Maddie Chang is a student at Harvard Law School.
In today’s news and commentary, Trader Joe’s workers in Oakland file a petition to form a union; a Kenyan court temporarily blocks Meta contractor’s mass layoff of content moderators; and Starbucks workers at more than 100 stores walkout ahead of shareholders’ meeting.
On Tuesday, about 150 workers at a Trader Joe’s store in Oakland filed a petition with the NLRB to hold a union election. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the Oakland workers would join a nationwide push to unionize among Trader Joe’s workers that started last May. The Oakland store would be the first location in California unionize. Organizers are responding to a number of pay and working condition issues, including an inconsistent pay-scale that creates big pay discrepancies among workers, skipped raises during the pandemic, and the company’s refusal to put in conveyor belts at registers, which would reduce physical strain on workers packing groceries.
The Oakland effort coincides with a union push by workers at the Essex Crossing location of Trader Joe’s in Manhattan. There, workers are organizing for benefits, better safety conditions, and better pay. As the Gothamist reports, the safety issues were typified in a recent incident where sewage leaked from the ceiling.
A Kenyan court has issued an interim injunction against Meta and its Nairobi-based outsourcing firm Sama to prevent Sama from laying off 260 content moderators. Earlier this week, 43 content moderators brought a claim against Sama for unlawful termination, saying they were being laid off for organizing a union. The workers also sued Sama competitor Majorel for blacklisting them from applying for equivalent jobs after Meta switched its sourcing from Sama to Majorel. As reported in TechCrunch, this challenge comes on the back of a suit brought by former Sama content moderator Daniel Motaung, who alleged that the Sama engaged in “forced labor and human trafficking, unfair labor relations, union busting and failure to provide ‘adequate’ mental health and psychosocial support.”
Finally, workers at more than 100 Starbucks stores went on strike Wednesday ahead of a shareholders’ meeting today (see strike map here). As new Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan takes the reins, workers are asking shareholders to vote for a resolution that would prompt a third-party assessment of the workers’ rights against Starbucks’ own stated commitments to workers.
Daily News & Commentary
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October 3
California legislation empowers state labor board; ChatGPT used in hostile workplace case; more lawsuits challenge ICE arrests
October 2
AFGE and AFSCME sue in response to the threat of mass firings; another preliminary injunction preventing Trump from stripping some federal workers of collective bargaining rights; and challenges to state laws banning captive audience meetings.
September 30
the NTEU petitions for reconsideration for the CFPB layoff scheme, an insurance company defeats a FLSA claim, and a construction company violated the NLRA by surveilling its unionized workers.
September 29
Starbucks announces layoffs and branch closures; the EEOC sues Walmart.
September 28
Canadian postal workers go on strike, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons cancels a collective bargaining agreement covering over 30,000 workers.
September 26
Trump’s DOL seeks to roll back a rule granting FLSA protections to domestic care workers; the Second Circuit allows a claim of hostile work environment created by DEI trainings to proceed; and a GAO report finds alarming levels of sexual abuse in high school Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs.