Because Peet’s has deep roots in the Bay Area, other workers nearby could be inspired by the unionizing efforts of their colleagues and start their own, said Ken Jacobs, the chair of UC Berkeley’s Labor Center.
Incremental wage increases might not solve the housing problems for working people in expensive areas like Sonoma, but coupled with other benefits like expanded childcare that unions like Unite Here have been able to wrangle from employers, it’s a step, said Ken Jacobs.
Ken Jacobs is keeping an eye on Peet’s. A key next step, he said, will be for the recently unionized workers to draft their demands ahead of negotiations. Depending on how the company approaches these developments, the first round of contract bargaining can be a very tough one for the unionizing workers.
Enrique Lopezlira, an economist at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, said wage gaps are in part caused by discrimination. He pointed to studies that show that resumes with traditionally white-sounding names were more likely to be contacted by employers than similar resumes that used Black-sounding names.
The largest strike in U.S. academic history, across all 10 University of California campuses, is the latest example of the comeback unions are making.
Announcing a union without driving for a contract, “Has not been common in the United States,” said Ken Jacobs.
Labor Center researcher Lopezlira said his organization is beginning research on why the public sector has seen slow recovery in employment staffing since the pandemic. He said the city’s lack of affordable housing could be one of the causes of the high number of vacancies in government positions.
The best strategy for Hill staffers seeking unionization, Jacobs said, would be to “negotiate some agreements with sympathetic congressional offices,” and then create a template of a contract for other offices to organize around.
Ken Jacobs explains why support for unions is higher than it’s been since the 1960s, and why the wave of Starbucks unionization is unlikely to end anytime soon.
The franchise business model that dominates the fast-food industry creates a layer of separation between workers and parties responsible for working conditions, a recent UCLA study states.
Annette Bernhardt, along with Lisa Kresge and Reem Suleiman of the labor center, released a report on Wednesday outlining how employees in a variety of industries are tracked and surveilled in the course of doing their jobs, and what rights workers should have over how information about them is collected, stored and used.
A data tool from the UC Berkeley Labor Center is tracking the state’s uneven economic recovery, looking at how rolling, pandemic-driven rounds of hiring and firing have affected people from different backgrounds and in different jobs.
According to the UC Berkeley Labor Center, one in 10 low-income workers experiences wage theft in California. Violations range from getting paid below minimum wage to working off the clock or without overtime pay, resulting in thousands of dollars in lost compensation per worker.
One factor that has been shown to drive up wages in a given area is penetration of unions. “In unionized settings you are more likely to see both higher wages and better benefits,” said Ken Jacobs, who chairs the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
“It’s a uniquely American problem that so many people have to rely on crowdsourcing to pay for their health care,” said Laurel Lucia, director of the health care program at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center. “It shows how many people are left out of our system and how unaffordable care has become.”
“The employer is still requiring the employees to come to work — they’re not laying them off,” Muñoz said. “Clearly, they have a need for them. They’re thinking about how to make their bottom line and continue to get their business to be productive. But what about on the other end?”
“AB5 was always about so much more than Uber and Lyft and (app-based) delivery drivers,” said Jacobs, who co-wrote a research paper looking at who was covered by AB5. “They make up a small fraction of the millions of Californians covered under the law.”
A UC Berkeley Labor Center study said Uber and Lyft would have owed California $413 million for unemployment between 2014 and 2019 if drivers were employees.
Many people just want to get through 2020, but labor organizer Jane McAlevey believes we can set our sights higher than simply surviving.
California’s Assembly Bill 5 went into effect in January. The law stops companies from misclassifying their employees as independent contractors. As California grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, the new law has illustrated how critical workplace protections are — particularly for those who are misclassified and treated like independent businesses when they are, in fact, employees.
“Right at the same moment that workers are facing greater risk, they are being asked to take cuts. It’s not surprising that you would see a pretty big reaction,” said Ken Jacobs, chair of the Labor Center at UC Berkeley.
Many workers who will benefit from the wage hikes have continued working through the perils of the pandemic, including retail and grocery workers, as well as those in elder care, according to Ken Jacobs of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
A report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, which has been vocal in its belief that drivers should be employees, said that Uber and Lyft would have had to pay $413 million into the state unemployment insurance fund from 2014 to 2019 if their drivers had been employees.
