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Democracy

REI Workers Look To Shake Up Co-Op’s Board

February 1, 2025 Nate Wolf, Non Profit News. , , ,
Since March 2022, over 600 workers have voted to unionize at 11 REI stores. The campaign is growing, with workers in Greensboro, NC, voting to become the eleventh union store just last week. Workers at these stores are affiliated with either the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) or the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). To date, management recalcitrance has stymied workers’ efforts to win a first contract, so the REI Union is trying a new tactic: Running candidates for the board of the 24-million-member outdoor equipment retailer, the nation’s largest cooperative.

SF Native Touts Worker-To-Worker Organizing As Key To Labor Revival

January 27, 2025 Steve Early, Beyond Chron. , , ,
How many graduates of Buena Vista Elementary and Lowell High School have become labor book authors? Probably not many–other than Eric Blanc, whose mother taught in the San Francisco school system (and served as union president) and whose father was long active in the central labor council. Blanc became a teacher himself and drew on that experience when writing his first book, Red State Revolt: The Teachers Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics. Now an assistant professor at Rutgers University, Blanc has just published a more wide-ranging study. It grapples with a perennial question facing the labor left—namely, what kind of break with business as usual, within established unions, would help more private sector workers win union recognition, first contracts, and strikes?

Higher Education Must Champion Democracy, Not Surrender To Fascism

December 29, 2024 Henry A. Giroux, Truthout. , , , ,
For decades, neoliberalism has systematically attacked the welfare state, undermined public institutions and weakened the foundations of collective well-being. Shrouded in the alluring language of liberty, it transforms market principles into a dominant creed, insisting that every facet of life conform to the imperatives of profit and economic efficiency. But in reality, neoliberalism consolidates wealth in the hands of a financial elite, celebrates ruthless individualism, promotes staggering levels of inequality, perpetuates systemic injustices like racism and militarism, and commodifies everything, leaving nothing sacred or untouchable.

Students Say IMF Is Responsible For Privatization Of Education

December 27, 2024 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
On Sunday, December 22, the Progressive Students Federation (PrSF) in Pakistan organized a Student Action Conference in Islamabad. The Conference brought together hundreds of students from the capital city and nearby areas for a series of panel discussions, political theater presentations, and revolutionary music. Several student leaders from provinces such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan addressed the gathering of the students talking about the exploitation and oppression their regions are facing under the present government led by Shahwaz Sharif.

How Union Democracy Builds Labor’s Strike Power

December 24, 2024 Alex Press, Dissent Magazine. , , ,
Scott Houldieson had some questions. He had worked at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant, United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 551, since 1989, but in the late 2000s the company was in a financial hole following the Great Recession, and the leaders of the UAW told him and his fellow coworkers that they were going to have to give up some of the benefits that had long made auto work a good blue-collar job. Houldieson understood that times were hard; he’d seen the quarterly reports showing gigantic losses for the company, even if it wasn’t facing bankruptcy like its competitors, but something still didn’t compute.

Tacoma City Council Passes Climate Commission Ordinance

December 21, 2024 Talison Crosby, Fight Back! News. , , ,
Tacoma, WA – Dozens of community members gathered at the Tacoma City Council chambers on Tuesday, December 17, in preparation for the city of Tacoma’s vote to pass the city’s first Climate and Sustainability Commission into law. “It’s great that the city council is planning to pass an ordinance enshrining the Climate Commission into law, but as it stands there are some serious problems with it,” said Haze Bender, a rank-and-file member of Teamsters Local 174. “As written, the commission is only advisory, has no real power, and all members are appointed, rather than elected.”

The Conflicted Transformation Of CAW-Unifor, A Canadian Union

December 13, 2024 Herman Rosenfeld, The Bullet. , , ,
Recent commentaries on the political trajectory of the major private sector union in Canada, CAW-Unifor, have often had a rather simplistic and problematic perspective. That the CAW-Unifor (the latter being the new name and re-foundation of the union in 2013) drifted from a left, struggle-oriented approach, summarized in the slogan “Fighting back makes a difference,” toward a more collaborative centrist and Gomperist political approach, as the union distanced itself and ultimately moved away from the New Democratic Party (NDP).

Calls For Resignation Of Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol Grow

December 5, 2024 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , ,
Trade unions, political parties, and civil society organizations in South Korea have called for the resignation of President Yoon Suk Yeol following his attempt to impose martial law. Opposition parties, including the Democratic Party and the Rebuilding Korea Party, have sponsored a motion in the parliament to impeach Yoon. Thousands participated in a candlelight vigil on Wednesday to demand the same. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the largest trade union confederation in the country, announced that they will stage a general strike until President Yoon steps down.

