Labor Movement

Waves Of Strikes Rippling Across The US Seem Big

September 5, 2023 Judith Stepan-Norris and Jasmine Kerrissey, Scheer Post. Educate! History, Labor Movement, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

More than 323,000 workers – including nurses, actors, screenwriters, hotel cleaners and restaurant servers – walked off their jobs during the first eight months of 2023. Hundreds of thousands of the employees of delivery giant UPS would have gone on strike, too, had they not reached a last-minute agreement. And nearly 150,000 autoworkers may go on a strike of historic proportions in mid-September if the United Autoworkers Union and General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the company that includes Chrysler – don’t agree on a new contract soon. This crescendo of labor actions follows a relative lull in U.S. strikes and a decline in union membership that began in the 1970s.

Canadian Workers, The Social-Ecological Crisis and Alternatives

September 5, 2023 Socialist Project. Strategize! Canada, Labor Movement, Socialism, Worker Rights and Jobs, Working Class

As workers, we are today confronted with the challenge of defending what we have and making gains in the face of an ever-expanding and relentless employer offensive. The employers’ drive to increase productivity and profits – central to capitalism everywhere – demands that we accept job loss and insecurity, concessions, new forms of speedup, and expanded management control in the workplace. More of us are forced to work in precarious forms of employment, making ourselves ‘flexible’ without access to unemployment and other social benefits or hope of a decent pension.

Attacks On Abortion Rights Are Attacks On All Workers

September 5, 2023 Natascha Elena Uhlmann, In These Times. Strategize! Abortion, Abortion Rights, Labor Movement, Solidarity, Worker Rights and Jobs

Over the past year, workers have seen our lives irrevocably changed. The Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs decision gutted a fundamental right to bodily autonomy and plunged millions into crisis and uncertainty. Almost immediately, a litany of horror stories emerged. Doctors denying life saving care for fear of retribution; women trapped with their abusers or killed for accessing abortion care; children — already subjected to unspeakable violence — forced to seek the procedure in the shadows, lest they bear children of their own. Since the ruling, 14 states have implemented full abortion bans, and several others are working tirelessly to restrict access.

Lessons From Lively Picket Lines

September 1, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon and Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. Strategize! Labor Movement, Pickets, Strikes, Unions

The heat was scorching in Louisville, Kentucky, last Thursday. But what the windless day lacked in gusts, it made up in guts. The union-made placards read: “United for a Strong Contract.” That resonated with auto workers at Ford who hadn’t been part of a contract rally for as long as anyone can remember. And the picket line came alive when they broke away from the tedious repetition of “Who’s got the power? We’ve got the power!” and used their own chants. “We ready, we ready, we ready for a strike…” An auto worker led a syncopated chorus, breaking the monotony of the boring chants printed on the back of their placards.

This Is How The Next Great American General Strike Happens

September 1, 2023 Joe Maniscalco, Work-Bites. Strategize! COVID-19, General Strike, Labor Movement, Worker Rights and Jobs

The next great general strike to captivate the United States will not be organized — it’ll be organic. And it could be the most transformative general strike this country has ever seen. Right now, the head of the Transport Workers Union of America is threatening to shut down the second-largest commuter railroad in the nation; striking SAG-AFTRA and WGA members want to break up Hollywood; and militants within the UAW are still keen on bringing the Big Three automakers to their knees. Add to that mix, increasingly-fed up Starbucks baristas and Amazon warehouse workers unable to organize or get a union contract.

Can Boycotts Help Workers Win?

August 27, 2023 Eric Blanc, Labor Politics. Strategize! Boycotts, Labor Movement, union busting, Worker Rights and Jobs

The recent uptick in labor organizing has prompted not only a rise in strikes, but also the return of an old labor weapon: the boycott. While boycott campaigns generally have a mixed record at best, this tactic was used successfully in the recent unionization and first contract victories at Burgerville in Oregon as well as Spot Coffee in upstate New York — a campaign that set the stage for the subsequent Starbucks upsurge. Raising the slogan, “No Contract, No Field Trips,” unionizing workers at Medieval Times in New Jersey and California are now linking up with K-12 teachers to boycott the company until it stops its alleged union-busting.

Revitalized Union Power Helped Crush Attempts To Rig The System In Ohio

August 24, 2023 Bob Hennelly, Portside. Organize! Labor Movement, Ohio, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

It is said that history is written by the winners. But when it comes to big wins by organized labor, the corporate news media, itself fighting unionization at all costs, tends to ignore unions even when they are shaping history. Missing from much of the coverage about Ohio voters’ rejection of the Republican legislature’s attempt to raise the threshold for voter approval needed to amend the state constitution from a simple majority to 60 percent — was the central role organized labor played in mobilizing and helping to defeat the scheme. In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade, the Republican legislature pushed through some of the nation’s most draconian restrictions on abortion.

SEIU And The Carpenters: ‘Changing To Win’ Or Changing The Wrong Way?

