This August, Chipotle workers at a store in Lansing, Michigan made history by becoming the first unionized restaurant. On August 25th they voted 11-3 to join the Teamsters Local 243. What’s important to note is that these workers may be the first “recognized” union but they weren’t the first to file. Two months prior, Chipotle workers at a location in Augusta, Maine became the first store in the US to file for a union election with the NLRB. However, a month later, the fast food chain unexpectedly closed the store in Augusta, denying that it was related to union organizing. The 43-15 podcast talked with Brandi Mcnease, a co-founder of Chipotle United, who lost her job when the Augusta store closed.

Today, LaborLab released a groundbreaking interactive analysis of the union-busting industry: an LM-20 Scorecard, which brings to light a very serious crisis of transparency and accountability within the union-busting industry.

Target is one of the top ten retailers in the United States, according to the National Retail Federation, raking in nearly $105 billion in sales in 2021. Adam Ryan and Mary Yarn, are two Target workers organizing their respective stores in Virginia and Colorado at the multi billionaire dollar retail chain. The 43-15 podcast spoke with the two organizers and the similarity of their accounts on the company’s union-busting tactics points to a deeply connected industry.

Listen to the 43-15 episode here

What was a contract negotiation for public sector workers in Ontario has turned into something far bigger - a solidarity action and political protest to protect the rights and freedoms of all workers across Canada.

As big brands like Amazon, Starbucks, and Chipotle lash back at worker organizing, union-busting is getting long overdue exposure in the press. But while the stories graphically depict the problem, they don’t offer any solutions.

Earlier this year, Connecticut did something incredible: it became the third state in the U.S. to ban captive audience meetings. Now, the Chamber of Commerce is taking the state to court. 

In the union-organizing campaigns of the 1930s, companies paid legions of spies to report everyone who attended a union meeting and what was said. Union meetings were held at night in pitch dark rooms so that no one could tell who else was there and who said what. Today, Starbucks needn’t hire spies. They just use subpoenas in civil litigation. In an outrageous decision, Judge John Sinatra, a Trump appointee in the Western District of New York, let them get away with it. The matter is now on appeal in the Second Circuit, and if the court of appeals does not overturn the ruling, it will turn any enforcement action brought by the National Labor Relations Board into a hunting license for companies to harass unions and workers.

Want to know more (or something) about LM-20s? You've come to the right place. 

Nearly 200 concerned citizens signed LaborLab’s petition supporting the change in Form LM-10 proposed by the Office of Labor-Management Standards, U.S. Department of Labor.  Our thanks to all of you who did so.

Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, advocating for better working conditions, are being threatened by Sysco management and even arrested for exercising the right to strike.