Do you agree that the workers that do your meals deserve the right to choose to form a union? Chartwells doesn’t want our food service and custodial workers to have a union. They are part of the UTA family and a union will help build a more equal workplace, better wages, and better benefits.

Over three thousand employees at Google recently wrote a letter to their CEO explaining their opposition to Project Maven [1], after learning that their work was part of a US Department of Defense contract being considered. We are employees of the tech industry who invite all supporters to join us in amplifying their demand to break these contracts across the industry. The DoD contracts under consideration by Google, and similar contracts at IBM, Microsoft [2] and Amazon [3] break user trust, and signal a dangerous alliance between the US military and the tech industry. Tech companies that have vast quantities of sensitive data from users across the globe shouldn’t build offensive technology for one country’s military. Google says its technology will only be used to “non-offensive” ends. Our last few years working in the tech industry has issued reminder after painful reminder of the unintended outcomes of even benignly-designed tech. We can no longer ignore our industry’s and our technologies’ harmful biases, large scale breaches of trust, and lack of ethical safeguards. These are life and death stakes. We risk potentially catastrophic outcomes if we continue to deploy global technical systems without care, deliberation, and a clear understanding of our significant responsibility. In signing this petition, we represent a growing network of tech workers who commit to never “just follow orders”, but to hold ourselves, each other, and the industry accountable. Sign on and join us as we demand that Google break its contract with the DoD, urge our employers at IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon to stay out of the business of war, and call upon our peers to adopt binding ethical standards for the use of AI. 1. "‘The Business of War’: Google Employees Protest Work for the Pentagon" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html 2. "Ungrateful Google Plebes Somehow Not Excited to Work on Military Industrial Complex Death Machines" https://futurism.com/google-maven-drones-military-contract/ 3. "Google is Pursuing the Pentagon’s Giant Cloud Contract Quietly, Fearing An Employee Revolt" https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/04/google-pursuing-pentagons-giant-cloud-contract-quietly-fearing-employee-revolt/147407/ *No names will be visible on the petition until the petition reaches 100 signatures. At that point your first name and last initial only will appear, not your workplace. Tech Workers Coalition may reach out to you on the basis of your workplace.*

This promotes: 1. A sustainable wage for independent contractors working for ride-share companies. 2. Fewer C20 emissions in each city due to an extreme and unnecessary number of drivers in cities worldwide. 3. The integrity and respect of the drivers who do the majority of work for billion dollar companies. Overall, we all love our Rideshare companies. I, myself, have been both a driver and a passenger of Uber in particular. However, the work of these companies is not done, and this petition could help Rideshare companies prove that they not only care about their passengers well being, but the drivers well being as well, who help make their companies just what it is--awesome.

It would make our jobs a lot easier.There are a lot of heavy items such as 60 lb bag of peanuts, dog food, cases of water, kitty litter.That is very heavy to lift over the registers.Not only that, our customers would benefit as well, because they wouldn't have to lift the items.I mean come on even small gas stations have them.

Security contractors, bus drivers, cafeteria and maintenance workers do their part to make Silicon Valley the most prosperous region in the world, yet they struggle every day to feed their families, live near their jobs, pay their rent, and take care of themselves and their children when they are sick. Although the region's top tech firms made a record $103 billion in profits in 2013, one in three Silicon Valley households do not make enough money to meet their most basic needs. Between 2009 and 2015, the average rent for an apartment jumped by 32.2%. Yet over that same time, adjusted median incomes for renters have actually declined 2.8%(Source: https://siliconvalleyrising.org/). This has forced families to cram together in small apartments, move far away from their jobs, make unhealthy trade-offs between rent and other essentials like food and prescriptions, or sleep on the streets. But things are changing. Last year over 3,000 security officers working for security contractors of many Silicon Valley tech companies including Facebook, Google, Oracle, Adobe and Cisco voted to form a union to gain a voice on the job, better pay and better working conditions. Today many are still in contract negotiations—it’s a critical time to voice our support as tech employees who are their colleagues. We have a lot learn from their efforts about how we can also come together for more democratic workplaces. Sign here to show your support for security officers fighting for fair wages in this lucrative industry, and help spread their story across Silicon Valley to ensure that all tech workers have a voice in our workplaces.