How To Build A Culture Of Organizing

December 1, 2024 Steve Dubb and Marshall Ganz, Non Profit News. , , ,
Democracy is not something you have; it is something you do. If you’re not doing it, it’s not real. Sadly, in our country, there is less and less of it being done. Take the replacement of self-governing organizations with nonprofits or NGOs: there is nothing democratic there. It is almost like unions are one of the few remaining forces where people are actually practicing self-government. It is kind of hard to have any real understanding of what democracy means in terms of how we interact with each other and how we govern ourselves when it is not part of your daily experience. It hollows out any real understanding of democracy.

Adapting Employee Ownership For Truly Democratic Businesses

November 12, 2024 Kosta Juri and Tej Gonza, Grassroots Economic Organizing. , , , , ,
The form of globalisation that has prevailed – one that primarily serves the interests of financial and corporate elites – is, to a large extent, a political and legal artefact, not an inevitable outcome of an increasingly interconnected global economy. More specifically, it is primarily attributable to the commodified nature of the business enterprise, which is essentially a human organisation but legally treated as a commodity in our economies. A prime example of the damaging effects of business commodification is the private equity industry. Private equity firms typically acquire businesses with growth potential (often through a leveraged buyout, a mechanism originally devised by Louis Kelso in the 1950s for worker buyouts), restructure them to maximise profitability, and then sell them for a profit.

How To Legally Fight Fascism In Your Community

November 6, 2024 John Zangas, DC Media Group. , , ,
Washington DC — Anne Frank wrote in her diary, “A single candle can define and defy darkness.” Her diary chronicled the last year of her family’s attempt to remain hidden in an attic from the Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. She wrote daily entries as the brutality of fascism was marching across the European continent. Her Diary was found on the floor in the attic after she and her family were betrayed, arrested, and taken to a concentration camp where they perished. Her diary stands as both an historic register of the chilling effect of fascism in Holland and a documentation of her family’s personal struggle like millions of other Jewish families under Nazi occupation.

Portents Of Chaos

November 1, 2024 Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News. , , , ,
Uh-oh. The New York Times is picking up its familiar theme now that the Nov. 5 elections are but a few days out front: Those mal-intended foreigners are again “sowing discord and chaos in hopes of discrediting American democracy,” it reported in a piece published Tuesday. The Beelzebubs haunting this political season, when everything would otherwise be orderly and altogether copacetic among Americans, are Russia, China and Iran. Why can’t this year’s version of the old, reliable “Axis of Evil” leave us alone with our “democratic process,” the one the rest of the world envies and resents?

Journalism And Democracy In A Time Of Genocide

October 30, 2024 Mary Kostakidis, Consortium News. , , , , , , , ,
Last month in New York at separate forums, two senior Democrat figures – John Kerry and Hillary Clinton – pointed to what they saw as major problems: the First Amendment was “an obstacle to building consensus,” and the “narrative” in the press needs to be (even more) “consistent.” The challenge presented by the free flow of ideas and information in the digital world, to those accustomed to maintaining control of the narrative, defines our moment in history and the fragility of democratic freedoms. Those calls for less freedom of speech and for more consistency in messaging to the public by the Fourth Estate, come at a time when large sections of the public have lost trust in a legacy media too consistent in its messaging, and incapable of providing the information and analysis that will enable them to know and fully understand what’s happening.

How Cities Can Bring Some Humanity To The Criminal Legal System

October 26, 2024 Erica Perry, Next City. , , ,
Last month, the state of Missouri executed 55-year-old Marcellus Williams, who spent two decades in prison, despite prosecutors’ efforts to overturn his conviction for the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle. The victim’s family and the St. Louis county prosecuting attorney’s office joined Williams’ family, faith leaders and thousands of community members in asking decision-makers to spare his life. But neither their pleas nor revelations of mishandled evidence and racially biased jury selection were enough to outweigh a legal system with disdain for human life. This pattern of unjust sentencing to death is true across America.

Municipalism, Economic Development, And Participatory Democracy

October 23, 2024 Austin Cole, Black Agenda Report. , ,
In this first part of the conversation, Nick lays out his thoughts on a large range of topics: definitions of economic development and how to think about expanding it to serve all people in a more holistic manner; the fallacy of jobs-only economic development programs and measurements; radical municipalism that can form and utilize people-centered institutions; what true participatory democracy might look like; how to make the public sector work for “the people” and why organizers should get involved in local/municipal governance ; and governing from a place of radical inclusiveness, collective wisdom, and a shared responsibility.
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