“Trader Joe’s is entitled to a permanent injunction, restraining and enjoining Defendant [Trader Joe’s United]...from using in commerce the TRADER JOE’S Family of Marks or any colorable imitations thereof. Trader Joe’s is also entitled to recover Defendant’s profits, increased to adequately compensate Trader Joe’s,” the lawsuit states. Trader Joe’s is also asking for the union to “deliver up for destruction all commercial merchandise in its possession” that was in violation of the copyright.

The union representing UPS pilots says they will not cross picket lines if Teamsters drivers and package sorters walk off the job when the current contract expires Aug. 1, resulting in the immediate shutdown of the express logistics company’s global air operations.

UPS (NYSE: UPS) has 3,300 pilots who are represented by the Independent Pilots Association (IPA), a separate union from the Teamsters.

“If the Teamsters are on strike, we will honor that strike and we will not fly,” IPA spokesman Brian Gaudet told FreightWaves.

UPS pilots are allowed under their collective bargaining agreement to honor primary picket lines and did that for 16 days during the Teamsters’ strike in 1997.

Nitter

This is DPS5 in Santa Clarita, California. These tough sons of bitches are marching in 93 degree heat and basically stopping all work withing the warehouse as we were in the process of loading the vans up when they arrived. It's a beautiful thing to see. Management wanted to keep us all around because we were already behind for the day but I just clocked out and went home. If you live in like Northern LA County you're not getting your Amazon package today. Unless you're REALLY far north and get your stuff from the Delivery Station in Palmdale.

For those who don't know about the different types of Amazon buildings, there are Fullfillment Centers, Sort Centers, and Delivery Stations like DPS5. We receive already packed orders from fullfillment centers and every day we sort out everything into individual routes to be picked up by the delivery vans that actually like go to your house and stuff. The delivery drivers are all independent contractors who work for what Amazon calls "Delivery Service Partners" so they are not technically Amazon employees making it harder for drivers as a whole to unionize. The driver jobs are fucking brutal and the surveillance they're under on the job is so incredibly fucking invasive. I guess there was some kind of contract dispute between one of the delivery companies and station management so some drivers were refusing to work too. If the drivers ever unionize Amazon would be so fucked.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/comments/14riafr/this_is_the_email_about_our_new_hospital_ceo/

The 1892 Homestead strike in Pennsylvania and the ensuing bloody battle instigated by the steel plant's management remain a transformational moment in U.S. history, leaving scars that have never fully healed after five generations.

The skilled workers at the steel mills in Homestead, seven miles southeast of downtown Pittsburgh, were members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers who had bargained exceptionally good wages and work rules. Homestead's management, with millionaire Andrew Carnegie as owner, was determined to lower its costs of production by breaking the union.

Carnegie Steel Co. was making massive profits—a record $4.5 million just before the 1892 confrontation, which led Carnegie himself to exclaim, "Was there ever such a business!" But he and his chairman, Henry Frick, were furious workers had a voice with the union. "The mills have never been able to turn out the product they should, owing to being held back by the Amalgamated men," Frick complained to Carnegie.

Even more galling for them was that, as Pittsburghlabor historian Charles McCollester later wrote in The Point of Pittsburgh, "The skilled production workers at Homestead enjoyed wages significantly higher than at any other mill in the country."

So management acted.

First, as the union's three-year contract was coming to an end in 1892, the company demanded wage cuts for 325 employees, even though the workers had already taken large pay cuts three years before. During the contract negotiations, management didn't make proposals to negotiate. It issued ultimatums to the union. The local newspaper pointed out that "it was not so much a question of disagreement as to wages, but a design upon labor organization."

Carnegie and Frick made little effort to hide what they had in mind. Their company advertised widely for strikebreakers and built a 10-foot-high fence around the plant that was topped by barbed wire. Management was determined to provoke a strike.

Meanwhile, the workers organized the town on a military basis. They were "establishing pickets on eight-hour shifts, river patrols and a signaling system," according to McCollester.

Frick did what plenty of 19th-century businessmen did when they were battling unions. He hired the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which was notorious for such activities as infiltrating its agents into unions and breaking strikes-and which at its height had a larger work force than the entire U.S. Army.

