Tag: union

I’m Forming a Burgerville Union Because I’m Barely Getting By

by Eli Fishel
Reprinted from Street Roots

I believe that everyone working, 30 to 40 hours a week especially, should be making enough to live, at the very least. They should also be making enough to move forward in their lives.

My name is Eli Fishel, I’m 18 years old, and I’m a fast food worker. When I was 16, I worked at Chuck E Cheese’s, and I was living with my parents. When I was 17, my living situation was not safe anymore, so I moved with four roommates into an apartment.  

My monthly living expenses were probably $600 after all my bills, including groceries. In May 2015 I got a job at Burgerville. They paid me about $600 a month. For the first couple months I also worked for Chuck E Cheese’s. 

At Burgerville I was making $9.47 an hour, and getting 30 hours a week. I got a 10-cents- an-hour raise in December, right before minimum wage was supposed to go up. That’s the only raise I’ve gotten. There is a review and raise process. You have to be working there six months, and 30 hours a week, to get healthcare. 

I was not able to pay my bills with my Burgerville income. So I started also babysitting for my extended family after school. I’m not working 30 hours a week at Burgerville anymore because I’m actually making more money babysitting. 

I was in high school. I graduated last year. My plans are to go to Clark Community College. But, I have not had the time or the money to think about that yet. 

I’m a member of the Burgerville Workers Union. Our vision is a $5/hour raise for all hourly workers, health care benefits for all workers, and fair and consistent scheduling. We also want a more sustainable workplace. There are things we need in order to work; things like childcare and help with transit. We have hundreds of people who are busing to work.

The BVWU is by and for Burgerville workers. Everyone in it and everything about it is being decided upon by Burgerville workers. It’s a democratic organization. 

I need a raise now. The cost of living is going up, and I don’t know if I can make it from paycheck to paycheck. The minimum wage legislation is great, but $15 in five years is too long for me to wait. So my co-workers and I are coming together to do something about our situation now. The BVWU vision is that all hourly workers get a $5-an- hour raise starting immediately. This is fair. This is what I need to survive and build a life for myself. Without a raise, I don’t know what will happen –  if I’ll ever be able to go to school, if I’ll ever not be living on the edge, or even if I’ll be able to keep my apartment.

I want to make enough to live. 

A raise is very important, but the workers in the union also have a vision for change. The most important part of this is that we are standing together, realizing that we’re not alone, and that we can work together.

I hope the BVWU inspires other workers. The organizing and standing together that we’ve done to fight for some power in the system that’s built against the working people can be done in other places as well.
Learn more at www.burgervilleworkersunion.org/

Eli works at Burgerville at the Vancouver Plaza. She is a leader in the Burgerville Workers Union and helped launch the union on April 26, 2016.

Oregon Canvassers Workers Push for Unionization at Union-Funded Workplace

Seven workers and union activists head toward the office on September 17, just before the morning shift begins, debating how to enter. Should they all parade in together? What if lower management is out front smoking before the shift begins? Should they go in early, or wait until the day’s canvassers are already inside?

They agree to head in together in a show of solidarity, a few minutes before the bell rings. As the workers file in the front door, their union representatives in tow, management declares that outside people are not allowed to enter during business hours.

“Don’t worry, we won’t be long,” says Jonathan Steiner, a rep for the United Campaign Workers, a project of the Industrial Workers of the World Workers. The workers and their union representatives enter and declare there is announcement to be made: They have joined a union and are inviting other workers to join them.

Read the FULL STORY at In These Times

Portland Teachers support authorizing strike

Portland teachers vote to stand up for their students
Overwhelming majority supports authorizing strike

Portland, OR

Tonight, nearly 3,000 Portland teachers voted, by an overwhelming majority, to call for a legal strike in order to support the schools Portland students deserve.

As a result of the vote, the Portland Association of Teachers will issue a strike notice to the Employment Relations Board (ERB) and the Portland Public Schools District calling for a strike beginning Thursday, February 20, 2014.

