john,

As we prepare to launch our Labor 2022 program, I wanted to update you on our plan to build power for working Arizonans this election cycle and beyond.

The Labor 2022 program is where union members contact other union members about the importance of voting for Arizona's pro-worker candidates for elected office. We know that by talking to union households about our shared values, we can elect champions for Arizona's workers and in turn, make real progress for working people.

In 2020, we saw firsthand what the power of collective action could accomplish. Arizona’s labor movement mobilized in unprecedented numbers and as a result, we secured historic funding and investment in our nation’s infrastructure, helped striking workers secure better contracts, and kept our country moving forward through a global pandemic.

Now, we are tasked with bolstering the infrastructure that delivered wins for workers in 2020. In order to build on our momentum, we are working with the national AFL-CIO to hire six full-time organizers statewide and will be implementing state-of-the-art organizing tools that will pave the way for a stronger, more united labor movement in Arizona and across the country.

As we work to build a program that will strengthen our movement, we want to hear from you. What are the issues that you are most concerned about in 2022? Please fill out the national AFL-CIO’s 2022 union member survey, which can be found in the “Upcoming Events & Actions” section of this week’s Dispatch issue, and help us ensure that our work focuses on the issues that most impact Arizona’s working families.

It is an honor to stand shoulder to shoulder with you in our collective fight for economic justice and safety at work. Let’s get to work!

In solidarity,

Fred Yamashita
Executive Director
Arizona AFL-CIO

2022 Union Member Issue Survey

Union members worked together across the labor movement to win many important victories for working people last year. But there’s still so much we can do together. Passing pro-worker laws will strengthen us at the bargaining table so we can care for ourselves and our families. Union members need to be talking to each other about the issues so we can work together to advance our shared agenda. That’s why we’re asking: “What do you care about?” Please click below to fill out the survey and together we can improve the lives of working people across the country!

Find a picket line!

The pandemic laid bare the inequities of our system. Working people want safe jobs with good health care, flexibility, sick leave, and where they feel respected and valued. Working people feel a new sense of power and leverage. They’re looking at work in a different way. Click on the map below to see where workers are on strike across the country.

Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers' Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls

On June 18, please join the AFL-CIO at 9 a.m. ET as we support The Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls. During the march, hosted by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, we will come together in Washington, D.C., with state leaders, faith communities, moral allies and partnering organizations to not only take substantive action, but also to make our voices heard and demand an end to systemic inequality in all its forms. We will declare an ongoing, committed moral movement to: shift the moral narrative, build power, make real policies to fully address poverty and low wealth from the bottom up. It is imperative that this country live up to its possibilities and promises so every person can live a life of dignity and respect.

Workers Can Win at Starbucks and Amazon and Beyond

"The historic union victories at Amazon and Starbucks have shattered any illusions that corporate giants are invincible to labor organizing. Let's make Amazon and Starbucks the start of a massive wave of unionization."

"There's so many of us": Arizona Starbucks workers speak exclusively with NewsBreak about ongoing labor battle

"There is also what Dalton told NewsBreak recently in an exclusive interview — that her fight is really just beginning. 'It's not about winning or losing now,' she said. 'It's about having a fair election and being able to actually have a voice without being threatened.' Dalton, a former partner at the Starbucks café on Scottsdale Road and Mayo Boulevard, has been a relentless presence within Starbucks' workers' nationwide unionizing push — particularly since her April 4 firing made national headlines."

A Vote by Activision Workers Could Give Unions a Foothold in Gaming

"Discontent over working conditions at video game companies has been growing for years, driven by anger about the crunch periods experienced by Ms. Gonzalez, as well as by poor pay, temporary contracts and sexual harassment in the workplace. Now some game workers are considering unionization, which would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Their interest has also been fueled partly by low unemployment rates, which have led workers to believe they have more leverage over their employers, as well as a lawsuit last year that thrust Activision’s problems with sexual misconduct and gender discrimination out into the open."

Trader Joe’s workers push to unionize amid wave of organizing efforts

"Organizers have begun a unionization campaign at the upscale supermarket chain Trader Joe’s after workers at a branch in Hadley, Massachusetts, announced they were forming a union and intend to file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election. It would be the first unionized Trader Joe’s store out of more than 530 locations in the US. Workers are organizing independently, citing the similar framework of the Amazon Labor Union, which is not affiliated with traditional, established labor unions."

The Supreme Court Just Gutted Another Constitutional Right

"That’s how it’s supposed to work. But just as there is an indigent defense crisis in this country, there is also a post-conviction crisis. Post-conviction proceedings are woefully underfunded, and lawyers are limited in the time and resources they have to pursue post-conviction relief. So defendants who are represented by ineffective lawyers at trial may then be represented by an ineffective lawyer during their post-conviction proceedings, when they are supposed to be arguing that their trial lawyer was ineffective. And—surprise—the ineffective post-conviction lawyer may fail to argue that the trial lawyer was ineffective, or may fail to develop any evidence in support of that claim."

Could Netflix be the next big tech company to unionize?

"Employee-organized protests around workplace culture issues have been on the rise in recent years. In 2018, thousands of Google employees staged a walkout in protest over the company’s handling of sexual harassment. In December, Apple Store retail workers walked off the job in an effort to secure better working conditions. And last month, Amazon workers successfully organized to form a union."

Revealed: Starbucks fired over 20 US union leaders in recent months

“Laila Dalton, a shift supervisor at Starbucks for about three years in Phoenix, Arizona, was fired the day before her store’s union election ballots were being sent out.”

These Are The Workers Who Took on Amazon, and Won

"After leading a walkout over Covid-19 safety at Amazon’s mammoth JFK8 warehouse in March 2020, the first month of the pandemic, Smalls and his coorganizers took their rebellion on the road that summer. Outside Bezos’ mansions — a $165 million Beverly Hills home, a waterfront estate outside Seattle and a Fifth Avenue Manhattan penthouse — the group staged demonstrations denouncing income inequality and demanding wage hikes and protections for workers given the pandemic designation of ​'essential.'"

Arizona again near bottom of states for per pupil spending, Census says

"Arizona was again among the worst states in the nation for per pupil spending on K-12 education in 2020, a ranking that advocates said was embarrassing but not surprising. The numbers from a recent Census Bureau report said Arizona spent $8,785 per pupil in 2020, ahead of only Utah and Idaho that year. And it was dead last – 51st among states and the District of Columbia – when it came to the amount spent on actual instruction, at $4,801 per pupil. Both were well below the national average of $13,494 overall and $8,176 on instruction per pupil for that year."

Arizona's unemployment rate is at its lowest since the '70s; here's what job-seekers should keep in mind

“Arizona’s unemployment rate is now at 3.2%, the lowest on record since 1976… Doug Walls, the Labor Market Information Director for the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity, said the low unemployment rate is a sign of how Arizona’s economy has grown over the last year and a half.”

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