Non-traditional labor organizing grows

Dirt Diggers Digest - Remarkable is the announcement by Wal-Mart Stores that it will raise the wages of all its U.S workers to at least $9 an hour. Wal-Mart, the country’s largest private sector employer, remains entirely non-union, but the move is an indication of the impact that labor groups such as Making Change at Walmart and OUR Walmart have had on the giant retailer. Their work is far from done; $9 an hour is still too low and there are many other reforms the company needs to make. But the fact that Wal-Mart, which has a notoriously intransigent history, has budged is a significant achievement.

The non-traditional organizing at Wal-Mart is just one example of alternative approaches to building worker power. Others include the minority union model being tested by the United Auto Workers at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee and the worker center model employed by groups such as ROC United.

Wikipedia - The Restaurant Opportunities Centers United is a not-for-profit organization and worker center with affiliates in a number of cities across the United States. Its mission is to improve wages and working conditions for the nation's low wage restaurant workforce. Its tactics and strategy have drawn fire from business groups and restaurant industry lobbyists.
As of 2013, ROC claimed to represent 13,000 restaurant workers, 100 employers and 2,000 consumer members in 32 cities across the United States. The group was founded with funding from multiple foundations with a stated goal to “organize all unorganized restaurant workers in New York City.”





LA Times, December 2014  - In a significant victory for union efforts in the South, United Auto Workers has been certified to represent at least 45% of workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., a step just short of full collective bargaining rights.

The vote by workers at the plant means the UAW qualifies as a "top-tier" labor group entitled to hold meetings on plant property and meet regularly with company representatives. "This is not a union recognition vote -- it doesn’t involve collective bargaining," said Arthur Wheaton, a professor at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. "But it does allow the UAW to be an employee organization representing a percentage of the workers."

The vote comes after years of failed UAW attempts to unionize foreign-owned automakers in the South, including the Chattanooga plant. A vote of greater than 50% under a certified National Labor Relations Board election is required for full union representation, according to Wheaton.