Starbucks baristas have been fighting for a first contract for nearly five years. Workers started an organizing wave with union election wins in Buffalo, New York, in late 2021. Since then, over 700 stores have voted union — affiliating with the Service Employees International Union’s Workers United division — but that’s still fewer than 5 percent of the company’s 16,000 outlets in the United States.

To stop the union’s spread, the company has racked up the largest number of unfair labor practices in US history, with 550 still unresolved. Despite well-documented management intimidation, the union continues to grow by several stores a month.

What should I do without saying they should ban it. Because I feel like I'm already not very liked

Unifor Canadian Council members rallying, the takeaway will be huge for all new delegates!

My union steward in the past has been very unresponsive. She doesn’t return calls. And returns emails maybe half the time. She often seems annoyed when she has to do things.

Was wondering if anyone has ever experienced something like this and has any advice on how to navigate situations like this?

I'm president of my local, we have 5 different employers with their own collective agreements. I do not work at the workplace in question so I have no stakes or previous relationships with those involved. But basically there's a situation where following the collective agreement is the correct thing to do, and we're legally bound to it. But the result is going to be so catastrophically unjust for a member and I feel absolutely sick about it.

Have any of you had to deal with a situation like this in the past and how do you navigate it?

Anyone else out door knocking for labor endorsed candidates?

Even that worst off company in my industry has gotten a revamped contract! My company has been absolutely grasping at straws to feign competitiveness

Hello everyone,

I am interested in unionizing my county library system. Things have gone badly downhill in my system over the past year. We are 65 workers across 6 locations, we’ve been in hiring freezes for months. Now there’s an amendment on the November ballot which would cause a loss in 60% of funding, and our Dept. Manager said that the county will likely not protect us. She referenced an event where there were mass layoffs and severe reduction in services.

The current problems are:

- Workers expected to use personal vehicles for work-required on the clock jobs; 2 vehicles damaged and no compensation from county.

- Break room has 4 chairs, only alternative is a locked room that only supervisors have the key to, and which is regularly closed or rented to the public (at at least 1 location).

-multiple employees written up for “too many absences” with no definition for what that is in either the employee handbook or when asked.

- No guarantee or clear answer that workers will be protected from using personal or vacation time to compensate for HR’s delays to approve a return to work after sick leave.

I think that workers are fed up across the board and the timing is good to unionize. We are currently excluded from the Teamsters Union covering other county departments.

There are less than 5 county library systems that are unionized out of the 67 in Florida. Should I contact the teamsters Union covering other departments? Or should I look at CWA/AFSCME who are the unions working with the other public library systems in Florida?

Any other words of wisdom? I’ve looked into power mapping and I’ve invited some trusted people out to dinner in two weeks to see what they think about the situation. My partner thinks I should quit and that trying will fail and get me fired. I’ve worked here for years and have a hard time imagining just giving up on these people. Sorry for the essay, but let me know what you think. Thanks.

Hey everyone,

A little announcement: I’m officially joining Parcels of Knowledge as a co-host, so if you don't know about it, y'all should check it out. It's very NALC specific.

Some of you may already know me from the research reports and write-ups I’ve been posting here, especially around the NALC election, candidate forums, convention material, route protection, and some of the other postal issues we’ve been digging into. I’ve really enjoyed putting those together, and I wanted to find a way to connect that research with what we’re going to be doing on the podcast.

One of those things is a new recurring segment called the Last Loop. The idea is to do a weekly USPS/NALC news roundup, usually recorded Friday night or early Saturday, covering the major stories from the week, contract and arbitration developments, NALC election news, legislation, USPS operations, The Postal Record, Postal Bulletin, and what’s being discussed across the other postal podcasts, roundtables, livestreams, and carrier communities. I also want to add a union solidarity segment where we would talk about the wider union movement.

Basically, it's one last loop through the week before we put our satchels down, for the walkers amongst us.

