News & Commentary January 31, 2023

[Omaha Steve]

By Travis Lavenski

Travis Lavenski is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s news & commentary, Apple executives face Labor Board complaint; public school teachers in Woburn, Massachusetts are on strike for the second straight school day; UAW Presidential runoff election voting begins this week; and a recent Jacobin article discusses an app that could facilitate union organizing.

Prosecutors at the Labor Board say that executives at Apple may have violated that NLRA, Bloomberg reports. At issue is a 2021 all-staff email sent from CEO Tim Cook threatening to punish leakers and containing employee handbook policies pertaining to proscribed employee communications with those outside the company. The emails came after media reports regarding a company-wide meeting whose topics included hot button political issues such as the Texas anti-abortion bill and pay equity. The NLRB General Counsel’s office has stated their belief that Apple’s work rules and statements “tend to interfere with, restrain or coerce” Apple workers from exercising their collective action rights granted by the Labor Act. Board spokesperson Kayla Blado has stated that the Board’s regional director will issue a complaint unless the company settles.

Over 550 public school teachers are on strike in Woburn, Massachusetts today, cancelling classes for the second straight day. The teachers are striking to demand increased pay for paraprofessionals, smaller class sizes, physical education classes for elementary school students, among other things. The teachers unsuccessfully negotiated 25 times with the City before deciding to strike. Negotiations occurred yesterday during the first day of strike action, but stalled after 8-hours of talks. Currently, public teachers are forbidden to strike under Massachusetts law, leading the City to seek an injunction against the strike. A ruling against the teachers could either end the strike or lead to large fines. However, successful Massachusetts teacher strike actions in Brookline and Malden have recently proceeded the Woburn teachers strike.

FULL story: https://onlabor.org/january-31-2023/