Labor News & Commentary February 11, 2024 Florida public sector unions begin to be decertified due to new anti-union....

[Omaha Steve]

https://onlabor.org/february-11-2024/

By Gilbert Placeres

Gilbert Placeres is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s News and Commentary, Los Angeles fast food workers launch the California Fast Food Workers Union, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo speaks of her offices’ plans for 2024, and Florida public sector unions begin to be decertified due to new anti-union state legislation.

On Friday, an estimated 350 Los Angeles fast food workers across different companies gathered to launch the California Fast Food Workers Union. The union is, quite uniquely, an industry-wide union where workers can remain members even if they change job locations or companies. It will not seek an election certified by the NLRB, which would require store by store organizing as most fast-food locations are owned by separate franchises. The new union is part of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and represents an evolution in the Fight for $15 to a more formal structure that includes dues paying membership. “Led by Black and Latino cooks and cashiers, the California Fast Food Workers Union is setting a shining example of what is possible,” said SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry while announcing the union.

Together with California’s FAST Act passed in 2022, which establishes a fast-food council made up of workers and corporate representatives that will set wages, benefits, and other working conditions, the new union helps approximate sectoral bargaining in the California fast-food industry. The union plans to push local governments for additional protections in areas outside the council’s purview through Fast Food Fair Work ordinances. Initial priorities include annual wage increases, just cause protections, and predictable and sustainable scheduling.

FULL story at link.