Workers had sought a 40 percent wage rise, the restoration of a defined-benefit pension plan axed in 2014, and a stronger guarantee that future production would not be moved out of the Seattle region.

linky to cwa

Tens of thousands of disabled people in the United States are paid less than the federal minimum wage — with some workers making as little as 25 cents per hour.

These workers, most of whom have intellectual and developmental disabilities, are part of an arcane government program that is supposed to prepare them for higher-paying jobs in the community. But a Washington Post investigation has found that many disabled workers are paid low wages for years under a tangled bureaucracy that lacks accountability and oversight.

Jaime Muniz, 33, who has autism, was recently paid about $1.22 for every hour he spent at Pathways to Independence in Kearny, N.J., the facility where he has been working for 11 years. His tasks include sorting wire clothing hangers and unloading heavy boxes.

“I try to do better, and I’m not moving on,” Muniz said. “I don’t really know why.”

About 40,000 disabled people like Muniz work under the program, which was enacted in 1938 to provide jobs for injured veterans. Today, nearly 800 facilities in 37 states participate in what has become known as “14(c)” — a reference to Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows employers to apply for a certificate and legally pay disabled workers less than the $7.25 federal minimum wage.

At Pathways, where Muniz works, no workers have transitioned out of the program since 2020, said Alvin Cox, the executive director of the facility.

“Community integrated employment is not for everyone, but everyone should have the opportunity to try and experience the dignity of work,” Cox said. “These individuals need support and guidance to do the work that they’re doing.”

A 2023 report from the Government Accountability Office surveyed wage data from 2019 to 2021 and found that workers were typically making about $3.50 per hour, compared with a federal minimum wage of $7.25. About 12 percent made hourly wages of less than a dollar.

deeply cursed

The US government didn’t like that Jagan was a Marxist — it thought he would be another Fidel Castro, and it wanted to stop him at any cost. Usually folks in the left-labor movement think of general strikes as a positive thing, but in this case, a general strike secretly funded by the CIA, with US unions distributing the funds, undermined a left-wing government.

Similarly, in early-’70s Chile, Salvador Allende was in power. He was a Marxist, democratically elected, and believed in creating socialism through democracy — so he was seen as especially dangerous to anti-communists in the United States and in Latin America, because they relied on the trope that all communists were authoritarian dictators. The [Richard] Nixon administration wanted to create economic chaos in Chile, and part of that was achieved through a series of big strikes in industries including copper mining and trucking. These strikes also received funding, support, and training from the AFL-CIO, with many of the resources originating with the CIA. Those strikes were used as a pretext for the Chilean military under Augusto Pinochet to stage a coup in 1973 and overthrow Allende.

would be nice to read citations on this (of links between afl and striking chileans)

anyway la jacobina duality strikes again

John Maclean, born on this day in 1879, was a Scottish schoolteacher and revolutionary Marxist, sometimes referred to as "Scotland's Lenin". His Marxist evening-classes produced many of the activists who became instrumental in the Clyde revolts during and after WWI. MacLean was appointed both an Honorary President of the first Congress of Soviets and Soviet Consul to Scotland in recognition of his consistent socialist position on the imperialist war and his tireless work in support of the Bolshevik revolution.

Maclean's revolutionary politics were well-known, and in 1915, he was arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act and fired from his job as a primary school teacher. As a consequence, he became a full-time Marxist lecturer and organizer, educating other Glaswegian workers in Marxist theory.

Maclean supported Irish independence on an anti-imperialist basis, describing the Irish War of Independence as "The Irish fight for freedom" and even condoning the assassination of a magistrate, Alan Bell. He saw the war in Ireland as strengthening the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, arguing that "Irish Sinn Féiners, who make no profession of socialism or communism...are doing more to help Russia and the revolution than all we professed Marxian Bolsheviks in Britain".

MacLean was at odds with much of the British left and dismissive of the newly-formed Communist Party of Great Britain. He had already turned his back on economism and the syndicalism favoured by the Clyde Workers’ Committee, had recognised the nature of British imperialism and come to the conclusion that revolution could only come about through the destruction of the British Empire.

Maclean was also noted for his outspoken opposition to World War I, and, in 1918, he was arrested for sedition. During the trial, Maclean gave the now legendary "speech from the dock", expounding on his position. He was sentenced to five years' penal servitude, but was released after the November armistice.

