Labor Movement

Beyond Fatalism: Renewing Working-Class Politics

March 26, 2023 Sam Gindin, The Bullet. Strategize! Canada, Labor Movement, Politics, popular power, Working Class

“We need to ask ourselves,” Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz stated in the third edition of From Consent to Coercion, “whether free pertains to those who do business or whether it pertains also to the majority of Canadians who do not do business.” Their book, now a classic, focused on a critical expression of the tension between liberal democratic principles and capitalist realities: the substantive right of workers to strike. Canadian workers were officially granted the basic democratic right to form unions, but the substance of that right – the withdrawal by workers of their labour power – was regularly suspended when workers successfully used it.

Making Campuses Platforms For Labor Renewal

March 21, 2023 Joseph A. McCartin, CounterPunch.org. Organize! Higher Education, History, Labor Movement, Labor Spring, Worker Rights and Jobs

Everywhere you look this spring, you’ll find evidence that campuses are becoming sites of labor organizing and struggle. In recent months, faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago staged recently a successful week-long strike, adjunct faculty at the New School won a three-week strike, 50,000 graduate assistants staged a six-week strike across the entire University of California system, staff at American University struck, and undergraduate workers at a growing number of campuses have begun organizing unions and, in some places, even preparing to strike. And this is just a small sampling of what has been afoot.

Auto Workers Region 9 Winner On Rebuilding A Fighting Union

March 9, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Organize! Democracy, Elections, Labor Movement, UAW

Reform challenger Shawn Fain appears poised to win the presidency of the United Auto Workers, defeating incumbent Ray Curry for the union’s top leadership spot. With more than 137,000 votes counted, Fain has a lead of 645 votes; the counting of the remaining challenged ballots will resume March 16. If Fain wins, challengers to the ruling caucus will hold not only the presidency but also a majority on the union’s international executive board. UAW Members United ran on a platform of no corruption, no tiers, and no concessions. It’s a watershed after nearly 80 years of the Administration Caucus’s stranglehold on power—defined by corruption scandals, diminished bargaining power, and a multi-tier wage system that wrecked worker solidarity.

Why Veterans In Labor Should Not Be Ignored

March 4, 2023 Steve Early, Working-Class Perspectives. Strategize! Identity Politics, Labor Movement, Veterans, Worker Rights and Jobs

Even in the era of identity politics, one category of identity has largely been ignored: what UK journalist Joe Glenton calls “veteranhood.”19 million former soldiers — most of them working class — share a strong sense of personal identity as vets, but the media usually notices them only when they are involved in right-wing militias, white supremacist groups, and other MAGA-land formations. Some have noted their over-representation in U.S. law enforcement, which does reinforce militarized policing, along with the better known Pentagon-to-police equipment pipeline.

Unions Safeguard Workers’ Sweat Equity

March 1, 2023 Tom Conway, In These Times. Strategize! Labor Movement, Steelworkers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Last year, Mark Glyptis and dozens of other union leaders went into contract negotiations with the Cleveland-Cliffs mining company determined not only to win wage and benefit enhancements for their coworkers, but also to protect thousands of family-sustaining steel mill jobs for years to come. The United Steelworkers (USW) negotiating team ultimately delivered a historic contract requiring the company to invest $4 billion in 13 union-represented facilities, including about $100 million at the Weirton, West Virginia mill where Glyptis and his colleagues rely on ever more sophisticated equipment to make precision tin plate.

Trade Unions Can Beat The Far-Right

March 1, 2023 Taj Ali, Tribune Magazine. Strategize! Far Right, Labor Movement, Trade Unions, Unions

When my dad grew up in Luton in the 1970s, many of the roads I walk through today were a no-go for British Pakistanis. They were places where racist attacks were commonplace, and it was only sustained campaigning by an older generation that turned them around. Sadly, however, that fight endured. When I was eleven years old, I was told by a schoolteacher one day to stay indoors because the English Defence League were marching in town. Luton was later plagued by Britain First and other far-right groups. Last week, Patriotic Alternative targeted the town, plastering it with white nationalist Great Replacement Theory rhetoric. In the neighbouring town of Dunstable, the group was also active, whipping up fear about the housing of asylum seekers in hotels.