An Open Letter to the Harvard Law Community on Employer Mandatory Arbitration, Non-Disclosure, and Class-Action Waiver Agreements As students, faculty, and alumni, we are proud of Harvard Law School’s robust anti-discrimination policy and commitment to the pursuit of equity and justice. Today, we are calling on Harvard to honor this commitment. To do so, we ask that Harvard require all employers recruiting on campus protect the rights of their employees by ensuring that, should an employee experience harassment, discrimination, or workplace abuse, they are able to come forward and seek redress in court. As has been recently revealed, several prominent law firms that recruit at Harvard’s Early Interview Program (EIP) have been forcing incoming summer associates to sign a mandatory arbitration agreement, with an accompanying non-disclosure agreement (NDA), as a condition of employment. These secret arbitration agreements and non-disclosure provisions cover all employment-related claims between the employee and the firm, including complaints of sexual harassment and other forms of gender, race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability discrimination prohibited by Title VII and other applicable civil rights laws. Fortunately, a group of law professors, including HLS Climenko Fellow Ian Samuel, focused attention and public pressure on these policies. In response to the public outcry, several firms announced their intention to drop the NDA and mandatory arbitration requirement not only for summer associates, but also for all associates and staff. [1][2] Along with similar student movements at peer institutions, including Berkeley Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Yale Law School, we ask that Harvard protect its students as they begin their legal careers. No industry is free from sexual harassment, discrimination, or workplace abuse — and the legal profession is no exception. [3] Secret arbitration and overboard NDAs hinder our ability to end harassment and discrimination by silencing employees who experience it, forcing them into secretive proceedings that are stacked against victims, and effectively covering up workplace abuse. [4] Harvard Law’s Office of Career Services already prohibits “all employers using the facilities and services of the Office of Career Services” from discriminating “against any person on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital or parental status, disability, source of income, or status as a veteran." [5] However, HLS has no explicit policy requiring employers recruiting on campus to preserve the rights of students to bring harassment or discrimination claims in court and to publicly discuss these claims. The practice of silencing employees through coercive contracts has a disproportionate impact on those the anti-discrimination policy is intended to protect, defeating the purpose of our HLS policy and any commitment to solving the diversity pipeline problem. While each individual student lacks the necessary bargaining power to refuse such mandatory agreements, HLS could remedy this collective action problem by adopting the following policy. We respectfully request that the Office of Career Services require that all employers who recruit through the EIP, the Spring Interview Program (SIP), and the Public Interest Interview Program (PIIP) remove from their contracts conditions that require any employee, including associates, staff, or summer associates, to agree as a general condition of employment to: (1) a mandatory arbitration agreement, (2) a non-disclosure agreement that covers discrimination, harassment, or other workplace misconduct, or (3) a class-action waiver. We further ask that Harvard issue an anonymous workplace climate survey to all students returning from summer employment, to gather key data about workplace sexual harassment that will inform our continuing efforts to end discrimination in the legal profession. By enforcing this measure, Harvard will take a clear stand for its students and alumni and will reinforce the law school’s commitment to the pursuit of justice for all. Merely disclosing which firms require employees to sign secret arbitration agreements will fail to achieve our shared goal of ending discrimination in the legal profession. Disclosure simply place the burden on students at risk of discrimination —principally women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and people with disabilities—to opt out of important professional and intellectual opportunities. Mandatory disclosure would perpetuate the burden placed on women and others to select out of opportunities that provide pathways to the highest positions in the legal profession. Our aim is to eliminate the inequities in the legal profession, not to exacerbate them; for this reason, we believe that a clear set of standards for all organizations that recruit on campus is the only outcome that lives up to Harvard’s values of equity and access to justice. HLS has historically taken a leadership role in fighting discrimination in the legal profession. We call on Harvard to do so again, and adopt these policies in order to fulfill its mission “to educate leaders who contribute to the advancement of justice and the well-being of society.” [1] https://twitter.com/Orrick/status/978344236725735425 [2] https://takecareblog.com/blog/munger-tolles-proves-why-we-still-need-metoo [3] https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/house_of_delegates/2018_hod_midyear_302.docx [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/business/dealbook/arbitration-everywhere-stacking-the-deck-of-justice.html [5] https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/ocs/employers/employer-recruiting-policies-and-guidelines/ For more information, contact us at: [email protected]

These types of agreements may be legal, but they cut against core Georgetown values. Our community is grounded in a Jesuit tradition that supports the well-being of the whole person—the “cura personalis.” And the law school’s motto is, “Law is but the means; justice is the end.” In order to live up to these values, Georgetown must do its part to end the use of mandatory arbitration and NDAs in ways that silence the victims of sexual harassment and workplace abuses. [1] https://takecareblog.com/blog/munger-tolles-proves-why-we-still-need-metoo [2] https://twitter.com/Orrick/status/978344236725735425 [3] https://twitter.com/isamuel/status/979375191175450625 [4] https://goo.gl/FYujGs Contacts: Stephen Schultze ([email protected]), Rachel Lee ([email protected]), Nicholas Wertsch ([email protected])

