* The Washington Post…

Companies that illegally fire or demote unionizing workers can now be held responsible for workers’ financial demise — including credit card late fees, lost housing or cars and health-care costs — in a move that could help some workers who have been fired from Starbucks and Amazon, labor activists say.

In a big win for labor unions, the National Labor Relations Board ruled on Tuesday to expand the fees and penalties the agency can collect from employers that illegally terminate workers for labor activism, both union and nonunion, in a move long sought after by the labor movement.

“Employees are not made whole until they are fully compensated for financial harms that they suffered as a result of unlawful conduct,” said labor board chair Lauren McFerran in a statement.

For decades, employers that fired workers for their involvement in labor organizing — a legally protected activity — have only had to pay for the employee’s reinstatement and lost wages. But labor advocates say that has amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist, especially for major employers with deep pockets such as Amazon and Starbucks.

* Daily Herald…

Employees at the Starbucks coffee shop at 2760 Willow Road in Glenview on Dec. 6 voted 18-0 in favor of forming a union.

“It was honestly my pipe dream of a best-case scenario, so our entire organizing committee is incredibly proud and excited, beyond words,” said [Melissa] Lee-Litowitz, who heads the organizing committee for Starbucks Store No. 247 with fellow shift supervisor Tianna Lavalle.

Full- and part-time baristas, and shift supervisors were allowed to vote, according to the National Labor Relations Board. The Willow and Pfingsten Starbucks has 22 eligible employees, but not all were present to vote in either the morning or afternoon voting slots on Dec. 6. […]

It’s been a busy year for employees seeking to organize as entities of Starbucks Workers United within the Service Employees International Union.

* Interesting insight from the New York Times…

In 2021, as in 2007, Mr. Schultz was no longer chief executive when the company took a turn that clashed with his idea of what Starbucks should be: Its workers began to unionize. Between last December and April, when Mr. Schultz abruptly replaced Kevin Johnson as chief executive, workers at dozens of company-owned stores filed paperwork for union elections.

Mr. Schultz, 69, appears intent on defusing interest in a union before he leaves the company next spring for the third — and, dare one say, final — time. He has thrown himself into providing new benefits and wage increases, but withheld them from employees in the union, which represents about 2 percent of the company’s U.S. work force of more than 250,000. When asked in an interview in June if he could ever imagine embracing the union, Mr. Schultz responded with a single immovable word: No.

He has alluded to a downside for customers, and some labor experts argue that a union could seek to limit the number of syrups, powders and foams that can be added to drinks, as a way to ease the burden on baristas. Such “modifiers” brought in about $1 billion during the last fiscal year and have helped drive record revenues.

But friends and longtime colleagues say Mr. Schultz’s opposition to the union isn’t primarily about the bottom line. It’s emotional. A union clashes with his image of Starbucks as a model employer. “It’s a sore for him, I guarantee you,” said Willard Hay, a former senior vice president at the company. (Mr. Schultz declined to comment for this article.)

The stakes extend far beyond Starbucks. The union campaign has helped give rise to labor organizing at a variety of other companies, including Apple, Trader Joe’s and REI. If the union manages to wring significant concessions from Starbucks, it could accelerate organizing elsewhere and help change the relationship between management and labor across the country.

* School of the Art Institute adjunct professors and lecturers have joined the union wave, the Sun-Times reports…

Adjunct professors and lecturers at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago have voted overwhelmingly to unionize with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The non-tenure-track faculty at the school will join the union’s Council 31, which has had a string of organizing wins here. It already represents staff at the Art Institute itself and its school.

The faculty’s mailed-in ballots were counted Tuesday in the Chicago offices of the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that supervises union votes. AFSCME said the result was 377-33 to unionize.

AFSCME said more than 600 faculty members will join the other unionized workers at the museum and the school. They call themselves Art Institute of Chicago Workers United.

A faculty committee issued a statement hailing the vote, calling it “an AICWU three-peat that sends a crystal-clear message to our president, provost and board: We know our worth, we know how critical our labor is to our institution, and we know it’s time to put it in writing.”

* The Register-Mail…

Members and supporters of local chapters of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers union (SMART) gathered in the rain Tuesday afternoon for a rally in Galesburg’s central park.

The group of about 30 people included many rail workers who assembled to raise awareness and show support for several quality-of-life measures that have been left out of their new labor agreement with BNSF, particularly paid sick leave and a change to the company’s attendance policy. […]

According to the National Carriers’ Conference Committee, the new agreement will include a “24 percent wage increase, maintain platinum-level health care, add an additional day of paid time off, and address several craft-specific issues, including issues relating to quality of life.”

But for many at the rally on Tuesday, the new agreement lacks critical measures and the 24 percent wage increase only meets the rising cost of living.

* More…

* Sun-Times | Bally’s $1.7 billion River West casino gets final zoning approval from City Council: Burnett, who had been the casino’s biggest champion, threatened to “raise a lot of hell” if he didn’t see in writing the minority hiring agreements Bally’s had made with labor unions. For years, Burnett has criticized those same trade unions for shortchanging minorities. But after being bombarded with phone calls — from top mayoral aides, union leaders and Bally’s officials, Burnett dropped his threat, saying he’s convinced the casino giant will honor its promise to build a workforce composed of 60% minorities and 45% women.

* CBS Chicago | Starbucks employees to rally at Federal Plaza for anniversary of unionization: Starbucks workers in Chicago will rally Friday to mark the first anniversary of a major unionization campaign. Chicago labor leaders will join Starbucks employees at the noon rally in Federal Plaza.

* Sun-Times | UIC faculty union sets strike date: The nearly 900-member union has been working without a contract since mid-August and decisively authorized a strike last month.

* Fairfield Sun Times | Illinois Is Pushing Back Against the Anti-Union Tide: Legal experts anticipate litigation over the amendment, including on issues as fundamental as who and what it actually covers. The amendment protects “employees” – not specifically “public-sector employees” – implying it could govern their private sector counterparts. That’s an apparent conflict with federal labor law.

* Wardsauto | Stellantis Idling Illinois Plant; UAW ‘Deeply Angered’: Stellantis spokeswoman Jodi Tinson emphasizes the automaker is not closing the plant. “We are stopping production as of Feb. 28. We are not closing the plant,” she tells Wards. “We have to negotiate that with the union.”