Labor Movement

Organizing Despite The Churn

May 23, 2023 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. Organize! Amazon, Labor Movement, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

When the Amazon Labor Union first submitted union authorization cards, “we had to withdraw and file again,” recalled organizing committee member Justine Medina, “because Amazon challenged over 1,000 of our signatures saying they no longer worked there.” The sky-high turnover at the 8,000-worker fulfillment center on New York's Staten Island, made collecting cards “a race against Amazon firing everyone,” she said. Amazon has annual turnover of 150 percent. “They design the productivity quota, the rates system, to be a constant speedup situation, and that makes it hard to keep the job,” said Medina, who still works at the warehouse. Several ALU leaders have been fired.

Labor’s Uptick Isn’t Just Hype

May 22, 2023 Eric Blanc, Labor Politics. Organize! Labor Movement, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Is the current labor uptick just more hype than reality? Numerous articles have recently made this case, pointing to the continued decline in union density in 2022. This skepticism also appears to be the prevailing view among most national union leaders. Though rarely stated publicly, labor’s continued routinism suggests that few people up top see our moment as particularly novel or urgent. But contrary to these skeptics, there is compelling data indicating that things really are changing — and, therefore, that unions should immediately make a major turn to new organizing.

Labor Organizers Launch New Model For The Fight Against Private Equity

May 13, 2023 Derek Seidman, Truthout. Create! Labor Movement, Private Equity, Wall Street, Worker Rights

On May Day, a small group of labor advocates and workers weaved through midtown Manhattan, stopping at the shiny corporate headquarters of several firms with names like KKR, Sycamore Partners, Apollo Global Management, BC Partners and Roark Capital Group. Most people don’t recognize these names, or if they do, know very little about them. But these are some of the wealthiest and most influential firms on Wall Street, behemoths within the ultra-powerful but opaque financial sector known as private equity — the arm of Wall Street that oversees trillions in assets and specializes in buying out, restructuring and selling off privately owned businesses to turn a big profit.

At UFCW, A Reform Movement Rises

May 6, 2023 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Organize! Democracy, Grocery Workers, Labor Movement, Worker Rights

Las Vegas — It was 7:30 on a Monday morning on the Las Vegas Strip, early enough to stand outside without sunscreen. A group of people — first a trickle, then dozens — wearing matching blue T-shirts that read “Organizing & Bargaining & The Right to Strike & A Voice in Our Union,” flooded the patio of the Mirage Resort & Casino pool, overwhelming the early morning smokers who had sought refuge there. This group was smiling, energized, far too wholesome for their garish surroundings. Like a team of underdogs before a critical game, they seethed with nervous excitement. These were the reformers.

We Are All Salts

May 5, 2023 Chris Townsend, Labor Notes. Organize! Labor Movement, Unions, Worker Rights

Today’s revival of union “salting” could not be more welcome or more urgently needed. A tactic as old as the labor movement itself, salting describes going to work in an unorganized workplace where there may be a chance to help initiate new union organizing. It’s also a label for taking jobs at already unionized employers, hoping to play a positive role. But here I will deal with the former: taking jobs to help spur new organizing. Whatever amount of salting is underway today—it’s impossible to precisely measure—it cannot come soon enough. The U.S. labor movement is mired in a crisis that threatens its very existence.

Largest May Day Turnout Since Pandemic, Workers March Worldwide

May 2, 2023 Olivia Rosane, Common Dreams. Resist! International Workers Day, Labor Movement, May Day, Worker Rights and Jobs

Workers from Japan to France took to the street on Monday for the largest May Day demonstrations since Covid-19 restrictions pushed people inside three years ago. Marchers expressed frustration with both their nations' policies—such as French President Emmanuel Macron's raising of the retirement age in March—and global issues like the rising cost of living and the climate crisis. "The price of everything has increased except for our wages. Increase our minimum wages!" one activist speaking in Seoul told the crowd, as The Associated Press reported. "Reduce our working hours!" "The price of everything has increased except for our wages."

Southern Worker School Charts Path For Building Workers Movement

April 30, 2023 Southern Workers Assembly. Strategize! Labor Movement, People's Assembly, The South, Worker Rights

“We heard from the rail workers. We heard from the truckers. We’ve got the longshoremen in the house, too,” said Leonard Riley, a longshore worker with the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 1422 and member of the SWA Coordinating Committee, addressing a packed house at the Teamsters Local 71 union hall during the opening program of the 2023 Southern Worker School. “The reason I bring that up is because of the power that’s in this room. We’ve got bus drivers over there, teachers over here. There’s power in this room. It’s going to take strategy, planning, coming together, and finding out where the power connectors are to mobilize and exercise it.”

Striking Workers At U. Michigan Are Building Powerful Solidarity

April 30, 2023 Ryan McCarty, Left Voice. Organize! Higher Education, Labor Movement, Solidarity, Strikes

The morning of April 28, I was stumbling around making coffee, checking the strike news on Twitter. It’s been about a month now since my graduate student instructor colleagues voted overwhelmingly to strike, facing down the legal and financial powerhouses at the University of Michigan. I only had to scroll for a second, then I just sorta had to sit down. There was a picture of about 20-30 people in a beer garden on a gray springy afternoon, fists raised and smiling. The message was from grad students, lecturers, and faculty from UC Santa-Cruz; they had held a fundraiser and were donating $600 to the University of Michigan grad student strike fund.

