By Tammy Rodriguez, CA Department of Motor Vehicles
340,000 UPS workers are authorizing possible strikes, and 11,000 screenwriters are already on strike. PLUS, this July, 116,000 actors and performing artists went on strike too! On top of all that this summer, half a million SEIU members from across industries are bargaining for new labor contracts.
🔥 It’s unclear how far strikes will spread, but what is clear is that it's a historic #SolidaritySummer! 🔥
This summer, working people like me, from coast to coast and across industries, are demanding to be respected, protected, and paid. We’re rallying, calling on elected leaders, organizing, and showing up at the bargaining table to demand a future that we all deserve and have earned.
In late June, nearly 3,500 Starbucks workers across 150 stores went on strike to speak up about the unfair labor practices concerning Pride decorations in stores. They’re refusing to sit back quietly as Starbucks tries to silence workers! And now in July, Starbucks workers are on a city-to-city bus tour meeting workers & supporters and fighting for a first contract.
Airport service workers also turned up the heat! At American Airlines hubs across the country in late June, airport workers raised their voices over the greed that’s hurting passengers and workers alike. Airlines have failed to respect and ensure workers are paid fairly. Now, workers are demanding American Airlines stop adding to the travel crisis and exacerbating staffing shortages nationwide.
They’re also calling on Congress to do its job by ensuring that the wage and benefits standards from the Good Jobs for Good Airports Act are included in the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration currently moving through Congress. Solidarity!
My co-workers and I also showed up this summer! While 40,000 California child care providers have won their new contract, other state workers are still in this fight! We've rallied at California Governor Newsom’s doorstep to demand pay increases and GOOD benefits and will continue our demands until our voices are heard. There’s zero reason state employees, many of whom are women, Black, brown, and immigrants, should be making poverty wages and barely getting by!
Other public employees – from Maine to Virginia and Oregon to Connecticut – are demanding a voice at work too. Richmond City employees won their union in June after a decades-long fight! Incredible and history-making news!
Thousands of hospital workers at HCA Healthcare, the largest hospital corporation in the country, are also fighting and winning new contracts this summer to address short staffing, low pay, and patient care. Nursing home workers are fighting for better too. They're awaiting a critical government rule change, which would set the first-ever nationwide staffing standards.
To top it all off, this summer will be the start of an intense two years for 120,000 janitors in more than 30 cities! They will be fighting for new, fair contracts, and will be fighting to protect the standards they've established over the years and ensure they'll be protected, respected, and PAID for years and generations to come!
I’m proud to stand with all these workers, and proud to echo their demands to elected leaders and bosses. We’re fighting this summer — and we’re WINNING this summer. And not only that, we're calling for solidarity and Unions For All so we can make sure EVERY worker is protected, respected, and paid!
Make sure you get the latest so you're part of this historic #SolidaritySummer!