In captivity, Maclean had been on hunger strike, and prolonged force-feeding had permanently affected his health. He collapsed during a speech and died of pneumonia, aged forty-four.

"I have taken up unconstitutional action at this time because of the abnormal circumstances and because precedent has been given by the British government. I am a socialist, and have been fighting and will fight for an absolute reconstruction of society for the benefit of all. I am proud of my conduct. I have squared my conduct with my intellect, and if everyone had done so this war would not have taken place...

...I appeal exclusively to [the working class] because they and they only can bring about the time when the whole world will be in one brotherhood, on a sound economic foundation. That, and that alone, can be the means of bringing about a re-organisation of society. That can only be obtained when the people of the world get the world, and retain the world." -

--John MacLean, from the "Dock Speech"

• John Maclean - revolutionary fighter of the working class

• John Maclean Archive

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The core organizing group is deciding who to organize with, and the main consideration is UFCW.

Good or no? Any other unions we should consider?

We're an independent retail store

All managers are bastards. Fuckers are causing injuries with malicious management tactics.

The most famous female labor activist of the nineteenth century, Mary Harris Jones—aka “Mother Jones”—was a self-proclaimed “hell-raiser” in the cause of economic justice. She was so strident that a US attorney once labeled her “the most dangerous woman in America.”

Born circa August 1, 1837 in County Cork, Ireland, Jones immigrated to Toronto, Canada, with her family at age five—prior to the potato famine with its waves of Irish immigrants.

She first worked as a teacher in a Michigan Catholic school, then as a seamstress in Chicago. She moved to Memphis for another teaching job, and in 1861 married George Jones, a member of the Iron Molders Union. They had four children in six years. In 1867, tragedy struck when her entire family died in a yellow fever epidemic; she dressed in black for the rest of her life.

Returning to Chicago, Jones resumed sewing but lost everything she owned in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. She found solace at Knights of Labor meetings, and in 1877, took up the cause of working people. Jones focused on the rising number of working poor during industrialization, especially as wages shrunk, hours increased, and workers had no insurance for unemployment, healthcare or old age.

Jones first displayed her oratorical and organizing abilities in Pittsburgh during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. She took part in and led hundreds of strikes, including those that led to the Haymarket riot in Chicago in 1886. She paused briefly to publish The New Right in 1899 and a two-volume Letter of Love and Labor in 1900 and 1901. A beloved leader, the workers she organized nicknamed her “Mother Jones.”

Beginning in 1900, Jones focused on miners, organizing in the coal fields of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. For a few years, she was employed by the United Mine Workers, but left when the national leadership disavowed a wildcat strike in Colorado. After a decade in the West, Jones returned to West Virginia, where, after a violent strike in 1912-1913, she was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Public appeals on her behalf convinced the governor to commute her twenty-year sentence. Afterward she returned to Colorado and made a national crusade out of the tragic events during the Ludlow Massacre, even lobbying President Woodrow Wilson. Later, she participated in several industrial strikes on the East Coast between 1915 and 1919 and continued to organize miners well into her nineties.

Despite her radicalism, Jones did not support women’s suffrage, arguing that “you don’t need a vote to raise hell.” She pointed out that the women of Colorado had the vote and failed to use it to prevent the appalling conditions that led to labor violence. She also considered suffragists unwitting dupes of class warfare. Jones argued that suffragists were naïve women who unwittingly acted as duplicitous agents of class warfare.

Although Jones organized working class women, she held them in auxiliaries, maintaining that—except when the union called—a woman’s place was in the home. A reflection of her Catholic heritage, she believed that men should be paid well enough so that women could devote themselves to motherhood.

In 1925, she published her Autobiography of Mother Jones. She is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois.

"I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser."

Mother Jones

• The Autobiography of Mother Jones

• Who Was Mother Jones? The Labor Icon Remains an Inspiration to Activists

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Abstract: Researchers have argued that wealthy nations rely on a large net appropriation of labour and resources from the rest of the world through unequal exchange in international trade and global commodity chains. Here we assess this empirically by measuring flows of embodied labour in the world economy from 1995–2021, accounting for skill levels, sectors and wages. We find that, in 2021, the economies of the global North net-appropriated 826 billion hours of embodied labour from the global South, across all skill levels and sectors. The wage value of this net-appropriated labour was equivalent to €16.9 trillion in Northern prices, accounting for skill level. This appropriation roughly doubles the labour that is available for Northern consumption but drains the South of productive capacity that could be used instead for local human needs and development. Unequal exchange is understood to be driven in part by systematic wage inequalities. We find Southern wages are 87–95% lower than Northern wages for work of equal skill. While Southern workers contribute 90% of the labour that powers the world economy, they receive only 21% of global income.

