Travis Lavenski is a student at Harvard Law School.
In Today’s News & Commentary: Starbucks shuts down the first store in Seattle to unionize; and the nation’s largest rail union rejects labor deal.
In Starbucks news, allegations of the coffee chain’s union-busting continue as the chain shuts down another unionized store in Seattle. The store, located at Broadway and Denny in Capitol Hill, is the fourth unionized store in Seattle to shut down since the union push began. Starbucks has cited “safety and security concerns” as the reason for the closure. Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents Starbucks workers, called the move “unacceptable” and “the most clear-cut case of retaliation this company has shown closing a union store yet” on Twitter, noting that the store is set to close on the anniversary of the first union victory in Buffalo last winter. The more than 260 unionized Starbucks stores still remain without a contract.
Members of SMART-TD, the nation’s largest rail union representing more than 37,000 workers, narrowly rejected a proposed labor deal on Monday, raising the likelihood of a national pre-Christmas rail strike. The BLET, another large rail union representing nearly 24,000 workers, voted to approve the deal. As it currently stands, 4 rail unions have rejected the proposed labor deal, while 7 rail unions have approved. A strike may nevertheless occur if just one union does not come to approve of the deal. Some experts have indicated that a looming strike before Christmas might pressure Congress into forcing unions to accept a deal; Republicans in the Senate already drafted a resolution earlier this term that would have forced unions to agree to the Presidential Emergency Board recommendations. The exclusion of paid sick days in the proposed deal has been a major source of pushback from rail workers, as this video from More Perfect Union explains.
Daily News & Commentary
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September 16
In today’s news and commentary, the NLRB sues New York, a flight attendant sues United, and the Third Circuit considers the employment status of Uber drivers The NLRB sued New York to block a new law that would grant the state authority over private-sector labor disputes. As reported on recently by Finlay, the law, which […]
September 15
Unemployment claims rise; a federal court hands victory to government employees union; and employers fire workers over social media posts.
September 14
Workers at Boeing reject the company’s third contract proposal; NLRB Acting General Counsel William Cohen plans to sue New York over the state’s trigger bill; Air Canada flight attendants reject a tentative contract.
September 12
Zohran Mamdani calls on FIFA to end dynamic pricing for the World Cup; the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement opens a probe into Scale AI’s labor practices; and union members organize immigration defense trainings.
September 11
California rideshare deal advances; Boeing reaches tentative agreement with union; FTC scrutinizes healthcare noncompetes.
September 10
A federal judge denies a motion by the Trump Administration to dismiss a lawsuit led by the American Federation of Government Employees against President Trump for his mass layoffs of federal workers; the Supreme Court grants a stay on a federal district court order that originally barred ICE agents from questioning and detaining individuals based on their presence at a particular location, the type of work they do, their race or ethnicity, and their accent while speaking English or Spanish; and a hospital seeks to limit OSHA's ability to cite employers for failing to halt workplace violence without a specific regulation in place.