Labor Unions

Worker’s National Day Of Action For Unions #UnrigTheSystem

February 25, 2018 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance. Resist! Labor Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

Workers protested across the country because, on Monday, the Supreme Court will consider Janus vs. AFSCME — a case that could weaken public employee unions by challenging a longstanding precedent that protects the ability of public employee unions to represent their members and even nonmembers and to speak out on matters of public interest. The challenge to an Illinois law that allows government employee unions to collect fees from workers who choose not to join could affect more than 5 million government workers in 24 states and the District of Columbia. Public sector union members make up close to half of all U.S. union members.

Thousands Of Low Wage Workers Walk Off Jobs In Protest

February 12, 2018 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance Resist! Fight for 15, Labor Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

The Fight for $15 held protests calling for a $15 per hour wage and a union. Thousands walked off their jobs in two dozen cities. The protests, which were joined by the Poor People's Campaign, are part of a campaign by fast food and other low wage workers. The protests on February 12 are being held on the 50th anniversary of the day when the famous Memphis sanitation workers strike began. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. participated in that strike which demanded safety of workers, a living wage and recognition of their union. King was organizing the Poor People's Campaign at the time of his assassination in Memphis. According to the compensation research company PayScale, fast food workers make an average of $8.28 per hour. The National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour leaves workers unable to afford a two-bedroom rental apartment in any U.S. state. The organizers of today's protests are planning six weeks of "direct action and nonviolent civil disobedience" starting on Mother's Day.

Workers Show How To Transform Unions And Rebuild Labor Movement

February 12, 2018 By Andrew Tillett-Saks, Truthout.org Organize! Labor, Labor Unions, Unions

It's Saturday afternoon in December 2017 at the hotel workers' union hall in Stamford, Connecticut, a mere two days before a scheduled union election at the Hilton Stamford. Where one would expect nerves and chaos, a quiet calm covers the hall. American unions have struggled for decades to successfully organize non-union workers, with the movement's difficulties organizing workers only intensifying. Notwithstanding a recent small uptick amongst white-collar workers and scattered victories, unions have been unable to figure out how to organize US workers en masse. Recent high-profile election losses, much of the labor movement choosing not to even attempt elections and some unions beginning to experiment with minority unionism all evidence this struggle.

Workers Plan Massive Wave Of Civil Disobedience This Spring

February 4, 2018 Staff for Fight for $15, Popular Resistance Resist! Fight for 15, Labor Unions, Poor People's Campaign, Workers Rights and Jobs

Thousands of fast-food cooks and cashiers announced Thursday they will walk off their jobs and protest nationwide Feb. 12 – the 50th anniversary of the historic Memphis sanitation strike - carrying on the fight for higher wages and union rights led by hundreds of black municipal workers whose 1968 walkout became a rallying cry of the Poor People’s Campaign led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Workers in the Fight for $15 declared they will participate in six weeks of direct action and nonviolent civil disobedience beginning Mother’s Day as part of the new Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, uniting two of the nation’s most powerful social movements in a common fight for strong unions to lift people of all races out of poverty.

Union-busters Set Themselves Up For Janus Backfire

January 15, 2018 IUOE Local 150, Portside.org Strategize! Labor Unions, Supreme Court, union busting

Unfortunately, for the special interest groups that are pushing this agenda, the ramifications of a win will have the opposite of the desired effect. If not bargaining is protected free speech, then bargaining will conversely be protected free speech, giving union workers new protections that we’ve never enjoyed before. In the coming months, the United States Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments and rule upon a case that could mean nationwide “right-to-work” for all public sector workers. Union busters are beating their chests over the prospects of Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 changing federal labor law, but based on their own arguments, we believe that they have left themselves open to some unintended consequences.

Empire Files: Deadliest Country For Unions And Social Leaders

January 7, 2018 AbMartin, TelesurTV Resistance Report Colombia, Labor Unions, Violence

In 2017, murders of social leaders, union organizers and indigenous activists in Colombia hit a new high since the historic peace agreement. Empire Files' Abby Martin goes to Colombia to document the increasingly deadly situation for human rights activists. Hear from an Afro-Colombian union leader under threat of assassination, and how the US Empire created this epidemic today.