When Frick plotted to sneak in 300 Pinkerton agents on river barges before dawn on July 6, word spread across town as they were arriving and thousands of workers and their families rushed to the river to keep them out. Gunfire broke out between the men on the barge and the workers on land. In the mayhem that ensued, the Pinkertons surrendered and came ashore, where they were beaten and cursed by the angry workers.

At the end of the battle between the Pinkertons and nearly the entire town, seven workers and three Pinkertons were dead. Four days later, 8,500 National Guard forces were sent at the request of Frick to take control of the town and steel mill. After winning his victories, Frick announced, "Under no circumstances will we have any further dealing with the Amalgamated Association as an organization. This is final." And in November, the Amalgamated Association collapsed.

According to labor historian David Brody, in his highly acclaimed Steelworkers in America: The Nonunion Era, the daily wages of the highly skilled workers at Homestead shrunk by one-fifth between 1892 and 1907, while their work shifts increased from eight hours to 12 hours.

That was not the only measure of the steel workers' defeat. As Sidney Lens pointed out in his classic The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sit-Downs, membership in the Amalgamated Association plummeted from 24,000 to 10,000 in 1894 and down to 8,000 in 1895. Meanwhile, the Carnegie Steel Co.'s profits rose to a staggering $106 million in the nine years after Homestead. And for 26 long years—until the last months of World War I in 1918—union organizing among steelworkers was crushed.

At the end of the 19th century, Homestead inspired a song well known around the country, "Father Was Killed by the Pinkerton Men." The lyrics of this deeply angry ballad began: "'Twas in Pennsylvania town not very long ago,/Men struck against reduction of their pay./Their millionaire employer with philanthropic show/Had closed the works 'till starved they would obey./They fought for home and right to live where they had toiled so long,/But ere the sun had set, some were laid low."

For his role in breaking the union, anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick.

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James Larkin, born on this day in 1874, was an Irish republican, revolutionary socialist, and trade unionist who co-founded the industrial Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU), the Irish Labour Party, and the Irish Citizen's Army (ICA).

Larkin, also known as "Big Jim", was born to Irish emigrants and began working from the age of seven years old. He took an interest in socialism at a young age, joining the Independent Labour Party as a teenager.

In 1905, while working on the docks, Larkin participated in a strike and was elected to the strike committee, losing his foreman's job as a result. The union was impressed with his organizing ability, and he later gained a permanent position with them, beginning his career as a labor organizer.

In 1908, Larkin began organizing in Dublin, working with other Irish socialists such as James Connolly and William O'Brien. He also initiated a worker's newspaper, The Irish Worker and People's Advocate, however it was subject to censorship and shut down in 1915.

In 1908, Larkin founded the industrial Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU). Under Larkin's leadership the union continued to grow, reaching approximately 20,000 members in the time leading up to the Dublin lock-out.

In 1913, led by union busting capitalist William Martin Murphy, over 400 of Dublin's employers began requiring their workers to sign a pledge not to be a member of the ITGWU and not to engage in sympathetic strikes, causing the Dublin lock-out, one of the most severe labor conflicts in Irish history.

Larkin and other labor leaders were arrested for sedition on August 28th while the lock-out continued. Striking workers were subject to police violence, leading Larkin to call for the formation of a workers' militia, the Irish Citizen's Army. During this period, Vladimir Lenin referred to Larkin as 'a remarkable speaker and a man of seething energy [who] has performed miracles amongst the unskilled workers'.

Following the lock-out's defeat, Larkin came to the United States to do a speaking tour on invitation of "Big Bill" Haywood of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). On November 7th, 1919, during a series of anti-Bolshevik raids, Larkin was arrested and charged with 'criminal anarchy' for helping publish socialist literature.

Larkin eventually returned to Ireland, allying with the newly formed Soviet Union, attending at the 1924 Comintern Congress in Moscow. His relationship with the Soviet Union became strained in the 1930s, as Larkin's syndicalist politics clashed with the Marxism-Leninism of the Comintern.

