Labor News & Commentary May 5, 2024 UC graduate workers will vote on striking in response to protest crackdowns & more

https://onlabor.org/may-5-2024/

By Gilbert Placeres

Gilbert Placeres is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s News & Commentary, Shawn Fain calls for a general strike on May Day 2028, House Democrats release a report calling out toothless penalties for labor and employment law violations, and University of California graduate workers will vote on striking in response to protest crackdowns.

In In These Times, UAW President Shawn Fain called on all unions to align their contract expiration dates with May Day 2028 to prepare for a general strike. He believes uniting across industries and countries will make the labor movement much more powerful, citing the Teamsters commitment not to deliver parts to struck plants during the UAW’s historic Big 3 automakers strike last year. He argues the labor movement needs to think bigger and unite across countries to combat a “race to the bottom” where countries locate production in places with cheap labor, weak environmental standards, and generous tax cuts and subsidies. American unions, according to him, need to accept the “hard truth” that “it is impossible to protect American jobs while ignoring the plight of everyone else.” He closes by calling on the labor movement to “spend the next four years getting prepared” for a general strike that can win universal healthcare and a right to retire with dignity.

Democrats on the U.S. House Committee on Education & the Workforce released a report highlighting the weakness of civil penalties on employers who violate workers’ rights and calling for them to be strengthened. The report argues the low penalties do not deter employers from violating labor and employment law but instead can be absorbed as part of the “cost of doing business.” For instance, the median penalty by OSHA when a worker gets killed on the job ($14,063) is less than the median CEO car allowance ($15,000). Titled “A Slap On The Wrist: How It Pays For Unscrupulous Employers To Take Advantage Of Workers,” the report focuses on penalties for illegally employing children, stealing workers’ wages, violating organizing rights, unsafe workplaces, and failing to provide essential mental health and substance use disorder benefits. A write-up on the report describes it as a response to an employer crime spree, given the estimated yearly $50 billion in wage theft and nearly 20,000 reported unfair labor practices last year.

FULL story at link above.