit against the Departments of State and Homeland Security for their viewpoint-based surveillance and suppression of protected expression online. The complaint asks a federal court to stop this unconstitutional surveillance program, which has silenced and frightened both citizens and noncitizens, and hampered the ability of the unions to associate with their members and potential members. The case is titled UAW v. State Department.” The EFF explains that “since taking power, the Trump administration has created a mass surveillance program to monitor constitutionally protected speech by noncitizens lawfully present in the U.S. Using AI and other automated technologies, the program surveils the social media accounts of visa holders with the goal of identifying and punishing those who express viewpoints the government doesn’t like. This has been paired with a public intimidation campaign, silencing not just noncitizens with immigration status, but also the families, coworkers, and friends with whom their lives are integrated.”

Strikes & Bargaining

  • 3,000 workers at Boeing in St Louis, MO – unionized with the International Association of Machinists (IAM) District Lodge 837 – are still on strike. The IAM says that Boeing could end the strike by just spending $8M more over the next four years. Union leaders told the St Louis Business Journal: “The company keeps saying it will not change the ‘economic parameters’ of its offer. That’s not strength and that’s not bargaining — that’s stubbornness. And it’s a strategy that’s failing fast”
  • Following a supermajority of Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, TN – who are unionized with the UAW Local 42 – the National Right to Work Foundation sent notices to Volkswagen workers encouraging them to resign their union membership and scab in the event of a strike
  • Following its victory after striking Hilton in Houston, TX, UNITE HERE Local 23 won a $20/hr minimum wage in a new union contract that members ratified at the George R Brown Convention Center in the same city. 
  • Following Nippon’s takeover of US Steel, the company is investing $75M in Alabama and creating 44 new jobs, 40 of which will be union
  • Paul Steiner, a journeyworker in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 520 in Texas and member of the Caucus of Rank and File Electrical Workers (CREW) has a write up in LaborNotes about how his local opened bargaining up for the first time and won huge gains in their most recent contract negotiations – a $6.75/hr raise, four new paid holidays, and more
  • Firefighters in Austin, TX – unionized with the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 975 – have launched a petition to protect 4 person crews, saying that cutting staffing on trucks could jeopardize safety
  • After a 77 day lockout, ninety UNITE HERE Local 40 members at Coast Victoria Hotel & Marina by APA, ratified a new collective agreement that delivers wage increases of up to 21% for hotel staff. The workers’ dispute with Coast Victoria and its owner, APA Group, represents the longest hotel strike and lockout in Victoria’s history. The union says the 3 year contract also includes a new pension benefit, among other benefits.

Political & Legislative

  • Democrats whalloped the Republicans in the election last week – flipping three seats in Mississippi and breaking the Republican supermajority, among other victories. The AFL-CIO said this should send a clear message to politicians: “When candidates stand with workers, they win. For too long, politicians have chased billionaire donors instead of listening to the workers who teach our children and care for our sick, build infrastructure and operate machines, harvest food and stock shelves, and keep us safe and power our essential services.”
  • The shutdown continues. Democrats gave Republicans another opportunity to take the noose off their own necks last week by offering to vote in favor of a package that just extends the ACA subsidies by one year to give the parties time to negotiate a more permanent arrangement. But Republicans are refusing. With SNAP in danger, a grocery worker has an article in LaborNotes about how this will hurt shoppers and grocery workers alike. A new report has Alabama as one of the hardest hit states by the shutdown, with one of the higher percentages of federal workers
  • Elon Musk has won his battle for a one trillion dollar pay package from Tesla over ten years. To put this in a little perspective, the most cars Tesla has ever sold in one year is 1.81 million (like a third of how many cars GM sells annually). If Tesla was able to increase their production numbers more than 5 fold immediately and was able to sell 100M cars over that ten year period, that would be like getting a $10,000 payout per car. And that’s if they sell 100M cars in the next ten years, which they probably won’t! The UAW’s Shawn Fain said in a statement that, “the auto industry should be a pathway to a decent life for the blue collar worker. But now Elon Musk, who doesn’t build the product, wants a trillion dollars while autoworkers fall behind. That’s everything that’s wrong with this industry and this country.” 
  • New York University’s Wagner Labor Initiative has a new round-up of state and local labor initiatives. It’s good reading and good inspiration, you can check it out here. 
  • Inside Climate News has a new report on how Alabama Power customers have the highest utility bills in the country, and how the company has captured the government entity that is supposed to be regulating them
  • The USMCA open comment period ended last week. The trade deal between Mexico, the US, and Canada is up for renegotiation in 2026. The UAW in a statement said: “With 5 million manufacturing jobs lost since NAFTA, with 90,000 plant closures causing devastation for the working class, with wages and standards falling across borders, and with the USMCA failing to stop the bleeding started by NAFTA, we have to tear up this deal and start over.”
  • The Trump DOL has LOWERED the Davis Bacon wage rates for Florida. SMART General President Michael Coleman said “the high standards contractors previously met at Cape Canaveral have now been lowered, opening the door for companies to bid on work without paying workers what they deserve.”

Internal Union Affairs

  • The Texas AFL-CIO is hosting a virtual town hall with members “for a live conversation on where we’ve been and where we’re going as we grow the Texas labor movement.” You can RSVP here
  • The National Lacrosse Players Association joined the AFL-CIO, making it the labor federation’s 64th affiliate
  • The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers (SMART) is making available Naloxone overdose treatments to all its local unions