Labor Unions

How Teachers Unions Must Change — By A Union Leader

February 19, 2015 Bob Peterson, www.portside.org Strategize! Education, Labor Unions, Teachers

Our challenge in Milwaukee was to transform a staff-dominated, business/service-style teachers’ union into something quite different. The local had focused narrowly on contract bargaining and enforcement, with the staff playing the role of insurance agents who would intervene on members’ behalf to solve their problems—instead of helping members organize to solve their own problems. It was a codependent relationship—members didn’t have to do much more than make a call to have their problems taken care of, and staff didn’t have to go out to do the hard work of organizing members, except for occasional mobilizations at contract time. The importance of parent/community alliances was downplayed, and the union took the attitude that it was not their responsibility—but rather the administration’s—to ensure quality education.

US Ports Shutdown Continues, Labor Secretary To Intervene

February 17, 2015 Steve Gorman, www.reuters.com Resist! Labor Unions, Transportation

A partial shutdown of 29 U.S. West Coast ports stretched into a third day on Monday ahead of the U.S. labor secretary's scheduled arrival in San Francisco to try to broker a settlement ending months of disruptions on the cargo-clogged docks. President Barack Obama, under pressure to weigh in on a labor dispute that has rippled through the U.S. commercial supply chain and beyond, said on Saturday he would dispatch Labor Secretary Tom Perez to meet with the two sides in the conflict. A spokeswoman said the labor secretary was due to arrive in San Francisco on Tuesday to join in talks between the shipping companies and the union representing 20,000 dockworkers. The secretary's spokeswoman, Xochitl Hinojosa, declined to detail his itinerary or his meetings schedule. The White House said last week that Perez had already been in contact with the parties and would keep Obama informed.

Oil Strike Is About Lives Of Workers

February 17, 2015 Butch Cleve, www.theguardian.com Resist! Environment, Labor Unions, Oil & Gas, worker safety

In an oil refinery, like the one where I work, stuff leaks all the time. Sometimes dripped oil just makes a black spot on the ground. Sometimes 500-degree gas flows out, ignites and explodes. These powerful blasts can maim and kill. I’ve seen it. The first time was in 1998, four years after I started work at a refinery in Anacortes, which was first owned by Shell but later became Tesoro. It happened at the adjacent refinery, owned at that time by Equilon. An explosion killed six workers. For a lot of us, that was our first experience with a refinery catastrophe with multiple fatalities. It shocked you to the core. Then, five years ago, at my refinery, a massive explosion killed seven of my friends.

Workers Finding New Ways To Advocate In The Workplace

February 17, 2015 Sarita Gupta, www.prospect.org Resist! Economic Justice, Labor Unions, Living Wage, Worker Rights and Jobs

At the heart of this struggle is the reality that we’re no longer working in traditional, family-sustaining careers. As the way we work continues to change in this country, isn’t it time that the rules and standards governing our workplaces do too? If we’re going to rewrite those rules, we need to give everyone a seat at the table. When the powerful few get to decide which wages, benefits, and workplace standards the rest of us deserve, the economic picture goes wildly off-kilter. But what if we all had a stronger voice at work? What if we all had the ability to share our ideas, negotiate on behalf of the collective good, and stand up for issues that really matter? Isn’t that voice a critical piece of helping us restore the good, family-supporting jobs that seem to keep disappearing?

Unions, Students Rally On UWM Campus Against Cuts

February 13, 2015 Graham Kilmer, www.mediamilwaukee.com Resist! Austerity, Labor Unions, Student Activism, Wisconsin

A group of about 60 students gathered in Spaights plaza Wednesday at a rally organized by the Progressive Students of Milwaukee to protest the recently proposed cut of $300 million to the UW-System. Speakers addressed the crowd and fired them up for a march around the campus. At the protest, students participated in chants calling for an end to the cuts proposed by Gov. Walker, as well as chants to show solidarity and pride in their message. Mott expressed serious concern about the cuts to education in Walker’s proposal. He even questioned Walker’s credibility to make a decision like this being that Walker never graduated college.

Postal Workers Oppose Staples-Office Depot Merger

February 7, 2015 APWU, www.apwu.org Resist! Capitalism, Labor Unions

The American Postal Workers Union announced today that the 200,000–member organization will “vigorously oppose” the merger between Staples and Office Depot. “We will urge the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to block this monopolistic and unlawful merger now, just as they did 17 years ago,” said APWU President Mark Dimondstein. “And we call on Congress to weigh in with the FTC and the Department of Justice to stop it. “A Staples takeover of Office Depot would lead to higher prices for consumers and store closings that would affect employees and customers alike,” Dimondstein said. “There are new grounds to block this combination as well,” he added.

Chicago Teachers Union Will Not Back Down, Challenges Governor

February 5, 2015 Juan Perez, Jr. www.chicagotribune.com Organize! Chicago, Education, Labor Unions, Privatization, Teachers

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis pilloried Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday and promised the CTU would not back down from Springfield or City Hall as it prepares demands for a new contract. "Bruce Rauner ran on a platform about nothing," Lewis said Monday at a City Club of Chicago luncheon. "He's wasted no time attacking the wages of working-class people, attacking their labor unions and threatening massive cuts to social service programs, which help the most vulnerable people in our state. "That is the real Bruce Rauner. He's not some easygoing, blue-jeans-wearing, $20-dollar-watch-having good guy who's coming to save the day. He is (Wisconsin Gov.) Scott Walker on steroids."