SAG-AFTRA has called for a strike of all its members working in video games, with the union demanding that its next contract not allow "companies to abuse AI to the detriment of our members."

The strike mirrors similar actions taken by SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) last year, which, while also broader in scope than just AI, were similarly focused on concerns about AI-generated work product and the use of member work to train AI.

During the strike, the more than 160,000 members of the union will not provide talent to games produced by Disney, Electronic Arts, Blizzard Activision, Take-Two, WB Games, and others. Not every game is affected. Some productions may have interim agreements with union workers, and others, like continually updated games that launched before the current negotiations starting September 2023, may be exempt.

The Washington Post says the biggest remaining issue involves on-camera performers, including motion capture performers. Crabtree-Ireland told the Post that while AI training protections were extended to voice performers, motion and stunt work was left out.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5204246

Check it out:

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WASHINGTON—Despite heavy security which prevented them from surrounding the U.S. Capitol, thousands of protesters jammed Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue to denounce Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a mass march Wednesday. They declared him “a war criminal,” demanded his arrest, and blasted U.S. aid to and complicity with his ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.

The protests continued even as Netanyahu spoke to a joint meeting of Congress, thanking Democratic President Joe Biden for weapons shipments since the Israeli military launched its massive retaliatory invasion of Gaza last October.

The far-right PM lavished even more praise on former Republican President Donald Trump—a white nationalist, misogynist, convicted felon—and once again the party’s nominee. Both Netanyahu and Trump seek to again split the Democratic coalition that backed Biden and is now coalescing around Vice President Kamala Harris’s candidacy to succeed him.

Using a Cold War insult, the U.S.-educated Netanyahu called the protesters “useful idiots.” Seizing on a chance to try to pinkwash the genocide, he took a shot at LGBTQ protesters, in particular, saying protesters holding signs reading “Gays for Gaza” were akin to poultry carrying “Chickens for KFC” placards.

Addressing a pared-down gathering of lawmakers, Netanyahu demanded even more U.S. money and weaponry for his military campaign to subjugate Gaza. “Give us the tools faster, and we’ll finish the job faster,” he said. The war has reduced Gaza to ruins, produced two million refugees, killed at least 38,000 people, and left more than 100,000 injured.

Aside from condemning Netanyahu, the big targets for the protesters were Congress and President Biden. “Our leaders have tacitly endorsed his [Netanyahu’s] crimes…. Biden and too many members of Congress have not only tolerated these atrocities, they’ve been complicit in them,” one demonstrator told People’s World.

“As Americans and taxpayers, we do not welcome war criminals into our legislative chambers,” meaning Netanyahu, another said.

Labor leads in the streets

Besides Palestinian solidarity groups, organized labor and Jewish peace groups were also large presences among the demonstrators. The United Auto Workers took the lead in building a “Labor for Ceasefire” contingent which ultimately encompassed several unions.

UAW Region 9A President Brandon Mancilla spoke to attendees, and the Auto Workers chartered several buses from Detroit and five or six busloads from New York. “The more money going to war, the less money goes to working-class needs,” Mancilla said. “This has been a key demand of our working-class movement.”

Postal Workers (APWU) President Mark Dimondstein declared, “We’re in solidarity with the workers and students of Gaza.” APWU was the first big national union to demand a ceasefire and negotiations to end the Gaza War. “We call on the U.S. government to halt all military aid to the Netanyahu government.”

“Our tax dollars should never be used to bomb the men, women, and children of Gaza,” Dimondstein told the crowd. The Israeli war on Gaza “is raising the danger of a wider war,” he warned. “The U.S. government has the leverage to stop Israel,” Dimondstein elaborated. “And it is a falsehood that being anti-Israel is being anti-Semitic,” as both Netanyahu and Republicans contend.

