CODE-CWA Newsletter: January 10, 2025
CODE-CWA Celebrates Five Years of Organizing
This year, our campaign turns five years old! Since we launched in 2020, over 6,000 tech and video game workers have organized to improve workplace conditions, win historic contracts, and build worker power across the industry. And we're just getting started.
Join us on Saturday, January 11 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET for an introduction to unions and organizing conversations training. All levels of experience are welcome and encouraged!
Join us on Sunday, January 19 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET for a building the organizing committee training, where we talk about how to build a strong organizing committee.
Check out the CODE-CWA organizer training program for even more upcoming trainings!
SEIU Joins AFL-CIO to Build Unprecedented Worker Power, Win Unions for All Workers
On January 8, the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced that they are reuniting to launch a new, long-term effort to make it easier for workers to win a voice on our jobs with their unions. Two million SEIU service and care workers will join the nearly 13 million-member AFL-CIO, and together, these powerful organizations will push back on union-busting and win for working-class families.
At a critical moment when everything is on the line for the nation’s working people, the labor movement is uniting to challenge the status quo and build a movement of workers who will fight—on the job, in the streets, at the ballot box, in our communities—for higher pay, expanded benefits and new rules that empower them to join together in unions and organize across industries. This new era of building worker power comes under the strong leadership of Liz Shuler and April Verrett, whose vision for the future is inclusive and innovative.
Read the full press release here.
New York Times Tech Guild Ratify Historic First Tech Contract with NY Times
The NewsGuild of New York, which represents the Times Tech Guild, and New York Times management have ratified a historic three-year contract just over a month after the Tech Guild’s election week ULP strike. This contract marks the end of more than two years of bargaining, which began shortly after the unit won its NLRB election by a landslide in March 2022.
Among the contract highlights:
- Enhanced job security with ‘just cause’ protections
- Guaranteed wage increases for the first time of up to 8.25% (plus additional base rate discretionary compensation) that prioritize the largest wage increases for the lowest paid members over the life of the contract
- Additional compensation for on-call work
- Important protections that lock in guardrails on additional variable compensation (including stocks and bonuses)
- Improved protections for workers on visas
- Language guaranteeing flexible hybrid work schedules
- Process and transparency protections related to career growth, performance reviews and other workplace issues
“We’re thrilled to reach an agreement that secures ‘just cause’ protections, sustains workplace flexibility, and guarantees annual raises for our members,” said Kathy Zhang, a Senior Analytics Manager at The New York Times and unit chair of the Tech Guild. “These first contract wins set a strong foundation for job protections that our colleagues will build upon for generations. I could not be more proud to have been part of organizing this strong, fighting union. Serving on our first bargaining committee has been the honor of a lifetime.”
Meow Wolf Workers Ratify Inaugural Contract
In December, members of Meow Wolf Workers Collective (CWA Local 7055) at the Omega Mart location in Las Vegas, Nev., ratified their first contract, joining fellow Meow Wolf members in Denver, Colo., and Santa Fe, N.M.
Workers won several improvements, including an average wage increase of 19.23% over 3.5 years, greater worker protections from termination, and improvements to scheduling and working conditions.
Meow Wolf is an immersive art space where both full-time staff artists and local artists collaborate to create media including sculpture, painting, fabrication, digital art, writing, and film.
January 5, 1869 – The nation’s first labor convention of Black workers was held in Washington, D.C., with 214 delegates forming the Colored National Labor Union.
January 11, 1995 – National Hockey League owners end a player lockout that had gone for three months and 10 days.
CODE-CWA Newsletter: December 20, 2024