Organizing Update

Mapbox

This week, a majority of eligible workers at Mapbox, a mapping services and location cloud platform for computer software and app developers, announced they have formed the Mapbox Workers Union to represent all U.S. employees. The workers called on Mapbox management to voluntarily recognize their union. The campaign is part of the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA).

"Through our union, I know we can work to raise the standards for all workers at Mapbox, in the tech industry, and in the broader community," said Amisha Singla, senior data engineer at Mapbox.

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Lawrence, Kan., Public Schools

This week, the Lawrence Public Schools USD 497 Board of Education voted unanimously to recognize the Personnel Association of Lawrence-CWA (PAL-CWA) as the union for all classified staff in the school district. With this vote, 350 food service workers, administrative assistants, custodians, maintenance and facilities workers, and musical accompanists will have the chance to join PAL-CWA.

This comes almost a year after approximately 300 instructional classified staff in the school district won recognition. PAL-CWA Chair Hannah Allison asked the board to vote in favor of recognizing the remaining classified workers in the district as part of the union. "Our union is really important to us because we know that the day-to-day working conditions that we work in, those are also our students' learning conditions," Allison said.

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The Atlantic

Last week, editorial employees at The Atlantic announced they have formed The Atlantic Union and will be affiliated with NewsGuild of New York, TNG-CWA Local 31003. Management of the magazine has agreed to voluntarily recognize their union.

The unit will include writers, editors, and the art team, as well as workers on the copy desk, fact-checking, podcasts, and experimental storytelling teams. In their mission statement, the workers said they organized their union in order to "create a more equitable and diverse workplace that provides fair compensation and meaningful support to its workers, particularly its junior staff."