The Rise And Decline Of The Welfare State

December 17, 2017 James Petras Educate! Capitalism, Imperialism, Labor Unions, New Economy

Over the past forty years the working class and the rump of what was once referred to as the ‘labor movement’ has contributed to the dismantling of the social welfare state, voting for ‘strike-breaker’ Reagan, ‘workfare’ Clinton, ‘Wall Street crash’ Bush, ‘Wall Street savior’ Obama and ‘Trickle-down’ Trump. Gone are the days when social welfare and profitable wars raised US living standards and transformed American trade unions into an appendage of the Democratic Party and a handmaiden of Empire. The Democratic Party rescued capitalism from its collapse in the Great Depression, incorporated labor into the war economy and the post- colonial global empire, and resurrected Wall Street from the ‘Great Financial Meltdown’ of the 21st century.

What The Attack On Organized Labor Means For African Americans

October 8, 2017 D. Amari Jackson, www.atlantablackstar.com Resist! Labor Unions, union busting, Unions

By D. Amari Jackson for Atlanta Black Star. In an April 2016 document sent from Tracie Sharp to her powerful States Policy Network (SPN) — a right-wing alliance of 66 think tanks across the country and a sister organization to the notorious American Legislative and Exchange Council (ALEC) — the SPN president plotted a “mortal blow” to progressive causes and institutions in America through a well-funded effort to “defund and defang one of our freedom movement’s most powerful opponents, the government unions.” The ten-page letter, first exposed to the public last month, In an April 2016 document sent from Tracie Sharp to her powerful States Policy Network (SPN) — a right-wing alliance of 66 think tanks across the country and a sister organization to the notorious American Legislative and Exchange Council (ALEC) — the SPN president plotted a “mortal blow” to progressive causes and institutions in America through a well-funded effort to “defund and defang one of our freedom movement’s most powerful opponents, the government unions.” The ten-page letter, first exposed to the public last month, acknowledged the historical significance of government unions as a pivotal centerpiece of the American left and its associated politics. In it, Sharp highlighted how the automatic deduction of union dues from the paychecks of government employees buttresses “the left’s ability to control government at the state and national levels.” The goal, she explained, is to target legislation at “permanently depriving the left from access to millions of dollars in dues extracted from unwilling union members every election cycle.”The goal, she explained, is to target legislation at “permanently depriving the left from access to millions of dollars in dues extracted from unwilling union members every election cycle.”

Randi & Lily, For The Good Of Unions, Please Step Down

February 12, 2017 Steven Singer, www.gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com Organize! Betsy DeVos, Education, Labor Unions

By Steven Singer in Gadfly On The Wall. Unions are facing hard times. We are under attack by the new fascist wing of the Republican party. So-called “right to work” laws are being drafted at the national level to strip us of our rights and transform us into the factory slaves of The Gilded Age. New court challenges at the state and federal level could make it next to impossible to collect dues without allowing countless free riders. And in the mass media criticism of teacher tenure is mounting despite widespread ignorance of what it even means. More than ever we need to be united in our efforts to fight the forces of regression and tyranny. We need each other to protect our public schools and our students from those who would do them harm. But the biggest obstacle to doing that isn’t Donald Trump. Nor is it Mike Pence, Steve Bannon or even Betsy DeVos. It is you. Both of you.

American Unions Form Alliance To Prevent Climate Disaster

June 8, 2016 Joe Uehlein and Jeremy Brecher, www.uslaboragainstwar.org Organize! Climate Change, Labor Unions

By Joe Uehlein and Jeremy Brecher for US Labor Against The War - Step by step the American labor movement is increasingly recognizing and responding to the threat of climate change. While the AFL-CIO never supported the Kyoto or Copenhagen climate agreements on the grounds that they were bad for jobs and the American economy, it “applauded” the Paris climate agreement as a “landmark achievement in international cooperation” and called on America to “make the promises real.”