August 23, 2023 Steve Early, Popular Resistance. Organize! Democracy, Labor Movement, SEIU, Unions

In a recent conversation with an otherwise well-informed young labor activist, I made a passing reference to Change to Win, a national labor federation formed in 2005 by defectors from the AFL-CIO. “Change to what?” she asked. “Never heard of it.” Her response was not surprising, given the short shelf life of the organizational brand in question. Launched with much media fanfare, Change to Win initially represented 5.5 million workers, about one-fifth of the AFL’s total membership. Its founders—the Service Employees, Teamsters, Carpenters, Laborers, United Farm Workers, Food and Commercial Workers, and UNITE-HERE—saw themselves as the second coming of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

Nigeria: National Strike Underway; President Tinubu Meets With Labor

August 4, 2023 Al Jazeera. Resist! Fuel Prices, Labor Movement, National Strike, Nigeria, Wages

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu met union leaders on the first day of a nationwide strike called by unions to protest against a fuel subsidy removal that has led to higher pump price of petrol, the head of the main labour federation has said. Since being sworn into office on May 29, President Tinubu has embarked on a series of economic reforms, scrapping the popular but expensive subsidy, which cost $10bn last year, and relaxing the foreign exchange regime. While the reforms have been welcomed by investors, unions say they have led to soaring costs at a time when Nigerians are already grappling with the highest inflation in nearly two decades.

A New Idea For New Union Organizing

August 3, 2023 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Strategize! Labor Movement, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

Why is it that unions, the only things that exist to do new union organizing, do not organize enough new union members? Unions will tell you that there are many reasons — hostile labor laws, corporate union-busting, difficult political climates. There is some truth to all of these explanations, but they are also a bit like stopping and sitting down while a wild dog is chasing you, because running is tiring. Sure it is, but that’s not much consolation when you’re dead. There always have been, and always will be, political and corporate forces hostile to unions. That does not change the fact that unions must find a way to organize, or else die.

UPS Teamsters Union Struggle Is Critical For All Workers

June 28, 2023 Gavrielle Gemma, Orinoco Tribune. Strategize! Labor Movement, Militancy, Strikes, Unions, UPS, Worker Rights and Jobs

340,000 workers, members of the Teamsters Union, worked tirelessly during the worst of the COVID pandemic. Despite exhaustion from overwork, disease, and family tragedies, they saved lives by delivering packages to those quarantined. Meanwhile, bosses at UPS lived in luxury as profits soared to $56.3 billion from 2019 to 2023. In 2023 alone, UPS says it will spend $3 billion in stock buybacks and $5.4 billion in dividends. Every penny of that profit is due to the labor of the workers. The current contract expires in less than five weeks. Every day the company delays making a realistic offer to the union, the closer workers come to a strike authorized by 97% of the rank-and-file who voted.

How The Labor Movement Is Showing Up For LGBTQ+ Rights

June 28, 2023 Sam Carliner, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! Labor Movement, LGBTQ Rights, Solidarity, Starbucks, Unions

At any march for rights there’s no shortage of creative chants. This year in New York City at the annual Queer Liberation March, a new one debuted. Playing on the lyrics to RuPaul’s “Cover Girl,” queer rights activists chanted “Socialists, put that bass in your walk! Unionize, let the whole workplace drop!” This was one of several labor-themed chants from a Left and Labor contingent which formed to amplify a labor movement that increasingly represents the LGBTQ+ community and is organizing for LGBTQ+ rights. Left Voice, an all-volunteer socialist publication, initiated the contingent. Around two dozen unions and politically left organizations joined the initiative, endorsing it, bringing out their members and publicizing the march.

Why The Fight To Unionize Starbucks Matters To Us All

June 14, 2023 Andrew Moss, Counterpunch. Educate! Labor Movement, Starbucks, union busting, Unions

For good reason, the fight to unionize Starbucks has drawn considerable public attention since workers at a Buffalo, New York store voted to unionize in December of 2021. Since that time, workers at more than 300 stores, representing more than 8000 workers, have so voted. The campaign has been met with strong company resistance, resulting in legal rulings that found Starbucks violating federal labor law by (among other things) illegally surveilling workers, firing workers involved in union organizing, and adding workers at specific workplaces to dilute union strength. In an eventful year-and-a-half, the company has failed to negotiate a single contract.

Winning Is Only The Start: Jane McAlevey On Building Worker Power

June 10, 2023 Paige Oamek, In These Times. Strategize! Labor Movement, Negotiations, Unions, Worker Rights

In April 2022, Amazon workers in Staten Island voted to form a union. But a year after that historic victory, union members at the JFK8 warehouse still don’t have a contract, thanks largely to Amazon spending $14 million on union avoidance consultants. That may be shocking but it’s not unusual. When workers vote to form a union, it takes an average of 465 additional days to sign a contract with their employer. Meanwhile this spring in Buffalo, where the first Starbucks Workers United election was won in 2021, a new decertification petition attempted to extinguish the spark that inspired hundreds of other locations to follow suit.

Three Decades Ago, There Was A Deadly Attack On Mexican Autoworkers

June 2, 2023 Isabela Escalona, Workday Magazine. Strategize! Auto Workers, History, Labor Movement, Mexico, Violence, Worker Rights and Jobs

Rob McKenzie is a writer and former auto worker at the Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant in St. Paul, Minn., where he worked as an assembler, industrial electrician, and then as a full-time union representative for the United Auto Workers (UAW) until the plant closed in 2011. During his time as a steward at the Twin Cities plant in 1990, news hit of a deadly attack on a Ford plant in Cuautitlán, Mexico, a town just outside of Mexico City. The autoworkers in Cuautitlán were part of a radicalizing union reform movement due to their union’s management colluding with the company to undermine them.

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