Labor News & Commentary November 21, Amazon workers at company's largest air facility on the West Coast start union driv

https://onlabor.org/november-21-2024/

By Luke Hinrichs Luke Hinrichs is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s news and commentaries, workers at an electric vehicle battery production complex in Kentucky launch unionization campaign to join the UAW; Amazon workers at company’s largest air facility on the West Coast start union drive to join the Teamsters; and medical residents and fellows affiliated with Brown University organize to join CIR/SEIU Healthcare.

A supermajority of workers at an upcoming BlueOval SK (BOSK) battery production complex in Glendale, Kentucky signed union authorization cards to launch a public campaign to join the United Auto Workers (UAW). The BOSK complex is a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and SK On, a South Korean partner of Ford, to produce batteries for Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles. The almost $6 billion battery park project is set to start manufacturing in 2025. The UAW has not yet filed to seek a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Amazon workers at the KSBD air hub in San Bernardino, California have officially launched an organizing drive to join the Teamsters Union. The KSBD warehouse has already been the site of significant worker organizing as workers at the air facility have petitioned for higher wages, heat safety measures and safer working conditions in addition to engaging in walkouts and strikes over alleged unfair labor practices. Amazon employs over 1,300 workers at the airhub facility.

Roughly 950 medical residents and fellows affiliated with Brown University and employed across four hospitals are seeking representation with SEIU Healthcare’s Committee of Interns & Residents (CIR). The residents and fellows work at hospitals within two separate healthcare systems affiliated with Brown’s Warren Alpert School of Medicine: Brown University Health, formerly known as Lifespan Health, and Care New England Health. In separate filings submitted to the NLRB, 721 Brown medical residents and fellows in programs affiliated with the Brown University Health, and all 229 residents and fellows at Care New England are seeking to join the Local 1957 chapter of CIR.