Breaking: Supreme Court Deadlock Upholds Win For Unions

March 29, 2016 AP, http://www.AP.org Resist! Labor Unions, Supreme Court, Worker Rights

By Associated Press. A tie vote from the Supreme Court on Tuesday handed a win to labor unions in a high-profile dispute over their ability to collect fees. The justices divided 4-4 in a case that considered whether public employees represented by a union can be required to pay "fair share" fees covering collective bargaining costs even if they are not members. The split vote leaves in place an appeals court ruling that upheld the practice. The one-sentence opinion does not set a national precedent and does not identify how each justice voted. It simply upholds a decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that applies to California and eight other Western states.

Labor Department Finally Closes Union-Busting Loophole

March 27, 2016 Michael Hiltzik, www.latimes.com Educate! Labor Unions, union busting, Worker Rights

By Michael Hiltzik for the Los Angeles Times. Washington, DC - Explanations abound for the consistent decline of organized labor in the United States, especially in the private sector. But one important factor is the ability of employers to engage in union-busting almost without restriction. Limitations on employers' activities exist, theoretically, but they've been enforced only spottily and are rife with loopholes. The Dept. of Labor finally has moved to close one loophole, created way back in 1959. This is the ability to hire anti-union consultants, familiarly known as "persuaders," without reporting the arrangements. The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, otherwise known as the Landrum-Griffin Act, required these deals to be reported only if the consultants were speaking directly with employees, but not if their influence reached the workplace floor indirectly, via intermediaries.

The Door-To-Door Union Killers

March 13, 2016 Steven Greenhouse, www.theguardian.com Educate! Corporatism, Labor Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Steven Greenouse for The Guardian. Seattle, WA - For several months, Shawna Murphy, a home-based childcare provider in Seattle, had received a stream of emails, letters and robocalls – some two dozen of them – telling her she had the right to stop paying union dues. Then early one afternoon, while the six children in her charge were napping, a man with a briefcase knocked on her door. At first Murphy thought he was a lawyer, but then she realized he might be a state inspector of childcare providers. So she opened the door. “He said there’s this supreme court case that will impact me, and he pulled out this leaflet and told me that I don’t have to be part of the union and don’t have to pay union dues,” said Murphy, a member of the Service Employees International Union. “I told him, ‘I’m a proud supporter of the union, and you can leave now.’”

Black Women Are Driving The Rebirth Of The Labor Movement

September 8, 2015 Anna Merlan, www.jezebel.com Resist! Black Women, Labor Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Anna Merlan in Jezebel - While those numbers show in depressing relief how fast and far union membership in America has fallen, the good news is that unions are still surviving, becoming more diverse (black workers are now the most likely to be unionized, according to the BLS), and moving into new fields. Fight for $15 is making real gains in the fast food industry and new media organizations are unionizing one right after the other these days (ahem). Latino workers still have the lowest rates of union membership, a gap that labor organizations are trying hard to close. At NBC, Kimberly Freeman Brown points out the other labor organizations led by black women: the National Domestic Workers Alliance, North Carolina’s Forward Together Moral Movement, and Wisconsin Jobs Now, among others. They’re among the women profiled in Freeman Brown’s And Still I Rise, a report and “love letter” to black women in labor released this year.

Not Just For Better Pay: Seattle Teachers Strike For Social Justice

September 5, 2015 Interview of Jesse Hagopian with Jaisal Noor, www.therealnews.com Resist! Education, Labor Unions, Seattle, Social Justice, Teachers, Worker Rights and Jobs

Interview of Jesse Hagopian with Jaisal Noor - This means students will not be attending class on Wednesday, the first scheduled day of school, if a deal is not reached before then. Negotiations with the school district are ongoing. The key issues of contention between Seattle Public Schools and the union include teacher pay, recess time for students, extending the school day, and what the union is calling too much standardized testing. The district services over 45,000 students in 97 schools. Well, now joining us to discuss this from Seattle is Jesse Hagopian. Jesse is a Seattle public school teacher. He's an editor of Rethinking Schools magazine, a founding member of Social Equality Educators. He's the editor of the book More Than a Score, and he blogs at IAmanEducator.com. Thanks so much for joining us, Jesse.

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