Labor Union Blog

3M company is offering early retirement buyouts to 3,600 nonunion workers. The company made the announcement on Thursday, a week after it announced plans to cut 1,200 jobs. The offer is being made to workers the age of 55 or more with 30 years at the company and to workers who are 59 with at least five years with the company. Workers who accept the offer will have a year of service added to their record when it comes time to calculate pension benefits.

3M company is offering early retirement buyouts to 3,600 nonunion workers. The company made the announcement on Thursday, a week after it announced plans to cut 1,200 jobs. The offer is being made to workers the age of 55 or more with 30 years at the company and to workers who are 59 with at least five years with the company. Workers who accept the offer will have a year of service added to their record when it comes time to calculate pension benefits.

Workers represented by the Communications Workers of America waiting to find out if they will be hitting the strike lines as negotiations continue with AT&T now have a new rap song to rally behind.

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The song was written by AT&T employees Ray and Rachael Rodriquez and a Toronto hip-hop artist that goes by the name of Special. The trio have even turned the song into a ringtone so workers can put it on their cell phones.

Lede: The United Food and Commercial Workers have won a union contract at a Quebec Wal-Mart. Doug Cunningham has more.

By Doug Cunningham

It took hard organizing work and years of legal battles, but a Quebec government arbitrator has ruled that Wal-Mart must honor an organized labor agreement with the workers at a St. Hyacinthe, Quebec Wal-Mart. It’s the only Wal-Mart in North America to have a union. The UFCW says the agreement gives workers a legally binding grievance process, a wage structure free of favoritism and seniority rights. Previous union wins in Canada at Wal-Mart were brief, because Wal-Mart closed both a small tire store and a full-sized Wal-Mart in Quebec after workers successfully joined the UFCW. Wal-Mart stores in China have state-sanctioned unions representing workers there. In the United States the UFCW has waged a campaign for many years, but has so far not successfully organized any U.S. Wal-Mart stores.Wal-Mart Canada has not said whether it will close this now-union store. They have only said they’ll have to see, and added that Wal-Mart’s objective is to run a viable store.

Samuel Hamer

When Samuel Hamer, a senior at Chicago’s elite Northside Prep learned his senior prom was going to be held at the Congress Plaza Hotel, he moved into action. Workers at the Plaza have been out on strike for almost six years fighting for wages comparable to other hotel workers. Hamer knew firsthand what the workers were going through, having been involved in social justice issues, including the Congress strike, through his synagogue and the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.

Writing on Shalom Rav, a website run by his rabbi, Brant Rosen, Hamer says he immediately went to the school’s principal who set up an emergency meeting where he convinced the committee to move the prom, even though it meant giving up a $3,000 deposit. The students are making up the $3,000 through fundraisers. Hamer writes:

I proceeded to relay some facts: i.e. that Congress workers made $8.80 an hour with minimal benefits while the standard is now $13.20 with significant benefits. Also, I made it clear to the committee members that having prom at the Congress would misrepresent Northside as a place where liberal thinking and cultured morals abound.

And there was the practical matter that supporters of the workers might put up a big picket line at the hotel and that the pool of teacher chaperons would immediately diminish since the teachers, who belong to the largest union in the city, probably would not cross the picket line.

Why would a teenager, whose thoughts at this time of the year turn toward graduation and senior parties, think about a group of mostly immigrant hotel workers? Here’s Hamer’s answer:

Everything in my religious spirit, my religious being, tells me that to stand by while injustice occurs would be the wrong thing to do. Thankfully, the discussion …ended with the decision that our own financial burdens should never take precedence over the daily struggles of working class families that are less fortunate than we. When I got home I said the Shema (an affirmation of Judaism and a declaration of faith in God).

Hamer also is an alumnus of Or Tzedek , the teen social justice summer program of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.  At Or Tzedek, he engaged with a variety of social justice issues, learned about organizing and gained tools to create social change. Since that summer, he has been taken on many endeavors through Or Tzedek, including the Congress strike.

Hamer’s commitment to justice comes naturally from his faith and training. Rabbi Rosen says the Jewish religious tradition is “rife with imperatives about protecting workers, paying a fair living wage and making sure workers’ rights are protected.” He adds:

It is foundational to who we are. And one tenant of our faith is worker and immigrant justice. We are well aware of our history in this country and the benefits of the union movement. Our job now is to realize that not long ago these were issues we dealt with as part of our common experience.