ILWU Alums Tackle Labor Power And Strategy Questions

February 28, 2023 Steve Early, Popular Resistance. Strategize! Direct Action, Labor Movement, Solidarity, Supply Chain, Unions

Workers in the logistics industry often make headlines when their handling of goods is disrupted by pandemic conditions or labor conflicts. Thanks to global supply chains, many consumer products are now manufactured in one country, shipped by sea, rail, or air to another country, unloaded and trucked to huge distribution centers (aka “warehouses”), and then delivered to retail store chains or directly to customers at home by on-line retailers like Amazon. When workers in any one link in this supply chain have a fight with their boss—on the docks, at a trucking company or railroad, or even in a single newly organized warehouse—their chances of winning are greater if they occupy a strategic “choke point” or can enlist labor allies, at home or abroad, who do.

Strikes Up 52% In 2022: Labor Action Tracker

February 26, 2023 The ILR School. Educate! Labor Movement, Strikes, Worker Rights

The Cornell-ILR Labor Action Tracker is a comprehensive database of work stoppages. The project began in 2021 and is led by Johnnie Kallas, Ph.D. ’23, to provide a fuller picture of worker activity to inform policymakers, the public and others about workplace conflict. The data collection is unique to the ILR School, he said. Due to funding cuts by the Reagan Administration in the 1980s, the Bureau of Labor Statistics excludes work stoppages of fewer than 1,000 workers from its database. It is imperative to have reliable data on strike activity, by union and non-union workers in stoppages of all sizes, to keep journalists, policymakers, activists and scholars informed about labor activism and unrest across the United States,” Kallas said.

In 1996, There Was Union Summer; This Year, There’s ‘Labor Spring’

February 25, 2023 Cindy Hahamovitch, William P. Jones and Joseph A. McCartin, In These Times. Organize! Labor Movement, Strikes, Teach ins, Unions

Something is stirring this spring. People in the U.S. are becoming increasingly interested in what commentators once called “the labor question,” following recent organizing victories at Starbucks, Amazon and Apple stores; well-publicized strikes of teachers, nurses and railway workers; and the unionization of staff, graduate assistants and even faculty at scores of campuses, including the recent successful strike of nearly 50,000 academic workers on the campuses of the University of California. Evidence of this mood shift is unmistakable this spring as students, campus staff and faculty, together with unions and community allies, are coming together on or adjacent to more than 50 campuses nationwide — including ours — to engage in a remarkable national teach-in on worker rights and organizing called Labor Spring.

The Time Has Come That Mumia Abu-Jamal Must Be Set Free

February 18, 2023 Irvin Jim, People's Dispatch. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, International Solidarity, Labor Movement, Mumia Abu-Jamal, South Africa

We want to sincerely be upfront that whilst we are believers of separation of powers in any democratic dispensation, the sustained injustice that has consistently visited Mumia Abu-Jamal who has been kept in jail in what we believe and regard as unjustifiable reasons, compelled us as the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa for years now, to be part of the international justice campaign in support of freedom of political prisoners in the world who have been victims of various political systems at whose center stands injustice. We firmly believe that the time has come that justice must prevail and Mumia Abu-Jamal must be set free.

Striking Workers Need Our Help To Keep Fighting In 2023

February 18, 2023 Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network. Resistance Report History, Labor Movement, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

In this special worker solidarity livestream from February 15, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez spoke with workers involved in the ongoing unionization struggles and strikes at Warrior Met Coal, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Medieval Times, Temple University, and Hastings Schools food service, including Haeden Wright, president of UMWA Auxiliary Locals 2368 and 2245; Bob Batz Jr., interim editor at Pittsburgh Union Progress; Erin Zapcic, union steward for Medieval Times Performers United Buena Park; Austin Martin with the Temple University Graduate Students’ Association (TUGSA); and Laurie Potthoff, a cook at Hastings High School in Minnesota.