Health care is a human right. Accessible, affordable health care should be available for all, not just the rich. Yet Cummins, Inc. – the $20 billion global diesel engine company – is forcing its employees into health insurance plans that have deductibles as high as $6,000/year for family coverage and can leave families with tens of thousands of dollars in annual out-of-pocket costs. This is immoral. Our health insurance does anything but keep us healthy. In fact, many of us go without our prescription medicine, or don’t go to the doctor, or don’t get new glasses, because we fear the thought of potential medical bills. If we do seek medical attention, we can be overwhelmed with debt so large we are forced to work overtime, or negotiate monthly payments, or pay with credit cards that accrue interest, or battle with bill collectors. Even those who are healthy struggle, as young families are consumed with pregnancy and childbirth costs. Many Cummins retirees say they can’t afford to be part of Cummins’ retiree insurance despite devoting their lives to making Cummins successful. Cummins is a Fortune 500 company that reported $999 million in net profit in 2017. In 2016, the company built a primary care “LiveWell Center” at its headquarters in Columbus, Indiana. It is a state-of-the art facility that provides free and reduced-cost healthcare services such as primary care doctors, free lab work, and free x-rays. It’s convenient for Cummins executives and workers in the surrounding areas, but not for the thousands of employees who live in other states. Cummins should ensure that its employees can access needed medical care without wiping out their paychecks and their savings. No one should risk their health or their life because they’re afraid of the cost of care. Do the right thing and provide us with health insurance that covers the health care we need year-round, not insurance that doesn’t kick in until we spend thousands out of our own pockets each year.

My name is Mikey and I work at Toys R Us in Eugene, Oregon. This week, I found out from news reports that Toys R Us will shutdown and liquidate its entire U.S. operation. This news is devastating to say the least. My coworkers and I have no idea what’s going on or when our store will close – all of the updates we’re getting are from the news and corporate is keeping us in the dark. I love my job so much. I enjoy working at Toys R Us and helping kids find toys they love in the store. But I’ve heard that Toys R Us owners are Wall Street companies that don’t care about running a toy business – they just want a quick profit. Thousands of families counting on these jobs will be impacted by Toys R Us’ going out of business. We will lose our jobs. Meanwhile, the CEO of Toys R Us, David Brandon, makes a base salary of $3.7 million. Just days before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last September, 5 of the top Toys 'R' Us executives received $8.2 million in retention bonuses. David Brandon received $2.8 million and asked for court approval of up to another $12 million in incentive bonuses. This corporate greed is hurting me and my family. And it’s unacceptable. We’re losing our jobs and our livelihoods while these executives gave themselves huge payoffs. We call on Toys R Us and Babies R Us to give all laid off employees severance pay. Thanks for standing with us.

My name is Shaheim Wright and I’ve been organizing with an amazing group of retail workers standing up for fair schedules in Philadelphia based on my own experience at PetSmart with last minute changes to shifts, no input on schedules from employees, not enough hours each week, and totally unpredictable and erratic hours every week. After I spoke to the press about my erratic work hours and why I support fair workweek legislation, I experienced retaliation for speaking out. My manager Kathy started to only schedule me for the 6:30AM shifts. There isn’t reliable public transportation available that early in the morning, so I had to take expensive cabs or leave at 5 AM to walk to work. I asked my manager if I could get any later shifts – and she told me she’d accept my “resignation.” I was nervous to lose my job but I knew I had an entire movement supporting me to continue speaking out for what’s right. That’s why I testified at the Philadelphia City Council about the impacts of these abusive scheduling practices on us and our community and why we need change. The day after the hearing, I showed up for my 6:30AM shift and I was not allowed to work. I’m completely devastated – I need this job. I support a household of seven. I did everything right, and I was fired simply because I stood up for what I believe in. I need my job back, but we also need a #FairWorkweekPHL because 130,000 fellow Philadelphians just like me shouldn’t be at the whims of our managers to get the hours we need. And I know we can win because we’re stronger together in a movement that’s unstoppable. Thank you for supporting our movement and continuing to speak out for what’s right. They can’t stop us.

The American economy thrives when American workers thrive. That's why President Trump passed the tax breaks--to invest in American workers and grow the American economy.

We take pride in providing stellar guest experiences, giving our all to make certain every person that visits has a pleasant and memorable time. We all love our jobs and the work we do is extremely important to us, but so is our time away. The amount of effort we put forth requires time for recharging. Many of us are transplants who moved here to work for the foundation, leaving our loved ones hours, states or in some cases countries away from us. We need our time to be able to visit them. Banking our holidays enables us to fill in the gaps when enough vacation time has not been accrued or sick time is not an option. This need has increased now that Emergency Leave has been done away with as well. We are grateful for every bonus we have received and hopeful that raises are in the not too distant future, but in the meantime continuing to allow us to bank our holidays will help to feed our spirits.