Clear It with Sidney | Hillman Foundation

Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

Clear It with Sidney

Sidney's Picks: Inside a Brooklyn Sweatshop

The Best of the Week’s News

Sidney's Picks: Starbucks Stops Fighting Union

The Best of the Week’s News

  • More than half of workers at the Vanz Mercedes-Benz plant in AL have signed cards to join the UAW in the first successful union drive at the plant in its 27-year history. 
     
  • Amazon paid $1.9 million to compensate migrant workers after International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and its partners exposed Amazon’s exploitative labor practices in Saudi Arabia. (Guardian, ICIJ)
     
  • In a major breakthrough, Starbucks and Workers United agree to move forward together to create a framework for contract talks. (Prospect, Starbucks Press, NYT)
     
  • Proposed law in Arizona would make it legal for property owners to kill migrants on their land. (NBC)

Starbucks Asked To Disclose $240M Spent on Union-Busting

Photo credit: 

Weighing the coffee beans, Matthew Bellemare, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News
 

  • Union-backed shareholders ask SEC to make Starbucks level with investiors about the $240 million the company has spent on union-busting. (Reuters)
     
  • Labor Department says Fayette Janitorial LLC illegally hired 24 children to clean two slaughter houses, including the head-splitters and bandsaws. (NBC)
     
  • How to save the collapsing U.S. media. (Jacobin)
     
  • A formerly unhoused journalist reports on the spiraling housing crisis from the tents, cars, motels, and couches of America. (NYT)
     
  • Alexei Navalny’s mother says the Russian government is blackmailing her, refusing to releae his body unless she agrees to a secret burial. (Axios)
     
  • How part-time schedules wreak havoc on workers’ lives. (NYT)

Sidney's Picks: Putin Critic Alexei Navalny Dies in Prison As Election Nears

Photo credit: 

Prachatai, Creative Commons.

  • Anti-corruption crusader and Putin critic Alexei Navalny dies in prison, depriving Russia of key voice as election nears. (WaPo)
     
  • Concertina wire installed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott is maiming migrants on the border. (HuffPo)
     
  • A trove of documents sheds light on the legal malfeasance behind the January 6 insurrection. (TPM)
     
  • New law takes heavy toll on Florida’s labor unions. (WLRN)
     
  • Labor names housing affordability as its number one issue. (Guardian)

Sidney's Picks: Dartmouth Hoops Players Cleared to Unionize

The Best of the Week’s News
 

  • NLRB judge rules that Dartmouth’s basketball players are employees of the university, gives the first NCAA players the right to organize a union. (AP)
     
  • A 16-year-old boy died after being pulled into an industrial chicken-boning machine at the plant where he worked. (Law & Crime)
     
  • New podcast explores the history, strategy, and significance of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). (Organizing the Unorganized)
     
  • Labor judge orders Starbucks to reinstate barista who was forced out for organizing at the first Buffalo store. (AP)
     
  • Guardian Angel vigilante group roughs up an alleged heckler for Fox News cameras, falsely accuses him of shoplifting. (NYMag)
     
  • More than 30% of Hyundai autoworkers in Montgomery, AL have joined a UAW union drive. (ITT)

Sidney's Picks: Golden Arches Made with Prison Labor

The Best of the Week’s News

 

    •     McDonald’s, Walmart and Cargill use food from hidden prison labor network. (AP)

 

    •    Biden cracks down on extremists in the West Bank attacking Palestinians and peace activists. (WaPo)
 

    •    This teacher was sanctioned for teaching Between the World And Me, but she’s trying again. (WaPo)
 

    •    SpaceX and Trader Joes launch major legal attack on labor. (Guardian)
 

    •    The UAW saved a Stellantis plant, but these workers are still fighting to get back to work. (In These Times)
 

    •    Killing the Messenger: An inside look at the death of a media company (NY Mag)

 

Sidney's Picks: Texas Defies Supreme Court, Dares POTUS to Respond

Photo credit: 

Thomas Hawk, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News:

Sidney's Picks: Koch-Backed Supreme Court Challenge Imperils Environment

Photo credit: 

Herring fishery, by Deborah Freeman, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News 

Sidney's Picks: Crackdown on "Ghost Tags" After Sidney-Winning Exposé

Photo credit: 

Illustration by Martin Schapiro, courtesy of Streetsblog.

The best of the week’s news

  • Licenses yanked from dozens of car dealerships after Sidney-winning exposé of illegal “ghost tags.” (Streetsblog)  
     
  • National Labor Relations Board blocks bid to dissolve Starbucks union at Mall of America. (MN Reformer)  
     
  • Elmore Nickleberry, one of the last living participants in the Memphis sanitation strike of 1968, dies at age 92. (NYT)  
     
  • The “legitimate shell company” that Oversight Chair James Comer initially denied owning was shut down twice. (Daily Beast)  
     
  • Big Oil drops eight figures on ads to derail action on the climate crisis. (Guardian)

Sidney's Picks: Starbucks Faces Mounting Pressure

Photo credit: 

Mike MozartCreative Commons

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Organizers keep the pressure on Starbucks in 2024. (NYT)
     
  • Hillman Prize-winner Julie K. Brown discusses the newly unsealed trove of Jeffrey Epstein papers. (NPR)
     
  • Elon Musk illegally fired eight SpaceX workers for criticizing him, NLRB alleges. (Fortune)
     
  • Companies like Trader Joes use endless delays to wear down workers seeking their first union contracts. (Guardian) 
     
  • Nerds Unite: Fantasy role-playing staffers vote to join Workers United. (NYT)
     
  • Donald Trump received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his term in office, House Dems report. (MSNBC)

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