Larkin spent the rest of his life as a organizer, receiving fatal injuries from a fall while supervising repairs to the Worker's Union of Ireland's Thomas Ashe Hall in Dublin in 1946.

"No, men and women of the Irish race, we shall not fight for England. We shall fight for the destruction of the British Empire and the construction of an Irish republic."

• James Larkin

Christy Moore - Balled of James Larkin (1969) :ira:

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On this day in 1921, the Cork Transport Workers' Union took possession of the Harbour Board's offices and assumed complete control of the local port, forming a workers' soviet until negotiations could be resolved.

The Cork Harbour Strike was a labor dispute that lasted from September 2nd to September 7th, 1921. It was the result of the refusal of the Cork Harbor Board to increase the wages of its workers to a minimum of 70s a week.

On September 6th, 1921, the Cork Transport Workers' Union took possession of the Harbour Board's offices and assumed complete control of the port.

According to the New York Times, "when the strikers took possession of the Harbour Board offices, they hoisted a red flag as a token of Soviet control and the strikers' leaders announced their intention of collecting dues from shipping agents and using them to pay members of the union."

The rebellion was short-lived, however, as negotiations between the Harbour Board and the strikers were reopened soon after, which came to a successful resolution. The revolt was not well-taken in the press.

The Irish Times wrote "To-day Irish Labour is permeated with a spirit of revolt against all the principles and conventions of ordered society. The country's lawless state in recent months is partly responsible for this sinister development, and the wild teachings of the Russian Revolution have fallen on willing ears."

Article by libcom.

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Might be a good time to stock up on non-perishable foods.

PATCO WAS one of the few unions, along with the Air Line Pilots Association, to endorse Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election. But when Reagan won the White House in 1980, it was Corporate America, not his union endorsers, that he was eager to prove himself to.

While Reagan launched the attack on PATCO, the previous administration of Democrat Jimmy Carter prepared the ground. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under Carter conducted a management campaign of harassment against union controllers. And 12 months before the government's contract with PATCO was set to expire, Carter formed a "Management Strike Contingency Force" to prepare for a walkout--including the use of scabs.

Reagan happily finished what Carter started. In February 1981, a month before contract negotiations began, the FAA and the Justice Department drew up a list of PATCO militants to arrest. Just four hours into the strike, Reagan got on TV to threaten strikers that they would be terminated if they didn't get back to work in 48 hours.

Then the movie actor-president told reporters a story about an unidentified striker who supposedly resigned from PATCO, saying, "How can I ask my kids to obey the law if I don't?"

Nevertheless, PATCO members stood strong. On the first day of the strike on August 3, 85 percent of union controllers went out. More than 6,000 flights out of a daily load of about 14,000 were immediately canceled. Two days later, Reagan fired the striking controllers.

During the walkout, the FAA was able to keep air traffic at 70 percent of pre-strike levels, largely thanks to its scabbing operation. But the administration also depended on something controllers hadn't anticipated--total disregard for public safety. According to the union, 481 near misses were reported in the first year of the strike--compared to 10 reported in the 10 years before the walkout.

Union Leaders had a chance to show what solidarity was all about. But they passed it by. AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland denounced Reagan's attack on PATCO. But he also sent a letter to AFL-CIO affiliates, discouraging them from taking any type of strike action in solidarity.

"I personally do not think that the trade union movement should undertake anything that would represent punishing, injuring or inconveniencing the public at large for the sins or the transgressions of the Reagan administration," Kirkland wrote.

Striker Terry Duffy had a response for Kirkland, published years later: "For those of you who think it is revolutionary for government workers to strike, I tell you that this is the only country in the free world that does not allow government workers to strike. I know a strike causes inconveniences. It is supposed to."

William Winpisinger, president of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) and a self-described "socialist," could have dealt a serious blow to Reagan. If IAM members who serviced the planes had walked out, airports across the country would have been shut down.

But Winpisinger refused to call out IAM members, citing the IAM's no-strike clause with the airlines. Other union leaders never mobilized the solidarity that they could have--with a few saying that PATCO got its just desserts for supporting Reagan.