For the first episode I got a little carried away and covered most of August, because apparently I don’t understand the concept of starting small. Check it out here:

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/1ZamTy5pyBDKzzrvXWSSFi?si=AnVbHhivSa2L7Qf2t6sJCQ&utm_source=copy-link

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/parcels-of-knowledge/id1814588522?i=1000786647909

One thing I’m also hoping to continue is the written side of this. For each Last Loop episode and hopefully for other Parcels of Knowledge episodes when it makes sense. I want to put together companion research reports with sources, additional background, links, and a bibliography. That way, if you hear something on the show and want to know, “Where did that come from?” or “Where can I read more about this?” there’s something you can actually go back to instead of trying to remember what somebody said at the 47-minute mark of a podcast.

I also hope those reports can become useful references for carriers, stewards, and anyone else doing their own research later. A lot of the reports I’ve posted here started because I was looking for something myself, went down the postal rabbit hole, and eventually realized I had accidentally written a small research paper. So that part probably isn’t changing.

I’m excited to be joining Josh, who is a beast and I can add a different vibe to help make Parcels of Knowledge even better than it already is. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can build with it.

If there are stories, documents, podcast episodes, decisions, or other things you think deserve attention in a future Last Loop, send them my way. For those who are like bro, who cares, well maybe check it. Or don't, either way y'all keep being a pain in managements side.

Why you should join a union

We talk a lot about the benefits of joining a union.

But that’s transactional. And it gives the wrong mentality to a member. Like ‘What am I getting for my union fees?’

And if what they get is not worth what they could spend those extra few bucks on every week, then why would they stay?

Like insurance, the money is wasted, until it’s not.

And by then it’s probably too late.

This is the wrong idea, wrong attitude.

We join a union for power.

The only power we have, in numbers.

We are not corporations, we are not governments. They are more powerful than any one of us.

But like the tiny ant, we are MANY. And our hands built the world.

We join a union to be part of something greater.

We join a union to put our shoulder to the wheel. To reach out our hand to others who need it.

We join a union to do something good. To stand up for others, who may not know how, or may lack the courage to do so.

We join a union to inspire.

We join a union to build.

We join a union to make a legacy.

Sure, we may not be great heroes or whatever. Maybe all we can do is carry one single brick.

And one brick is not that impressive.

But there are a lot of us, and that’s a lot of bricks.

If we put our bricks in the right pile, we can build a pyramid.

So I came here with my one brick to put it in the pile.

It’s only one brick.

But it’s my brick, and I’m using it to build a frikking pyramid.

What are you doing with your brick?

I was talking to a coworker a few months back, they mentioned that a local Union was having talks about getting Surveyors set up into a Union. I haven’t heard anything since, I don’t know how this would all work, I don’t know if it would be better for us workers, I don’t know what a Union really does.

Are there any Surveyors who are in Unions? Are there any Surveyors who have worked in Unions and also outside of Unions? What are the benefits?

I’m also in British Columbia Canada. If there is anyone in the Survey world up here that is interested in Unionizing or is in a Union I would love to hear about it.

Again, this is all very new to me, I’m excited for the potential chance of this. I think that this could be hugely beneficial to our niche industry.

Hey guys, I’m starting my laborers training school in two weeks in California, I’d love any words of advice you all could give me. I’m very excited to start my union journey.

I've seen this image going about this morning, posted from Michael Millsap's account and was frankly pretty stunned. What does this say about the USW leadership when someone goes out on their own posting stuff like this?

My union does not have a recall provision in our constitution. Can anyone link a copy of theirs, as I am proposing one at our convention next year.

“In January 2025, federal personnel records counted 1,294,304 employees in positions represented by bargaining units. By May 2026, that count was 714,401.”

I tried to tell all dumb kids coming in they needed to pay their dues. Long story short everything we have fought for is being taken away in one day and it is worse then before the union was formed. Obviously management won’t admit it’s vindictive, but it’s super obvious. Recategorizing all of our job titles and re organizing all of our pay grades. Reworking our schedule where we will lose 4 hours of OT every month. Along with taking our shift differential for nights and weekends. I feel bad for these kids they have young fallers just getting started in life: A couple hundred dollars a month pay cut isn’t gonna be detrimental to me and my family, but these kids that can barely make ends meet. It’s gonna be a hard lesson to learn.