APWU was one of seven unions to sign a joint letter to Biden with those ceasefire and negotiations demands the day before Netanyahu’s speech. They also backed an aid cutoff. APWU reaffirmed its anti-war stand at a recent convention, Dimondstein told the crowd.

Other signers included the National Education Association, the Association of Flight Attendants/CWA, the Service Employees, the Auto Workers, the Painters, and the United Electrical Workers. Speakers estimated the seven unions speak for 7.5 million members.

“The Israeli government will continue to pursue its vicious response to the horrific attacks of October 7th until it is forced to stop,” their letter said. “We believe immediately cutting U.S. military aid to the Israeli government is necessary to bring about a peaceful resolution to this conflict.”

Those unions, plus members of the Office and Professional Employees, the Communications Workers, the Steelworkers, and the National Nurses United, also marched.

“I think union activists and organizers and the rank and file, for many months, have pressed our leadership to come out in opposition to the war crimes and pressed our [U.S.] administration to do more” to stop them, said OPEIU Local 2 member Chelsea Bland.

The protesters were barred from ringing the Capitol due to a massive police presence, including 200 imported New York City cops. They responded with chants of “Free Palestine” and more. Signs declared, “The blood is on your hands” showing pictures of both Biden and Netanyahu. “Netanyahu, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide,” another chant went.

Code Pink reported that after both the demonstration and Netanyahu’s speech ended, police pepper-sprayed and arrested some of its members protesting at various barricades. The Hill reported 16 arrests, including five who stood up with anti-war insignia in the House gallery.

Dissent inside the Capitol

Some 50 lawmakers boycotted the speech, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., the prime sponsor of military aid cutoffs to Israel. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., a Palestinian-American whose Detroit-area district includes the nation’s largest concentration of Arab-Americans, and who blasted the administration in a floor speech the day before, wore a kaffiyeh to the House floor.

She defiantly faced down Netanyahu from her seat in the House chamber, holding up a black and white sign with messages the Israeli leader couldn’t avoid. On one side, it read, “Guilty of Genocide,” and on the other was “War Criminal.”

Both Vice President Kamala Harris, and Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, were out campaigning. So was Trump. People noticed Harris’s absence. The Vice President and House Speaker usually jointly preside at such joint meetings. Pro-Israel Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., replaced Harris.

The vice president is expected to meet one-on-one with Netanyahu at some point during his visit, and many ceasefire activists are hoping she will signal a break from Biden’s policy of essentially unconditional support for Netanyahu. Tlaib has encouraged the new Democratic nominee to back an Israeli arms embargo.

Right-wing and Trumpite Republicans repeatedly cheered the Israeli PM, while most of the other Democrats sat in stony silence. As for those who boycotted the speech, some had a lot to say.

“I am past pissed off. I am past upset. I am absolutely ashamed of what is happening,” Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., told the press. She participated in a conference call alongside other Democrats and former government officials who have resigned from their jobs in protest of the administration’s policy. “Our government has been actively complicit in genocide every step of the way,” Bush added.

Anti-war voices

“We want to make sure our voices are heard and our dissatisfactions are discussed,” said Melissa Kiseling, one of a group of Young Communist League members, from D.C., Baltimore, and Brooklyn, who carried a large banner and signs during the protest.

“As workers and as union members, I think it is really important that we are standing with the workers and the union movement in Palestine,” added another, Justin Otter.

The Communist Party USA distributed a statement Wednesday drawing attention to the fact that International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“Netanyahu’s presence in Congress is a disgrace and an affront,” the CPUSA said. “We demand the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu, and we call for the United States to end its complicity in genocide and to support a permanent, lasting ceasefire.”

The party reiterated its support for “Palestinian self-determination and an end to the illegal 76-year Israeli occupation of Palestine.”

Gokar Ivfar, an Auto Worker Region 9A member from the Graduate Students Union at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke with People’s World about youth involvement in the ceasefire movement. “It’s very important to represent not just students in the U.S., but students around the world,” who have protested Biden’s aid to Israel for the Gaza War, he said. The war “should alarm all of us.”

Some of the marchers and speakers wondered to what extent Harris would deviate from Biden’s lockstep support for Israel’s war. Some were skeptical, but others expressed the view that she is not as emotionally committed as he is to uncritical support of Netanyahu’s right-wing government and its military campaign.

