Skip to content

Labor Unions

Labor Shortage Leaves Union Workers Feeling More Emboldened

September 9, 2021 Ben Finley And Tom Krisher, Portside. , , ,
When negotiations failed to produce a new contract at a Volvo plant in Virginia this spring, its 2,900 workers went on strike. The company soon dangled what looked like a tempting offer — at least to the United Auto Workers local leaders who recommended it to their members: Pay raises. Signing bonuses. Lower-priced health care. Yet the workers overwhelmingly rejected the proposal. And then a second one, too. Finally, they approved a third offer that provided even higher raises, plus lump-sum bonuses. For the union, it was a breakthrough that wouldn’t likely have happened as recently as last year. That was before the pandemic spawned a worker shortage that’s left some of America’s long-beleaguered union members feeling more confident this Labor Day than they have in years.

Labor Day Lessons From The American Union Movement’s Hidden History

September 7, 2021 Kim Kelly, NBC News. , , ,
Last week marked the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in U.S. history. In 1921, around 10,000 coal miners in Logan County, West Virginia, who had been trying to unionize with the United Mine Workers of America went to war against about 3,000 coal bosses, state police, private security forces and scabs. For five long, bloody days, those miners in their red bandannas — the Red Neck Army, as they called themselves — held the line, fighting like hell for their futures and their families. Over a million shots were fired, over a dozen people died, the coal bosses dropped bombs and poison gas on mining camps, and the conflict ended only because of federal intervention. Blair Mountain was a pivotal moment in U.S. labor history and a hallowed chapter in the struggle for workers’ rights.

New York Times Tech Guild Walks Out, Into An Historic Fight

August 31, 2021 Rose Lemlich, Left Voice. , , ,
On August 11th, after months of management’s union-busting and stalling, New York Times tech workers staged the tech industry’s first ever walkout over unfair labor practices. Among the over 300 workers taking part was Kathy Zhang, a senior manager of newsroom and product analytics at the New York Times, who echoed hundreds of years of militant worker organizers when she explained the simple yet monumental rights at stake: “we want better working conditions and we want to be able to advocate for those conditions together.” The future of organizing in the tech sector is dependent in large part on what happens here in the next few months. Because the tech industry sits at the nexus of commerce, mass media, finance, entertainment, and nearly all modern forms of communication, a strong labor movement in that sector could result in workers having power over some of the most consequential decision-making of our time.

On Remembering Stanley Aronowitz

August 27, 2021 Steve Early, New Politics. , , ,
Brother Stanley Aronowitz was always ahead of the curve, with his criticism of the shortcomings of old labor and his envisioning of “a new workers movement” that might replace it. During the 1960s, campus radicals turned to him, as a former factory worker and staff member of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers, for advice about the student left’s much debated and then still pending “turn toward the working class.” Late in life, while well embedded in academia, he remained a teacher union activist and successful reform caucus member. In a series of incisive books like False Promises, Working-Class Hero, and From the Ashes of the Old, Stanley always took “slumbering mainstream unions” to task for their lack of militancy, diversity, internal democracy, and progressive politics.

Hotels Don’t Waste A Crisis

August 26, 2021 Saurav Sarkar, Labor Notes. , , ,
Javier Gonzalez used to send money every two weeks to his 85- and 90-year-old parents in his home country. He had to stop because his employer, Boston Marriott Copley Place, terminated Gonzalez and 230 of his co-workers last September, after temporarily laying them off at the start of the pandemic. They made up more than half the hotel’s workforce. Gonzalez is one of 500,000 hotel workers in the U.S. and tens of thousands in Canada who have lost their jobs since Covid hit. Pre-pandemic, there were roughly 1.7 million hotel and motel workers in the United States and 156,000 in Canada. Gonzalez worked as a lead supervisor in the utility department. Despite the title, he wasn’t management; he helped clean the kitchen and organize banquets at Boston’s second-biggest hotel.

How One Union Uses Kitchen Table Economics To Advance Medicare For All

July 8, 2021 Kari Thompson, Labor Notes. , , ,
Using kitchen table economics is critical for winning workers over to Medicare for All. Before this training, members may be wary of trading something they’re familiar with for something that’s unknown. But in the workshop, they see for themselves that what they have now is robbing them blind—and that Medicare for All would bring them real economic gains. What threads its way through much of our conversation is that the insurance companies are a big part of why we pay so much for health care. For example, a Center for American Progress study shows that more than 8 percent of U.S. health care spending goes to administrative costs. However, the study put out by the Congressional Budget Office last year indicated that administrative costs under a single-payer system would be 1.8 percent or even less.

Puerto Rican Workers: No Peace If Energy Is Privatized

June 8, 2021 By  Worker's World. , , , ,
Union organizations today warned Governor Pedro Pierluisi and the Financial Oversight and Management Board that they will paralyze the country if the LUMA Energy contract — that increases rates, allows the consortium to leave Puerto Rico if a hurricane strikes and displaces thousands of workers — is not canceled. “We are warning the attorney for the Financial Oversight and Management Board, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, that there will be no peace in Puerto Rico if the contract is not repealed and they listen to the people who demand, not only a public and more efficient PREPA, but also one free of fossil fuels. Right now there is a favorable atmosphere for paralyzing the country, and if the governor continues to be deaf to the people, we will do so.

