Wegmans and local Teamsters officials will resume contract negotiations on Friday, and retirement benefits will be at the center of those talks. Last week, members of Teamsters Local 118, which represents approximately 900 Wegmans truck drivers and warehouse employees, rejected Wegmans’ final contract offer. Union leaders blasted the company’s proposal to move the union workers […]
labor
Posted inNews & Opinion
Week Ahead: Wegmans, Teamsters back in talks
Wegmans and representatives of Teamsters Local 118 are set to resume contract negotiations on Friday. Approximately 900 Wegmans truck drivers and warehouse employees are represented by the Teamsters. Last week, those employees rejected what Wegmans officials called the company’s final and best offer. At the center of the issue is a plan to change employees’ […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
ART: Roc and Seek
I’d like to play a game, Rochester. And since the weather’s been lovely (knock on ALL the wood), let’s take this game outdoors. I propose a challenge: a scavenger hunt of public artworks found in and around Rochester. Use the following clues to locate 9 works that might otherwise have missed your attention, whether due […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
‘A total labor movement’
The status of minorities in the American labor movement became clear to Bill Fletcher Jr. while he was riding a Boston bus in 1985. Fletcher, a graduate of Harvard who went to work on the shipyards in Quincy, Massachusetts, had become a union organizer in the Beantown area. But his experience was spoiled by institutional […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
We suffer much
I’m standing in the back of a camioneta with 15 Mexicans, heading to remote mountain villages in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, when a thought as clear as any I’ve ever had grabs my attention: “What in the hell am I doing here?” I’m in the back of that camioneta because I’d written about […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
No union at ECH — yet
The Episcopal Church Home and the National Labor Relations Board have reached a settlement over allegations that ECH used unfair labor practices to prevent the home’s 235 employees from unionizing. Employees at ECH initially approached 1199 SEIU Upstate because of dissatisfaction with benefits, staff turnover and shortages, lack of a clear pay scale for […]
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Slapping the hands that feed us
There’s a beauty and grace to picking cabbage. On a Brockport farm on a sunny June morning, men and machine move synchronously to harvest the crop. The pickers, three men ranging in age from early 30s to mid-40s, are bent over, slowly walking backward as a tractor continually pushes a large crate toward them. […]
