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Labor Unions

When History Knocks

January 13, 2015 Sam Gindin, www.portside.org , , ,
Naomi Klein is a longtime movement and media icon, a gifted synthesizer and popularizer who, over the past two decades, has been a leading chronicler of anti-corporate, anti-globalization, and anti-capitalist social movements (a series of antis that undeniably needs some unpacking). Who else on the Left gets a sympathetic interview on the evening news of Canadas publicly owned television broadcaster before the release of her latest book? And who else, as a preview of that book, is immediately given a chance to explain to a national audience why, from the perspective of the environment, capitalism is the main enemy?

Workers Center-Union Partnership Transforming Janitorial Work

January 10, 2015 Steve Payne, www.inthesetimes.com ,
The last few years have seen significant labor unrest among the cleaning staff of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota’s big box stores. Janitors cleaning these stores have leafleted, protested, marched, struck and even gone on hunger strike since 2010, when workers first began organizing with CTUL (the Center for Workers United in Struggle), a workers center in Minneapolis. At that time, most janitors earned around $7.25 an hour and say they faced pervasive wage theft. Today, they say, their rates are between $8.50 and $9.00 an hour, wage theft is rare, and working conditions have improved. Now, the janitors are taking a step beyond their agitation through the workers center by trying to form a union. In November 2014, janitors at Kellermeyer Bergensons Services (KBS) won a card check neutrality agreement with their employer.

Uniting Fight For $15 With Ferguson Fury

January 5, 2015 Bryan Watson, www.15now.org , , ,
Across the country, the youthful protests against police racism openly expressed their solidarity with the fight for $15. The widespread mood to #ShutItDown, most reflected in highway takeovers, found even sharper expression in marches through Wal-Marts and shopping malls, where chants and speeches often made the connections between economic inequality and police racism. There is widespread understanding that racism is structurally embedded into the economy and political life of American capitalism. For a movement against racist police violence to be sustainable, demands for community control over police must be combined with economic demands that address mass unemployment, low-wages, and underfunded services in communities of color. Demands for living wage jobs and quality public services can also unite wider numbers of workers in the struggle for racial equity.

Workers Must Lead Transition To Green Economy

December 20, 2014 Renee Lewis, www.america.aljazeera.com ,
As global climate negotiators meet in Lima, Peru, for the 20th Conference of the Parties (COP 20) — a prelude to world climate talks in Paris next year — international union representatives say labor needs a stronger voice in planning the transition from fossil fuels. If that changeover is left to corporations and market forces alone, workers will be exposed and already-vulnerable communities will suffer most, union leaders told Al Jazeera. “Labor should not just be at the table,” Bruce Hamilton, vice president of the U.S.-based Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), said from Lima. “Labor should be planning the transition.”

New Social Movements Arise In Bosnia Herzegovina

December 20, 2014 Chiara Milan, www.roarmag.org , ,
What’s going on in Bosnia Herzegovina ten months after the uprising? Following the violent riots in February 2014, the citizens of Bosnia have jointly channeled their rage into horizontal and self-organized assemblies called plenums, which mushroomed throughout the country and surfaced in as many as 24 cities and towns. Unfortunately, the flood that hit the country a few months later appears to have wiped out the new experiments of collective self-organization. But the protests, plenums and even the flood contributed to activate a solidarity chain that has now translated into an informal network calling for social justice. The February protests kicked off in the city of Tuzla, 130 kilometers north of the capital Sarajevo, where the laid-off workers of five bankrupted factories staged a protest to get their unpaid pensions and health insurance back. Shortly afterwards, the protest exploded across the country, in the biggest protest wave the country has witnessed since the end of the war.

Italy: General Strike Against Labor Reforms In Over 50 Italian Cities

December 17, 2014 Revolution News, www.bullhorn.nationofchange.org/a> , , ,
A general strike called by two major Italian trade unions on Friday hit schools, hospitals, airports, highways, ports and public transport across the country, as public and private sector workers protested against unpopular reforms to the labor market and cuts to public spending. The strike was initiated by Italy’s first and third-largest unions, CGIL and UIL, with the second-largest labor confederation, CISL, refusing to participate. More than 50 rallies or protest marches at various locations were expected to accompany the walkout, held under the motto “Cosi non va!” (approximately: “This is not the right way”). Railways staff are among those taking part in the strike, despite having been initially banned from participation by the government.

Belgium On General Strike Against Austerity

December 15, 2014 Xinhua News Agency, www.globalpost.com , ,
Belgium's main public transport company, STIB, announced on Thursday that it would cease operations during the planned general strike in the country on Dec. 15. STIB operates bus, underground and tram networks in the Belgian capital. Its sister company De Lijn, which operates services in the northern Flanders region of the country, also said on Thursday that it would not run services during the strike. The general strike is the cumulation of a series of regional strikes that have hit Belgium since November in response to the government's economic policies.

1,000 Restaurant Workers Strike At Airport

December 13, 2014 UNITE HERE!, www.unitehere.org ,
After working without a contract for more than a year, nearly 1,000 restaurant workers at San Francisco Airport (SFO) went on strike this morning, shutting down restaurants at terminals throughout the facility. Tomorrow, 350 restaurant workers employed by HMS Host at Miami International Airport (MIA) are holding a strike authorization vote. Labor troubles in both cities—boom markets that have seen big spikes in the cost of living in recent years—spotlight the growing problem of income inequality in America. UNITE HERE, the union representing airport restaurant and other hospitality workers across North America, is issuing a traveler’s advisory, urging anyone flying from SFO or MIA during this holiday season to bring their own food to the airport.