‘Dirty Dozen’ Dangerous Employers Named For Workers Memorial Day

April 27, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, Jenny Brown, and Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. Educate! Corporations, Labor Movement, Worker Rights and Jobs, Workplace Safety

April 28 is Workers Memorial Day, commemorating those killed, sickened, or injured on the job. As part of a week of events, today the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health is releasing its “Dirty Dozen” report. Here are four of the employers COSH has picked out for the “Dirty Dozen” distinction in 2023 because they run unsafe workplaces, endangering workers and the public: Swissport, Packers Sanitation, the Class I railroads, and FedEx. Some also have attempted to silence workers who speak up about hazards or are trying to organize a union to make the workplace safer.

UFCW Convention: Reformers In Motion

April 25, 2023 Chris Bohner, Labor Notes. Organize! Democracy, Labor Movement, UFCW, Worker Rights and Jobs

The United Food and Commercial Workers is one of the country’s largest unions, with 1.2 million members in the U.S. and Canada, two-thirds of whom work in grocery stores. Like other unions, it has lost membership over the last decade, but it has managed to double its assets. Reformers in the union are asking why. The UFCW caucus Essential Workers for Democracy has proposed a slate of amendments to expand rank and file power in the union and put resources into organizing and strike action. The proposals will be considered at the union’s convention starting today in Las Vegas. The convention is held every five years.

How Do We Develop Strategies That Help Workers In Struggle Win?

April 21, 2023 Stewart Acuff, Portside. Strategize! Labor Movement, popular power, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

How do we use organizing for collective power and solidarity, to win steps toward new power over our own lives? Labor Power and Strategy is a compelling take on this question, and the dialogue between organizers and educators is the kind of far reaching discussion we need to advance our workers movement.

Internal Wells Fargo Document Reveals Angst Over Union ‘Resurgence’

April 19, 2023 Josh Eidelson, Portside. Organize! Banks, Labor Movement, Unions, Wells Fargo, Worker Rights and Jobs

Wells Fargo & Co. leaders are privately expressing increased concern that a years-long effort to unionize the bank’s employees could soon start notching victories — and have made plans to spend millions addressing the “pain points” that can fuel organizing efforts. The lender has seen “an increase in organizing activity” by employees working with the Communications Workers of America, according to an internal PowerPoint presentation viewed by Bloomberg News. That comes amid what it called a broader “resurgence” of US union activity. “Public approval of unions has increased,” the document reads. “And a new generation of employees with activist experience successfully unionized parts of major companies with no prior history of unionization.”

The First Signs Of An Ecological Class Struggle In Germany

April 10, 2023 Franziska Heinisch and Julia Kaiser, Green Left. Strategize! climate crisis, Germany, Labor Movement, Solidarity

On the occasion of the global climate strike on March 3, a special political alliance took to the streets in Germany: side-by-side, climate activists and public transport workers went on strike. In at least 30 cities, climate activists visited workers' pickets and brought them along for joint demonstrations. According to Fridays for Future (FFF), a total of 200,000 people participated in the nation-wide protests. The way employers reacted showed that this alliance of workers and climate activists is a potential threat to the ruling class. Steffen Kampeter, CEO of the Confederation of German Employers (BDA), publicly denounced them on the morning of the joint strike day as “a dangerous crossing of the line”.

Auto Workers Convention Lurches Towards Reversing Concessions

March 30, 2023 Keith Brower Brown and Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes. Organize! Auto Workers, Democracy, Labor Movement, Worker Rights and Jobs

The brand-new leaders of the United Auto Workers are making ambitious demands but face stiff organizing challenges as they seek to jump-start the union, ahead of a momentous contract expiration this September at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler). At the union’s Detroit convention this week, hundreds of delegates–often local leaders–signaled they were less ready than the members to welcome the reform leadership. But there was unanimity that it’s time to finally recoup the divisive contract concessions granted in the 2007-2009 recession. Under those contracts the then-ailing automakers were allowed to hire new workers at close to half pay and no pension.

How Rank-And-File Labor Organizers Can Transform Unions

March 30, 2023 Vince Quiles, The Real News Network. Organize! Democracy, Labor Movement, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

For the past five years, Tevita Uhatafe of TWU Local 567 has dedicated himself to advancing the labor movement. Known affectionately as “Mic Guy,” Uhatafe has traveled from coast to coast to rally in solidarity with striking workers in multiple states. Uhatafe entered the union movement as an outsider without family connections, but has nevertheless risen as a rank-and-file leader. He is now the Vice President of the Texas AFL-CIO. Vince Quiles, lead organizer of Home Depot Workers United, sits down with Tefita Uhatafe for an organizer-to-organizer conversation on their respective stories, the barriers impeding deeper solidarity in the labor movement, and why unions so desperately need rank-and-file leadership today.

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