I first covered the budding Worker Center movement here. The takeaway from that blog post was: But worker centers are not “labor organizations” – they are 501(c)(3) charities – so they are not regulated as heavily as unions nor do they pay taxes. Worker centers cannot engage in unfair labor practices and do not have…

This case illustrates how worker centers and labor unions work closely together when trying to organize a company. The UFCW, which has unsuccessfully tried to organize Walmart for years, utilized its worker center OUR Walmart to allege that Walmart committed unfair labor practices when it fired two employees after they participated in demonstrations led by…

Jose Oliva, a director for the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a prominent worker center, recently explained how worker centers are nonprofit groups that are an alternate form of labor organizing. Most major unions have established and funded their own worker centers to further their own causes. According to Oliva, a union can collect dues from…

Unions are required to file annual LM-2s that transparently track union finances and business dealings. The United Food and Commercial Workers’ union (UFCW) recently filed its LM-2 again admitting that it is the front group for OUR Wal-Mart. Specifically, UFCW’s response to question 11(b) states: “The UFCW has a subsidiary organization maintained in Washington DC…

Worker centers may be the biggest thing non-union companies never heard of. They are pro-union advocates who organize rallies and protests, try to engage workers into acting collectively, and seek to get companies to discuss wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment. If it sounds a lot like unions to you, it should. Unions…

The AFL-CIO is raising $10 million per year by increasing membership fees so it can organize 1 million new members. Union organizing ran rampant in 2022. Nearly 300,000 people across the US voted to join a union. This is way more than in previous years. Unions were able to navigate new industries like architects, video…