Harris “seems to be more open to a different approach” to the Israel-Palestinian conflict in general and the war in particular, UAW 9A President Brandon Mancilla told People’s World. “But we need to see results.” He noted Harris’s absence from Netanyahu’s speech.

Netanyahu the opportunist

The Associated Press reported that before Netanyahu’s speech, some 60 lawmakers, led by Rep. Tlaib, met privately with families of hostages whom Hamas still holds, nine months after the Oct. 7 attack. The families said Netanyahu ignores the hostages’ plight to seek peace in order to further his own political purposes.

Netanyahu’s purposes, Israeli media report, are to “win the war,” establish complete rule over Gaza, and by doing so, keep himself and his far-right nationalist coalition in power while he evades trial on corruption charges.

In a measure of how controversial Netanyahu is, security for his speech covered most of the nation’s capital. High steel fences surrounded the Capitol building, just as they did during anti-Trump and pro-abortion protests. The surrounding neighborhood was cordoned off, and the rest of D.C. suffered its most massive traffic jam in decades.

Major avenues and all side streets for a mile or more around the Israeli embassy were closed for hours. Police cruisers blocked everything. Helicopters constantly patrolled overhead. Bus routes were canceled or stopped. Only the subway ran, and an occasional pedestrian got through.

But none of that stopped demonstrators’ message from getting through to the world: Ceasefire and arms embargo now.

C.J. Atkins contributed to this article.

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

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Your thoughts overall?

After facing the flak on the job reservation bill, the Karnataka government is now planning to increase the working hours of IT employees to 14 hours a day from the current 10, triggering opposition from IT sector unions. The proposal to amend the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishment Act to facilitate 14-hour working day was presented in a meeting called by the labour department with various stakeholders in the industry. The representatives of the Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union (KITU) have already met with labour minister Santosh Lad and raised their concerns over the move.

The proposed new bill ‘Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments (Amendment) Bill 2024’ attempts to normalise a 14-hour work day. The existing act only allows a maximum of 10 hours work per day including overtime, which has been completely lifted in the current amendment.

IT sector unions have come out in public in protest against the move, calling it 'inhuman’, that will have implications on 2 million workers in the state. "It will facilitate the IT/ITES companies to extend the daily hours of work indefinitely. This amendment will allow the companies to go for a two shift system instead of the currently existing three shift system and one-third of the workforce will be thrown out from their employment. During the meeting, KITU pointed out the studies on the health impact of extended working hours among the IT employees," said Suhas Adiga, general secretary of KITU.

According to a KCCI report, 45 per cent of employees in the IT sector are facing mental health issues such as depression and 55 per cent facing physical health impacts. Increasing working hours will further aggravate this situation. A WHO-ILO study says increased working hours will lead to an estimated 35 per cent higher risk of death by stroke and 17 per cent higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease, the union said.

absolute surplus value go god damn the 21st century sucks

https://xcancel.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1816116306459922848

https://xcancel.com/jacksonpCTU/status/1816135168866054255

https://xcancel.com/AFTunion/status/1816137016578617829

Bethesda Game Studios workers have voted to join the Communications Workers of America, forming the first wall-to-wall union at a Microsoft video game studio.

The workers, consisting of 241 developers, artists, engineers, programmers and designers have either signed a union authorization card or indicated that they wanted union representation via an online portal. Microsoft has recognized the union.

Bethesda Game Studios produces popular games including Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Starfield.

“We are so excited to announce our union at Bethesda Game Studio and join the movement sweeping across the video game industry. It is clear that every worker can benefit from bringing democracy into the workplace and securing a protected voice on the job. We’re thrilled to get down to brass tacks and win a fair contract, proving that our unity is a source of real power to positively shape our working conditions, our lives, and the company as a whole,” said Mandi Parker, senior system designer and member of CWA, in a statement.

The Bethesda Game Studios employees join a surge of workers who have recently formed unions in the video game industry, which had previously been seen as hostile to worker organizing. These works will be members of CWA Locals 2108 in Maryland and 6215 in Texas and join other CWA members at Sega of America, Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax, Tender Claws and more.

“We continue to support our employees’ right to choose how they are represented in the workplace, and we will engage in good faith negotiations with the CWA as we work towards a collective bargaining agreement,” said a spokesperson for Microsoft, in a statement.

