Adi Kamdar is a student at Harvard Law School.
Eleven striking Harvard dining hall workers will appear in court today after being arrested on Friday for blocking traffic during their protest, according to the Harvard Crimson. The workers, which included the president and lead negotiator of their union UNITE HERE Local 26, were to be charged with disorderly conduct. This protest and arrest was discussed ahead of time by the demonstrators and the Cambridge Police Department. In covering the arrest, the Guardian features interviews from Harvard dining hall workers who recently became homeless or had to borrow money to buy diapers, highlighting the real impact of their current wages.
In colleges on the other side of the country: 7 in 10 University of California clerical, administrative, and support workers struggle to put food on the table, says a new study by Occidental College released today. Reported on by the Los Angeles Times, the study found that nearly half these workers—most of whom were college educated, full time, and received $22 per hour—still went hungry at times. The study also found racial and gender disparities when it comes to food insecurity. This comes on the heels of another study that found 42% of UC students didn’t have access to high quality, nutritious food, leading the UC system to announce a multi-million-dollar effort to fix the problem.
A Washington Post columnist puzzles through the fact that two federal employee unions, the National Border Patrol Council and the National ICE Council, support Donald Trump, despite the two unions’ parent organizations’ (the American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO) support of Hillary Clinton. The unions, which represent border patrol employees, are attracted to Trump’s rhetoric on border security and are displeased with the Obama administration.
Recent research described in the Harvard Business Review found that employees donate three times more money to political campaigns supported by their CEOs. The study analyzed the reported ($200+) contributions by 3,861 CEOs and 162,162 employees of 2,181 companies, from 1999 to 2014. Was this trend due to similar political environments? Or did the CEOs have direct influence? The study focused in on instances when CEOs turned over and donated to different political candidates, and, lo and behold, employees switched their donations to the candidate their new CEO was supporting.
Daily News & Commentary
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
September 22
Judge blocks ICE raids in Alabama; Chicago hotel workers vote to strike; AutoZone workers look to create first union
September 21
In today’s News and Commentary, the Seventh Circuit raises the bar for the NLRB to obtain preliminary injunctions, the California Primary Care Association sues SEIU-UHW for racketeering, and the Seventh Circuit finds that an employer group and think tank do not have standing to challenge an Illinois law banning captive audience meetings. On Friday, the […]
September 20
Culinary Workers Union members protests union leadership; lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft reveal internal concerns about the threat of AI training to human labor.
September 17
Unions push to block Google from buying Spirit Airlines employment records; U.S. Department of Labor sues Oklahoma coffee chain over alleged wage violations.
September 16
Trump nominates Catherine Eschbach as EEOC general counsel; NLRB declines to resolve union work-assignment dispute; Allina Health physicians begin four-day strike.
September 15
Documents reveal the inner workings of Amazon's union avoidance program; Washington state public sector unions reach tentative deals amid a difficult bargaining cycle; hundreds of Nevada Culinary Union members protest their union's health care changes.