$5 Million For Co-op Development In Madison

January 29, 2015 Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo, www.geo.coop Create! Labor Unions, Politics, Worker Cooperative

Soon after that conversation, Soglin initiated Madison’s Capitol Improvement Plan, “Co-operative Enterprises for Job Creation & Business Development.” This plan would authorize the city to spend $1 million each of five years starting in 2016 to fund “cooperative/worker-owned business formation for the purposes of job creation and general economic development in the city.” The Madison Common Council, known as city councils or commissions in other cities, approved the initiative on Nov. 11, 2014. This allocation is the largest by a U.S. municipality. Earlier last year, New York allocated $1.2 million to help worker cooperative development.

Increasing Wage To Poverty Wage Is Not Enough

January 27, 2015 LeeAnn Hall, www.otherwords.org Organize! Labor Unions, Living Wage, Minimum Wage

On New Year’s Day, 20 states raised their minimum wages. That leaves a lot of states that aren’t increasing the minimum wage — along with the federal government. Even some of those employees who are getting increases don’t have much to celebrate. Workers in Florida might barely notice their 12-cents-an-hour raise. And the extra 15 cents an hour in Montana, Arizona, and Missouri will be wiped out with inflation and climbing costs before the first paycheck is deposited. U.S. legislators have refused since 2009 to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour — not even close to enough for full-time workers to make ends meet.

How Can Labor End Its Death Spiral?

January 25, 2015 Staff, /www.laborfightback.or Strategize! Labor, Labor Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The attacks on labor and workers cannot be sugar coated. It is a crisis of the highest order. This is no time for complacency or an attitude of resignation to additional defeats. The employers' campaign has been a record of relatively easy victories, and it is high time for changes in labor's strategy in order to bring the corporate class to heel. We have to say "No to Austerity Measures!" imposed on the working class while the high rollers laugh all the way to the bank. The alternative strategy, which we in the Labor Fightback Network have urged since our inception, is for labor and our community allies to run our own candidates for pubic office, based on a program that reflects the needs of the great majority of the population, with candidates we put forward accountable to their base. So long as we continue to depend on either of the two corporate parties to overcome the crisis that the labor movement is up against, more defeats loom in our future. It's time for a change!

Municipal Workers Locked Out In Happy Valley-Goose Bay

January 24, 2015 Ella Bedard, www.rabble.ca Resist! Labor Unions

Two weeks ago, the Town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay locked out its municipal workers. The 43 members of CUPE Local 2019 are fighting to keep their Defined Benefit (DB) pension plan, which their employer is looking to downgrade. In a 96 per cent strike vote, the workers rejected the Town's demand for a two-tiered pension plan, which would have seen all new hires move to a Defined Contribution (DC) plan. "The 48 members at the local have said look, a defined contribution plan is nothing better than an RRSP and that's an absolute sell-out to the next generation," said President of CUPE Newfoundland and Labrador Wayne Lucas.

Court: SRC Had No Right To Cancel Teacher Contract

January 24, 2015 Kristin A. Graham, www.philly.com Educate! Education, Labor Unions, Philadelphia, Teachers

Commonwealth Court judges ruled Thursday that the School Reform Commission does not have the power to cancel union contracts, restoring health-care cuts that were to save the Philadelphia schools $54 million annually. The unanimous ruling appeared to strike down a core operating belief of the SRC. PFT president Jerry Jordan called the decision "a very big victory" that affirmed the union's position that contracts must be negotiated, not imposed, and that the state law that created the SRC did not give it the power to wipe away collective bargaining. Chairman Bill Green said that the SRC and its attorneys had not yet decided whether to appeal the ruling, but that some action could come next week.

100 Years Old Today: The Story Behind ‘Solidarity Forever’

January 19, 2015 Jonathan Rosenblum, www.inthesetimes.com Educate! Labor Unions, Solidarity

On a windblown, gray Chicago day exactly 100 years ago today, Ralph Chaplin left his home on the city’s South Side for a raucous poor people’s rally at Hull House, the famed settlement house co-founded by Jane Addams. He asked a visiting friend he'd met organizing coal miners with Mother Jones to listen to the lyrics of a new tune he had been working on: “Solidarity Forever, Solidarity Forever, Solidarity Forever, For the union makes us strong!” The self-described Chicago “stiff” and “rebel editor” merely wanted to write a song that could be for workers what “John Brown's Body” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” were for abolitionists. In fact, he borrowed the very melody. One hundred years later, despite the rise and precipitous fall of workers’ movements in the U.S., Chaplin's song is a classic still widely sung with fists raised and demands for justice submitted.

Textile Workers’ Strike Stirs Discontent In Sisi’s Egypt

January 17, 2015 Hossam el-Hamalawy, www.alaraby.co.uk Resist! Egypt, Labor Unions, Strike

Thousands of workers have been on strike since Tuesday in Egypt's largest textile mill. They are withdrawing their labour in a dispute over bonuses, while also protesting against the government's recent decision to scrap cotton subsidies. The Misr Company for Spinning and Weaving, located in Mahalla el-Kubra, at the heart of the Nile Delta, has been a hotbed of industrial militancy in Egypt since at least the 1940s. Strikes in Mahalla have historically set the tone for the country's class politics. If a strike in Mahalla wins, an upturn in the textile sector's industrial actions can spill over to the rest of the manufacturing population.

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