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FedEx to Join Ground, Express Units

| Mike O'Brien

FedEx provided details on its plan to consolidate its Ground, Express and Service units by 2024, announced last year, with its less-than-truckload Freight unit remaining separate, projecting cost savings of $4 billion by 2025 and an additional $2 billion in network efficiencies by 2027. The consolidation, undoing the legacy of founder and executive chairman Fred Smith, will cost an estimated $2 billion, FedEx said.

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Amazon Workers Stage First UK Walkout

| Mike O'Brien

While Amazon has been able to stay ahead of growing efforts at labor organizing in the U.S., at least for the time being, union workers at an Amazon facility in the UK midlands have walked off the job in protest over pay, a first in the country, according to several media reports.

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Amazon, UPS In Full-On Labor Battles

| Mike O'Brien

Amazon lost another skirmish in its ongoing multi-front labor war, as a federal regulator ruled Wednesday against its petition to have a successful union vote in Staten Island, NY vacated. At the same time, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is heating up rhetoric ahead of the expiration of its contract with UPS on July 31.

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Over Half of Frontline Workers Willing to Leave Jobs

| Mike O'Brien

More than half of frontline workers (54%) said they would leave their field if something else presented itself, indicating the level of dissatisfaction with these critical positions at a time of low unemployment and the difficulty of staffing up workforces, a new survey found.

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AB5 Trucker Protest Snarls Port of Oakland

| Mike O'Brien

Truck drivers blocked the Port of Oakland Monday, protesting California’s AB5 law that requires contractors to be reclassified as employees. The law affects an estimated 70,000 independent truckers, many of whom fear losing their livelihood, according to various media reports. There were similar protests last week in LA/Long Beach.

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Amazon Union Battles Sees Objections Flying on Both Sides

| Mike O'Brien

Amazon is challenging a union vote at a distribution center in Staten Island, NY, saying it should be thrown out due to illegal coercion on the part of the union, while the labor group is accusing the retail giant of sour grapes over an election it won. Union and employer are also locked in a dispute over an election in Bessemer, AL.

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Amazon Staten Island Union Vote Sends Shockwaves

| Mike O'Brien

A tiny startup union dealt a major blow to mighty Amazon with a successful vote at a fulfillment center on Staten Island, NY led by a worker who had been fired two years ago, a move that backfired on the multi-million-dollar effort to thwart the organizing effort. But the matter is far from over as Amazon is sure to challenge the vote.

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Union Accuses Amazon of Vote Interference

| Mike O'Brien

The union seeking to organize Amazon fulfillment center workers in Bessemer, AL, has filed another complaint alleging the company is not acting in good faith by interfering in the revote process, forcing employees to attend anti-union meetings and tearing down pro-union signs.

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Amazon Union Vote Redo Starts Feb. 4

| Mike O'Brien

The National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday ordered a second union vote at an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, AL in the eye of a major labor battle, with the vote to begin by mail-in ballot on Feb. 4. Amazon has agreed to not pursue reprisal actions against employees for union organizing activities, per an NLRB agreement.

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Amazon Union Push Gets New Vote in Alabama

| Mike O'Brien

The National Labor Relations Board has ordered a new election to determine if Amazon fulfillment center workers in Bessemer, AL can organize as members of a union for collective bargaining, which would be a first in the United States and set off a warehouse labor chain reaction.