Amazon Is Inundating Workers With Anti-Union Messages

June 6, 2021 Jordan Chariton, Status Coup. , , ,
New York City - On the heels of Amazon’s scorched earth, and likely illegal, union-busting campaign in Bessemer, Alabama that defeated workers’ attempt to unionize, Status Coup has obtained photos from inside Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse, known as JFK8, that show the company’s aggressive union-busting in the face of efforts by current and former workers trying to form a union. The union drive organizers, who have formed Amazon Labor Union [ALU], recently filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board after Amazon erected a chain-link fence around the warehouse parking lot in order to force the ALU organizers to a location with less foot traffic–seemingly to prevent them from getting workers to sign a union card. At one point, the fence had a “Beware of Dog” sign up (not clear what dogs folks needed to be aware of).

Missouri Supreme Court Voids ‘Paycheck Protection’ Bill

June 3, 2021 Kaitlyn Schallhorn, The Missouri Times. , , ,
A 2018 law adding sweeping changes to how labor organizations — exempting, however, public safety unions — conduct business was struck down by the Missouri Supreme Court Tuesday. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision rendering the GOP-backed HB 1413 null for violating public employees’ right to collective bargaining “through representatives of their own choosing.” It also said the law violated the state constitution’s equal protection clause by exempting public safety labor organizations. The state’s highest court concurred with the circuit court in finding the offending provisions could not be severed from the legislation as a whole. Dubbed the “paycheck protection” bill, HB 1413 from Rep. Jered Taylor added a myriad of changes for how labor organizations could operate, including mandating public employees to opt-in to dues and fees annually, preventing supervisory employees from being included in the same bargaining unit as employees, and requiring groups be approved by an election before the State Board of Mediation in order to be certified, among other things. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision rendering the GOP-backed HB 1413 null for violating public employees’ right to collective bargaining “through representatives of their own choosing.” It also said the law violated the state constitution’s equal protection clause by exempting public safety labor organizations.

Democratic Unions Get the Goods

June 2, 2021 Alex N. Press, Jacobin Magazine. , , ,
A new report coauthored by labor analyst Jane McAlevey presents overwhelming evidence that democratic unionism that puts workers at the center of collective bargaining wins strong contracts. Just as important, such unionism also has a transformational effect on workers’ consciousness.

Nestlé Workers Demand Equal Pay For Equal Work

May 25, 2021 Ysh Cabana, Canadian Dimension. , , ,
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, workers at the Nestlé manufacturing plant in Toronto’s west end are facing unfair conditions including part-time pay, pension cuts and precarious employment, and management is unwilling to negotiate a reasonable contract with its employees. As of May 19, more than 470 workers are on indefinite strike. Workers at the factory, which produces Kit Kat bars and is the the only manufacturer of Coffee Crisp in the world, started their picket line on May Day 2021. Long-term disputes around the security of permanent employment and a defined benefit pension plan have previously disrupted production at the facility. Negotiations toward a new contract fell through over the central issue of a “tiered” workforce, which is being used by the company to deny employees equal pay for equal work, according to Unifor Local 252, the union representing chocolate production and skilled trades workers.

Workers At Steel Giant ArcelorMittal Go On Strike

May 24, 2021 Hugo Maltais, WSWS. , , ,
Canada - In northeastern Quebec, 2,500 ArcelorMittal workers have been on strike since May 10. The strikers, who work in mines, port facilities, rail lines and offices belonging to the Luxembourg-based multinational, are represented by five locals of the United Steelworkers (USW/ Métallos ) and are affiliated with the Quebec Federation of Labour (QFL), the largest labour organization in Quebec with more than 600,000 members. The strike follows workers’ unequivocal rejection of ArcelorMittal’s “final and comprehensive” offer. Workers voted against the company’s May 7 offer by percentages ranging from 97 percent to 99 percent. Union bargaining committees had recommended that the offer be rejected.

American And Palestinian Unionists Build International Solidarity

May 15, 2021 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. , ,
Abdel-Al — who lives in occupied East Jerusalem — is visiting Chicago this week at the invitation of the United Electrical Workers (UE), the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, and Jewish Voice for Peace to enlist the support of the U.S. labor movement in the Palestinian liberation struggle. He addressed standing-room-only audiences of rank-and-file unionists at last weekend’s Labor Notes conference and again on Tuesday night at the local UE Hall. A machine repair technician by trade, Abdel-Al has been a union activist for three decades. He tells In These Times that throughout their history, Palestinian trade unions have always waged a ​“two-part” battle. ​“We represent workers in the class struggle for socioeconomic rights, but also in the national, political struggle for freedom and independence,” he says...

Nurses In Massachusetts Are Waging The Longest Current Strike In The US

May 13, 2021 Nora De La Cour, Jacobin Magazine. , , ,
After two months on the picket line, over seven hundred unionized nurses at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, are still out on strike. The walkout, which began on March 8, is the longest nurses’ strike in Massachusetts in decades and currently the longest active picket line in the United States. The nurses, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), are demanding that the hospital improve staffing ratios so they can adequately care for each patient. In the year leading up to the strike, nurses at Saint Vincent filed more than six hundred official “unsafe staffing” reports. A column in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette recounted one of these reports, wherein a nurse describes a shift in which she was assigned to care for...

AFL-CIO’s Report Shows Commitment To Defending Police Unions

May 7, 2021 Hamilton Nolan. In These Times. , , ,
On July 2020, a month after protests over racial injustice and police violence set the AFL-CIO headquarters on fire, America’s largest union coalition formed a ​“Task Force on Racial Justice” as a signal that it was taking the issues seriously. A subcommittee of that task force was charged with producing a report on the touchy issue of the labor movement’s relationship to police unions. In These Times has obtained a copy of that committee’s draft report, which is currently circulating within the group before being released to the public. As it stands, the report amounts to a definitive rejection of calls for the labor movement to separate itself from police unions, and a clear statement that the AFL-CIO intends to stay closely aligned with its police members. 
«12345678910»
assetto corsa mods

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.