Controllers in Canada walked out briefly in solidarity with PATCO before they were threatened with huge fines and suspensions. And the sentiment existed to take on the bosses in the U.S.

The Reagan administration used everything in its arsenal to teach PATCO--and every other union--a lesson. Militants were arrested, jailed and fined. Some PATCO members with federal mortgages lost their homes. Others were denied when they tried to adopt children. The union was fined millions of dollars, and its $3.5 million strike fund was frozen. Eventually, the government succeeded in decertifying PATCO.

Only 1,300 of the nearly 13,000 controllers returned to their jobs, also disobeying a federal court injunction ordering an end to the strike.

On August 5th, following the PATCO workers' refusal to obey his order, Reagan fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the order and banned them from federal service for life. PATCO was also decertified by the Federal Labor Relations Authority a few months later.

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On this day in 1877, the demand of train workers in East St. Louis, Illinois for higher wages was rejected, marking the beginning of a general strike in which workers seized and destroyed property, dismantling over forty factories.

The 1877 St. Louis General Strike was one of the first general strikes in the United States, growing out of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, a national period of strikes and rioting due to economic depression. The St. Louis strike was largely organized by the Knights of Labor and the Marxist-leaning Workingmen's Party, the main radical political party of the era.

On this day in 1877, in East St. Louis, Illinois, train workers held a secret meeting, resolving to call for an increase in wages and to strike if their demands were not met. The demand was made and rejected that same night, and so, effective at midnight, the strike began.

Within hours, strikers virtually controlled the city. Although the strike was mostly bloodless, the protesters seized the city's Union Depot, stopped freight and some passenger trains from passing through the city.

Workers attacked productive capital, including flour mills and sugar refineries, dismantling over forty factories in total. The strike ended when the National Guard and U.S. Marshals began to break up demonstrations by force five days later.

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:iww:

Also People's Food Co-Op sounds incredibly based

The 1922 Guayaquil general strike was a three-day general work stoppage in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, which lasted from 13 to 15 November of that year. The strike began with trolley, electric company and other public utility workers who were inspired by a successful strike by railroad workers in nearby Durán. Workers made demands such as pay increases, shorter hours, safer working conditions, and government control of foreign currency exchange rates.

The government of Ecuador called on the military to suppress the strike. On 15 November, police and military killed at least 300 strikers. Most workers returned to their jobs shortly afterwards. The trolley workers continued their strike until 21 November, when most of their demands were met.

In the early 1920s, Ecuador suffered an economic crisis due to a drop in the global price of the cocoa bean, which at the time was the main export of the country. Guayaquil had experienced rapid economic growth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century due to its location in the Guayas River basin—a region with near-ideal conditions for growing cocoa. At the beginning of the twentieth century, cocoa accounted for 75% of the country's total exports.

Following World War I, the price of the cocoa bean fell as countries such as Ghana, São Tomé, and Brazil began growing the crop. As cocoa sales declined, a lack of foreign currency in Ecuador led to severe inflation. In 1914, the Ecuadorian government passed the "Ley Moratoria," which froze exchange rates and allowed banks to issue currency not backed by gold or silver. This worsened the country's inflation, which was most felt by the working class. By 1922, the country had entered a state of public unrest.

On 19 October 1922, Guayaquil and Quito Railway Company workers began a strike. The workers—based in the town of Durán, across the river from Guayaquil–made relatively modest demands such as the payment of wages on time, the establishment of medical auxiliary posts, payment in United States dollars or gold rather than the sucre, fifteen days notice before lay-offs and the re-hiring of fired union organizers. The railroad company quickly negotiated an end to the strike, granting most of the workers' demands. The company planned to offset increased wages by raising fares on the trains, but rate hikes were cancelled by president José Luis Tamayo.

Workers in Guayaquil took note of the successes of the railway workers in Durán. Trolley, electric company and other public utility workers met in early November and came up with a list of demands including pay increases, an eight-hour workday, overtime pay, and compliance with safety regulations. When the demands were rejected, the workers struck.