Labor Power And Strategy Helps Organizers Think About Chokepoints

February 18, 2023 Peter Olney and Rand Wilson, Labor Notes. Strategize! Chokepoints, Direct Action, Labor Movement, Worker Rights and Jobs

John Womack is well-known in the United States as one of the foremost historians of the Mexican revolution, as the author of the seminal Zapata and the Mexican Revolution. However, his writings on strategic sectors and strategic workers have not received the same attention. In the current organizing upsurge, Womack’s thoughts on these subjects, which he shares in the new book, Labor Power and Strategy, have a lot to offer a new generation of union activists seeking to run smart, strategic, and effective campaigns. And fortunately, in our just-in-time, next-day delivery, consumer economy, there is no shortage of opportunities for identifying chokepoints and taking advantage of supply chain issues to build labor’s power and promote solidarity.

$340 Million Anti-Labor Consulting Industry Is Behind Union-Busting

February 8, 2023 Tyler Walicek, Truthout. Educate! Labor Movement, Labor Unions, union busting, Worker Rights

The remarkable spikes in union activity over the last few years have given many on the left cause for hope: could we be on the precipice of a resurgent, newly galvanized U.S. labor movement? In the first three quarters of 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) documented a 53 percent increase in organizing petitions — including startling wins by new, independent unions at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, and numerous others, across many sectors. There’s a widespread sense that a qualitative shift has taken place. That said — despite the perceptible increase in agitation — on quantitative measures, the picture is not quite so rosy. Overall union density in fact declined in 2022, to a new low of 10.1 percent. It’s yet to be seen if newly roused energies will translate into sustained, structured power. By some metrics, much of the present organizing wave seems to have been dashed upon the rocks — in no small part thanks to a merciless backlash from the bosses.

The Strike Is Our Most Powerful Weapon, Use It Against The Police!

February 4, 2023 Julia Wallace, Left Voice. Strategize! Black America, Labor Movement, Police, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

So many of us have been marching against the police, challenging them in the streets and organizing massive demonstrations. In 2020, cop cars were set ablaze. A police station burned with an approval rating higher than the U.S. Congress! The consciousness of millions of people was deeply changed in the U.S. and around the world. As the movement waned, our class enemies attacked us. As self-appointed leaders became millionaires, they led the movement to the Democratic Party, a party of police itself, as a backlash against the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement mounted. Both Democrats and Republicans whipped up fear of a non-existent “crime wave” and posed increased policing as the solution. President Biden called for more money for police. The Republicans actually increased police budgets and are currently fighting against any discussion of racism in schools.

Stop US Interference: Interview With The Labour Party Of Taiwan

January 31, 2023 Wim De Ceukelaire, Friends of Socialist China. Educate! China, Labor Movement, New Cold War, Taiwan, US Imperialism

The Labour Party of Taiwan was founded in March 1989 by three groups of people. First, the veteran political prisoners of the martial law period in Taiwan who persisted in their struggle while they were imprisoned for a long time. Second, a collection of progressive intellectuals who were united by the well-known magazine “China Tide” (夏潮) in the 1970s and the equally prominent publication “The Human World” (人間) in the 1980s, including Chen Ying-zhen (陳映真), Su Qing-li (蘇慶黎), Wang Li-xia (汪立峽), and others. Third, there were some leaders of the labour and social movements at that time, such as Luo Mei-wen (羅美文) (now a member of the Hsinchu County Council), Ngan Kun-chuan (顏坤泉), and others. The establishment of the Labour Party of Taiwan initiated the third period in the history of the Left in Taiwan. The first period, from the early 1920s to 1931, was defined by the resistance against the Japanese Empire’s colonial rule;[i] the second period, from 1945 to the 1950s, was marked by the participation of the “Old Classmates” in the New Democratic Revolution[ii] in Taiwan; and the third period, from 1988 onwards,[iii] has been characterised by the re-uniting the labour movement with the movement for the reunification of China.

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