“In a groundbreaking achievement, the dedicated professionals at Bethesda Game Studios have demonstrated that, no matter your job title, you too can benefit from having a union,” said Johnny Brown, president of CWA Local 2108, in a statement. “Through securing a protected voice on the job, workers are taking a step forward to negotiating better working conditions, helping to raise standards across the industry. We are incredibly proud to welcome these workers into our union and are confident that together, we will secure a brighter future for all workers in the video game industry.”

“The labor movement in the South is strong and growing. As the video game and tech industries continue to expand in Texas, it is critical that workers have a protected voice on the job to ensure they receive their fair share. We welcome Austin and Dallas based workers at Bethesda Game Studios to CWA and are looking forward to meeting Microsoft at the bargaining table to secure a fair union contract,” said Ron Swaggerty, president of CWA Local 6215, in a statement.

Workers at Bethesda Game Studios in Montreal filed for union recognition with the Quebec Labor Relations Board in late June. When the process is complete, they will be represented by CWA Canada.

The Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) is a network of worker-organizers and their staff working to build the voice and power necessary to ensure the future of the tech, game, and digital industries in the United States and Canada. CODE-CWA is a project of the Communications Workers of America which represents hundreds of thousands of workers throughout tech, media, telecom, and other industries.

‘We're unionizing because we love CounterPulse,’ technician Jessi Barber said before the vote.

By Lily Janiak, Theater criticJune 26, 2024

CounterPulse workers held a March on the Boss near their venue in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood on June 4.

Workers at performance art company CounterPulse voted unanimously to unionize — a history-making move in an industry where few office staff are organized.

The 19 employees, occupying roles from administrative staff to technicians to a drum circle instructor, have been dues-paying members of the Industrial Workers of the World since June 4. The vote on Tuesday, June 25, which was certified by the National Labor Relations Board, secures them official recognition from management and means “the employer must begin bargaining in good faith with the union,” NLRB press secretary Kayla Blado told the Chronicle. Both parties have five business days to challenge the result.

 CounterPulse workers gather during a June 4 March on the Boss. They voted to unionize Tuesday, a move that the National Labor Relations Board has certified. Dylan Brown/CounterPulse Workers United

“We feel like an exemplary arts org, especially here in San Francisco,” CounterPulse house manager Lonnie Taylor said at the Tenderloin venue minutes before casting her vote. Unionization, she added, marks yet another case of “us doing something that hasn’t been done.”

A June 4 letter notifying Artistic and Executive Director Julie Phelps and the Board of Directors of their joining the IWW echoed those sentiments. 

“For too long, the hierarchical structure of CounterPulse has stood in opposition to the art that finds home in our pink building,” the workers wrote, referring to the company’s risk-taking and boundary-blurring output that might feature everything from a game show that tasks the audience with designing a utopia to a dance performance staged in total darkness to affectless but agreeable weirdness involving time machines and shadow puppetry. 

Phelps said she was inspired by the workers, adding, “I believe the union holds unique potential to collectivize and share power toward creating more sustainable nonprofit workplaces.”  

Board Chair Victor Cordon also expressed support and a commitment to collaborate. 

“We are excited by what this process can mean for actualizing new models of nonprofit leadership and for CounterPulse to be part of an important movement at the forefront of reimagining a thriving nonprofit workforce,” he said.

Julie Phelps sits for a portrait at CounterPulse’s building in San Francisco on March 3, 2023.

The letter also made demands for a nonhierarchical structure and collective decision making on staffing issues; union representation on the board of directors and in artistic programming; the company’s full commitment to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement; and improvements in pay and benefits. 

“We’re unionizing because we love CounterPulse, and we believe in the work CounterPulse does, and we want CounterPulse to always exist,” technician Jessi Barber declared before Tuesday’s vote, noting that she’s worked at many other arts organizations where progress on issues such as racial equity evaporates once a committed staff member departs. Unionizing, by contrast, creates a sturdier framework, “furthering the mission, operationalizing the mission,” she said.

Katherine Neumann dances during Charles Slender-White’s “Split,” a 15-minute and one-on-one experience by Fact/SF at CounterPulse on Sept. 7, 2021. Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle

Many theater workers at large companies such as BroadwaySF and the American Conservatory Theater have union contracts through trade-specific rather than venue-specific associations, covering thousands nationwide. For instance, Actors’ Equity Association represents actors and stage managers, while various sister unions cover stagehands and technicians, directors and choreographers, and scenic artists. But no nationwide theater trade union exists, for example, for the administrative staff who want to organize at CounterPulse. 