The strike gained momentum as factories in the city were unable to operate due to lack of electricity. As negotiations neared completion, the strikers made new demands, such as artificial exchange rate controls by the government in order to prop of the value of the sucre. By 13 November, the strike had grown into a citywide general strike.

Massacre

On 15 November, the government came to an agreement with union leaders on the exchange rate. That same day, a crowd of 20,000 people–the largest demonstration of the strike yet–assembled in downtown Guayaquil. Upon hearing that two labor leaders who had been jailed were to be released, the crowd marched to the police station. When the demonstrators arrived at the police station, soldiers began firing into the crowd.

The crowd began to flee, and were pursued by the troops. Many of the demonstrators were shot to death or stabbed by bayonets. Order was restored at around 6 pm. At least three hundred people had been killed, although the precise number is unknown. No soldiers or police were killed, although several were injured.

The general strike ended shortly after the massacre of 15 November. The following day, president Tamayo signaled that he would sign the exchange rate moratorium that had been demanded by the strikers. Most workers returned to their jobs, but the trolley workers continued their strike. On 21 November, the trolley worker strike was finally resolved, with the trolley workers receiving pay raises, shorter hours, and other demands. However, the trolley company would also increase fares.

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Joey Holz recalled first hearing complaints about a labor shortage last year when he called to donate convalescent plasma at a clinic near Fort Myers, Florida.

"The guy went on this rant about how he can't find help and he can't keep anybody in his medical facility because they all quit over the stimulus checks," Holz told Insider. "And I'm like, 'Your medical professionals quit over $1,200 checks? That's weird.'"

Over the next several months, he watched as a growing chorus of businesses said they couldn't find anyone to hire because of government stimulus money. It was so ubiquitous that he joined a "No one wants to work" Facebook group, where users made memes deriding frustrated employers.

He said he found it hard to believe that government money was keeping people out of the labor force, especially when the end of expanded federal unemployment benefits did not seem to trigger a surge in employment. The expanded benefits ended in September, but 26 states ended them early in June and July.

"If this extra money that everyone's supposedly living off of stopped in June and it's now September, obviously, that's not what's stopping them," he said. Workers have said companies struggling to hire aren't offering competitive pay and benefits.

So Holz, a former food-service worker and charter-boat crewman, decided to run an experiment.

On September 1, he sent job applications to a pair of restaurants that had been particularly public about their staffing challenges.

Then, he widened the test and spent the remainder of the month applying to jobs — mostly at employers vocal about a lack of workers — and tracking his journey in a spreadsheet.

Two weeks and 28 applications later, he had just nine email responses, one follow-up phone call, and one interview with a construction company that advertised a full-time job focused on site cleanup paying $10 an hour.

But Holz said the construction company instead tried to offer Florida's minimum wage of $8.65 to start, even though the wage was scheduled to increase to $10 an hour on September 30. He added that it wanted full-time availability, while scheduling only part time until Holz gained seniority.

Holz said he wasn't applying for any roles he didn't qualify for.

Some jobs "wanted a high-school diploma," he said. "Some wanted retail experience," he added. "Most of them either said 'willing to train' or 'minimum experience,' and none of them were over $12 an hour."

He said: "I didn't apply for anything that required a degree. I didn't apply for anything that said 'must have six months experience in this thing.'"

Holz isn't alone. Others have also spoken out about their troubles finding work, despite the seemingly tight labor market.

In a Facebook post on September 29, which went viral on Twitter and Reddit as well, Holz said, "58 applications says y'all aren't desperate for workers, you just miss your slaves."

"My opinion is that this is a familiar story to many," he added.

By the end of September, Holz had sent out 60 applications, received 16 email responses, four follow-up phone calls, and the solitary interview. He shared a pie chart showing his results.

Holz acknowledged that his results may not be representative of the larger labor challenges in the country, since his search was local and targeted the most vocal critics of stimulus spending.

He added that despite the claims of some businesses struggling to hire, his boss had no staffing issues during the pandemic.

"Nobody leaves those positions because he takes care of his people," Holz said, referring to his boss.

Management is shitting themselves and owners are ready to come to the table and discuss our demands.

Staged a walkout. :iww: we're gonna do it folks