johninnit

Via a rather pissed off AFL-CIOnow today, I came across a Gawker article about Californian clothing company Unionmade Goods. They sell upmarket priced downmarket looking clothing to the good hipster folk of the Bay Area.

All quite pleasant looking, if rather on the pricey side, and topped off with a woolly commitment to ethical sourcing, which is some way better than nowt for the fashion industry. But what’s this? Apparently the fact they’re called “Unionmade” and have a rip off US union logo,  is not to be taken as any kind of inference that unions have been involved at any point in the process. (more…)

Bad day to be an HTC fanboi like me. LabourStart have a campaign running in support of YFOTU, the union of workers in Taiwanese mobile phone touchscreen manufacturer YFO. There have been some grim reports of working conditions at the company, with child labour, forced overtime and poor safety.

After seeing reports of bad conditions at iPhone component factories, I was feeling all smug with my non-union-busting HTC TouchHD (the third HTC handset I’ve had now, and a very nice one too), but it looks like mine may be just as bad. YFO have dismissed a number of union reps and members recently, which the union belives is in contravention of employment law. (more…)

From the Beeb:

A strike by British Airways cabin crew planned for Christmas has been declared illegal in a High Court ruling. The court agreed with BA that the cabin crew’s union, Unite, had not correctly balloted its members on the strike action. BA complained that staff in the process of leaving the company had been balloted, breaching industrial relations law.

Isn’t this a technicality? The union need under law to get a majority of those voting within a bargaining unit, and they did – with a huge 90% voting on an equally impressive 80% turnout. Even if some voting were ineligible to strike, the turnout was so high that removing the suggested up to 1000 votes would surely still clearly carry the ballot – especially as you’d have to reduce the size of the overall bargaining unit by those who weren’t eligible (thus lowering the threshold even further for the ballot).