Walmart Manager Wanted To ‘Shoot Everyone’

December 13, 2014 Alyssa Figueroa, www.alternet.org , , ,
Raymond Bravo, a former Walmart employee in Richmond, CA, decided to go on strike with his co-workers back in November 2012 because they were tired of being disrespected. After their white manager made a racially charged comment, enough was enough. “This manager, Van Riper, told one of the associates who was a member—they were pulling a shelf with rope around his waist—and he told him that he’d like to put that rope around his neck,” Bravo said. “And the associate is African American.” Following the strike, Walmart gave the workers two writeups. Workers can only get three writeups before being placed on a probation period in which they can get fired after their next mistake.

General Strike Hits Italy As Unions Protest Labor Austerity

December 13, 2014 DW, www.dw.de , ,
A general strike called by two major Italian trade unions on Friday hit schools, hospitals, airports, highways, ports and public transport across the country, as public and private sector workers protested against unpopular reforms to the labor market and cuts to public spending. The strike was initiated by Italy's first and third-largest unions, CGIL and UIL, with the second-largest labor confederation, CISL, refusing to participate. More than 50 rallies or protest marches at various locations were expected to accompany the walkout, held under the motto "Cosi non va!" (approximately: "This is not the right way"). Railways staff are among those taking part in the strike, despite having been initially banned from participation by the government.

Want Thanksgiving Off? Follow These Whole Foods Workers’ Example

November 28, 2014 Amien Essif, www.inthesetimes.com , ,
One year after workers staged a “Strikesgiving” protest at a Whole Foods Market in Chicago, the company’s stores in the Midwest have quietly implemented a new policy for scheduling and compensating workers on Thanksgiving Day—and workers are calling it a victory. Frustrated that their store would remain open on the national holiday, about seven workers at the Whole Foods on Halsted Street in Chicago protested by walking off the job or neglecting to come in to work the day before Thanksgiving last year, demanding paid time off for all workers. The strikers—members of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago, which launched a Fight for 15 campaign at Whole Foods in the spring of 2013—also called for $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation.

Class Struggle Is Back In Italy

November 24, 2014 Alfredo Mazzamauro, www.roarmag.org , ,
Back in 2006, Warren Buffet, the notorious billionaire speculator, confessedduring an interview that: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Since then, that class warfare has been ever tougher in Italy. Since 2000, real wages have been decreasing, registering an even sharper downturn since the beginning of the crisis in 2007-’08. In real terms, wages nowadays are as high as in 1990. At the same time, unemployment has skyrocketed. The number of unemployed people was registered at 3.23 million in September 2014.

Billion Dollar Salad Company Exploits Workers

November 24, 2014 Rory Carroll, www.theguardian.com ,
Taylor Farms has become a billion-dollar success story by selling organic kale, lettuce, tomatoes and other “healthy, wholesome” choices. Some workers, however, say that those inside the processing plants face only noxious choices: exploitation, unemployment, deportation. “If you complain they threaten to call ‘la migra’,” said Rosie Guadaloupe, a former supervisor, using a Latino term for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a Department of Homeland Security agency also known as Ice. “If you don’t have papers, that scares you.” A half-dozen current and former workers interviewed by the Guardian alleged the company took advantage of undocumented migrants from Mexico and central America to keep workers on “temporary” status year after year, leaving them vulnerable to low pay, dangerous conditions, intimidation and summary firings.

The Wobblies In Their Heyday

November 24, 2014 Staughton Lynd, www.zcomm.org ,
Labor organizing flourished during World War I because of the government’s need for a variety of raw materials. Among these were food, timber, and copper. Wobbly organizers made dramatic headway in all three industries. At its peak in August 1917 the IWW had a membership of more than 150,000. Nine months later, Chester writes, “the union was in total disarray, forced to devote most of its time and resources to raising funds for attorneys and bail bonds.” This sad state of affairs was, of course, partly the result of a calculated decision by the federal government to destroy the IWW. But only partly.

Boston: Drop The Frame Up Charges Against Union Leader

November 24, 2014 Boston School Bus Union, www.bostonschoolbus5.org , , ,
On July 3, 2014, four plain clothes BPD detectives paid two visits to brother Kirschbaum’s home while he was at the Boston Teachers Union in contract negotiations with Veolia Transportation, Inc. Lieutenant Detective Thomas Hopkins served Steve’s daughter with his Summons charging him with Assault and Battery with a dangerous Weapon, Trespass, Breaking and Entering during the Daytime to Commit a Felony, and Malicious Destruction of Property. These false, defamatory, and outrageous charges are identified as “offenses” alleged to have occurred on June 30that the Solidarity Day rallies and march. On June 30th Solidarity Day nearly 500 USW 8751 Boston School Bus drivers and supporters took the struggle against Veolia/City union busting to the streets surrounding the Freeport bus yard and Veolia Corporate Headquarters.
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