The company’s election could prove a model for other performing arts workers seeking better contracts amid successive waves of labor unrest throughout the country. It might also serve as an alternative to the distributive or collective leadership model many theater companies in the Bay Area have adopted in recent years, partly to address concerns similar to those expressed by CounterPulse workers. 

“Are: era” by Psueda at CounterPulse on April 13, 2021, in San Francisco. The art installation allowed pods of up to four audience members at a time inside as part of Combustible Residency 2021.

The vote comes after the pandemic and the racial reckoning of 2020 brought heightened scrutiny to labor conditions in the performing arts, with the We See You, White American Theatre collective and other groups publishing demands for more humane hours, salary transparency, racial equity and more. More immediately, it comes as nationwide disputes between labor and management about the Israel-Hamas war have riven even famously cushy workplaces such as Google. Taylor and Barber also cited worker organization drives at City Lights Bookstore and Peet’s Coffee as inspirations.

Prior to Tuesday, there have been two other recent successful union drives elsewhere in Bay Area arts. In March, employees at the Oakland Museum of California voted to organize, followed the next month by 34 workers at 50-year-old Creative Growth, the studio and gallery for artists with disabilities. Both Oakland shops unionized through the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Cultural Workers United. 

Sher-ron Freeman wears her own design during the Beyond Trend Runway event at the Oakland Scottish Rite Center on April 27, 2019. The event by Creative Growth featured the work of artists with developmental, mental and physical disabilities.

Creative Growth United member Sam Lefebvre cited a number of factors that last summer led him and his peers to start discussing the possibility of organizing, including “an overreliance on low-paid contractors and volunteer labor” with the prospect of stabler employment dangled only after a certain period of paying dues. 

“I think that’s really typical of employers in the arts,” Lefebvre said. “They expect the prestige or access of working in an arts organization to compensate for low pay. 

“Our workplace, like museums and other arts institutions around the country, agrees that you can’t eat prestige.”

Creative Growth Interim Executive Director Tom di Maria said the unionization “reflects our collective commitment to fostering an open, respectful, and supportive work environment.”

Audience members gather before “The Hands That Feed You” event at CounterPulse on Oct. 6, 2023. Noah Berger/Special to The Chronicle

While the long-standing American image of a union member is of a blue-collar worker at a large industrial company, John Logan, chair of the Labor and Employment Studies Department at San Francisco State University, said, “That is beginning to change.”

Cultural workers, he noted, fit the nationwide profile of young, college-educated and low-paid laborers whose interest in organizing was bubbling before —  and then was accelerated by —  the pandemic. Such workers are less interested in labor behemoths such as the AFL-CIO and more “attracted to the idea of being able to organize your own workplace, organize your co-workers,” he said. They’re also less likely to advocate for traditional union sticking points such as pensions, instead focusing on “cultural issues” such as “diversity in the workplace.”

Will Caldwell as Gene Goo, left, and Julie Phelps as Captain Phelps in CounterPulse’s “How We Spend Our Days.”

“These are workers who entered the paid workforce for the most part after the Great Recession of 2008,” he went on, explaining the shift in labor priorities as generational. “They’ve only ever known precarious employment situations.” Partly as a result of Black Lives Matter movement and campaigns for LGBTQ rights and abortion rights, “They tend to be more skeptical about the more brutal side of U.S. capitalism.” 

Then the pandemic spurred workers further. 

“They were working often for multibillion-dollar corporations who really didn’t appear to care that much if they lived or died,” he said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include responses from CounterPulse’s leadership.

Similarly, the job openings rate and the hiring rate have grown apart, as is shown in Figure 2. Both moved closely together from 2001 to early 2020, but then the job openings rate almost doubled, whereas the hiring rate held fairly steady.

Again, it is clear that the sharply elevated vacancy ratios during 2021-2023 do not correspond to a considerably tighter U.S. labor market as measured by a more strongly negative employment gap.

However, recent survey evidence suggests that many firms now advertise positions with no intention of any imminent hiring. Such information allows them to track the replacement cost of their current workforce in real-time and remind current employees that they could be dispensed with.

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unions can now do gladio-style operations, confirmed.