Labor News & Commentary April 17, 2024 Google employees occupy company offices to protest contracts with the Israeli gov

https://onlabor.org/april-17-2024/

By Everest Fang

Everest Fang is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s news and commentary: Southern governors oppose UAW organizing in their states, Florida bans local heat protections for workers, and Google employees occupy company offices to protest contracts with the Israeli government.

Yesterday, the governors of six Southern states warned their residents that joining the United Auto Workers (UAW) would threaten jobs and “the values we live by.” The joint statement from the Republican governors came just a day before 4,300 Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee are set to start voting on whether to join the union. As Sunah wrote yesterday, several conservative politicians in Tennessee have spoken against the union, urging Volkswagen workers to vote no. The governors’ announcement adds high-profile firepower to the union’s opposition. “The reality is companies have choices when it comes to where to invest and bring jobs and opportunity,” the governors of Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas wrote. “Unionization would certainly put our states’ jobs in jeopardy.” Democrats in Tennessee criticized the governors, and voiced support for the UAW. Workers at the Tennessee plant will cast ballots from Wednesday through Friday evening.

Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation barring local and municipal governments from requiring their own heat protections for workers. The law restricts local authorities from “[r]equiring an employer, including an employer contracting with the political subdivision, to meet or provide heat exposure requirements not otherwise required under state or federal law” or “[g]iving preference, or considering or seeking information, in a competitive solicitation to an employer based on the employer’s heat exposure requirements,” according to a summary released by the Legislature. The bill’s passage comes after the state’s most populous county, Miami-Dade, considered local heat protection rules that would have required employers to provide shade, water and 10-minute breaks to workers every two hours on days over a certain heat threshold. County commissioners rejected the proposal in November over concerns it would hamstring businesses. The new bill makes Florida the second state, after Texas, to ban local heat protections.

FULL story at link above.