“No teacher ever wants to go on strike, we want to be in classrooms with our students,” explained PAT president Gwen Sullivan. “But Portland teachers are united and resolved to stand up for our students’ learning conditions. It’s time to move this to a conclusion so that we can have a contract that is fair for teachers and good for students.”

Portland teachers have been negotiating for 10 months for a contract that:

  • results in meaningful class size relief,
  • does not force teachers to teach to the test,
  • supports the students and schools who need it most, and
  • provides fair compensation after years of sacrifice.

Teachers and the district currently have a mediation session scheduled Sunday, February 9th. The PAT bargaining team has asked the district to meet sooner, offering to be available Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The district has not agreed to any meeting times prior to the Sunday mediation session.

“This vote shows that teachers are serious about addressing the growing crisis in our schools,” said bargaining chair Bill Wilson, a teacher at Grant High School. “We hope that Superintendent Smith and School Board leaders understand this and will come to the bargaining table as soon as possible prepared to make meaningful progress toward addressing the priorities of teachers, parents and students.”

Source: Portland Association of Teachers’ Facebook page

Radical Movie Night: Finally Got the News

The IWW Portland Branch is hosting a free Radical Movie Night! The night will begin with a brief introduction about the content of the film. Then a viewing of Finally Got The News: a documentary film about the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. It will be followed by a discussion about the film, radical labor, and African-Americans in the Labor Movement.

The film documents workers’ efforts to build an independent Black labor organization that, unlike the UAW (United Auto Workers), will respond to workers’ problems, such as the assembly line speed-up, dangerous working conditions, an extreme lack of opportunity to advance and inadequate wages faced by African American workers in the auto industry.

 

Major Victory for Janus Workers and the Portland IWW!

After four weeks of informational picketing, everyday for 2 hours outside of Janus Youth Programs’ main office at 707 NE Couch St, workers at the Streetlight/Porchlight shelters and at Harry’s Mother finally gained the right to keep their peer review panel. Both Streetlight/Porchlight and Harry’s Mother are non-profit programs serving youth, and both shops are under contract with the Portland Industrial Workers of the World. Janus told workers at both work sites that they would not sign their labor contracts with the peer review panels that they have had for over 10 years — instead trying to pressure workers into accepting binding arbitration at a cost workers and the IWW could not afford.

After four weeks of picketing, workers took a break for week five, a week that a contract negotiations session with management was scheduled. Management tried to get workers to accept a ridiculously long contract of 8 years, with wage re-openers every two years, in exchange for the keeping the peer review panel. Workers instead said they were only willing to go as long as a 6 year contract, with wage re-openers every 2 years and one additional, non-wages article which could be bargained during the wage re-opener.

Janus negotiators were not willing to budge.

At this point, workers suggested that the offer they were making was more than reasonable, and that there were people willing to get back out on the picket line if Janus would not compromise.

Janus’s negotiators took a caucus, and after a long break, returned to the table and agreed to the workers’ terms.

This is a huge victory for workers who have struggled many weeks for the right to keep their peers in a place to oversee any disputed firings — the peer review panel can overrule any firing decisions that Janus makes against its union workers. Janus workers and the IWW would like to thank the members of the community who have supported them in this effort, including Portland’s Jobs with Justice. A victory for one is a victory for all.

Janus Picket Week 4: Everyday Til We Get Our Way!

This week’s picket: Monday thru Friday, from 3 to 5pm, at 707 NE Couch.

We’ll be out there again, in front of Janus Youth Programs, to protest Janus’s union busting tactics. They are taking away a time-honored peer review panel which allows for democratic oversight of fired workers. This panel has never cost Janus any money, and has been in place for 10 years, and now they are telling workers at two IWW-represented shops that they won’t sign their labor contracts with these panels in place.

What you can do:

  • Come to the picket and show your solidarity with these frontline workers, whose minimal wage increase is being held hostage until they agree to have this panel taken away from them and replaced with arbitration that could cost up to $1500 per day.
  • Let Dennis Morrow know you support the workers and don’t think they should lose this peer review panel, and be forced to have mandatory arbitration, an unaffordable expensive alternative. Call his assistant and leave a message at: 503-542-4608.

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