Labor

Service Workers Had To Pay To Stay Employed

February 21, 2016 Llowell Williams, www.care2.com Educate! Fight for 15, Labor, Wages, Worker Rights

By Llowell Williams for Care2. On paper, federal law in the United States requires all employers to ensure their employees are paid the minimum wage — $7.25 an hour, as guaranteed by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Service workers are legally supposed to earn this amount, whether via direct wages (the federal tipped minimum wage is $2.13 an hour) or a combination of wages and tips. Simple enough, right? In practice, however, this system is ripe for employee exploitation, as a recent U.S. Department of Labor probe in Michigan shows. The owners of Sophia’s Pancake House, a diner with locations in Kalamazoo and Benton Harbor, Mich., were discovered to have actually required waitstaff to pay $2 per hour from their tips merely to remain employed.

Corporations Killed Medicine. Here’s How To Take It Back.

February 17, 2016 Fran Quigley, www.fpif.org Create! Drugs, Finance, health, Labor, Trade

By Fran Quigley for Foreign Policy In Focus and The Nation - Along the path toward the creation of a global capitalist system, some of the most significant steps were taken by the English enclosure movement. Between the 15th to 19th centuries, the rich and the powerful fenced off commonly held land and transformed it into private property. Land switched from a source of subsistence to a source of profit, and small farmers were relegated to wage laborers. In Das Kapital, Marx described the process by coining the term land-grabbing.

Strategies For Climate Justice And A Just Transition

January 17, 2016 Environmental Justice League of RI, www.rifuture.org Strategize! Climate Change, Climate Justice, Labor, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Environmental Justice League of RI for RIFuture.org. The EJ League is interested in big picture, long term, real solutions to interlocking crises that impact communities of color, marginalized communities, and planetary ecosystems. We are members of three national coalitions of grassroots, membership based organizations: Right to the City, Grassroots Global Justice, andClimate Justice Alliance. Together, and lead by our members and our communities, we are developing and sharing solutions that address these intersecting crises from the grassroots. These community based solutions are in opposition to the corporate top down false solutions that pretend to address a single symptom while reinforcing the underlying root causes of the problems. True solutions are rooted in the work of grassroots internationalism, and using the framework of a “Just Transition”. We are collectively building a different context and a different system, an economy for people and the planet. The Just Transition framework emerged from partnerships between environmental justice and labor organizations.

Not Too Late For Unions To Win Friedrichs Case

January 14, 2016 Shamus Cooke, www.counterpunch.org Organize! Labor, Supreme Court, Unions, Worker Rights

By Shamus Cooke for Counter Punch. Washington, DC - If the future of labor unions is in the hands of the Supreme Court, the outlook is bleak. Labor’s denial was shattered when Judge Alito signaled that the Court had the votes to decimate union membership nationwide. This specific attack aims at public sector unions, the last high-density stronghold of the labor movement. It also foreshadows that private sector unions will be further attacked, into dust this time. The Friedrichs decision now seems inevitable, but nothing is inevitable in politics. The decision will not be announced until June, and this 5 month delay allows unions time to fully express their power.

37-Day Strike In View For 8,000 City Of Montreal Workers

January 8, 2016 Staff, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Canada, Labor, Worker Rights

By Staff of CUPE - The 8,000 white-collar workers of the City of Montreal will be on a rotating strike for 36 days from January 25 to February 29. The various services, offices and boroughs of the city will be affected in turn. This wave will culminate in a general strike day on March 1, the deadline for the payment of municipal taxes. In addition, the white collars will not do any overtime work during this period. However, they will provide all essential services prescribed by law.

Crackdowns Show Transit Workers On Right Track

January 7, 2016 Samantha Winslow, www.labornotes.org Resist! Freedom of Speech, Labor, Transportation, Worker Rights

By Samantha Winslow for Labor Notes - Even basic rights like free speech can’t be taken for granted, transit workers are finding out, when your speech makes the boss look bad. Around the country, members of the Amalgamated Transit Union have been threatened with discipline and arrest simply for bringing their message to the public at bus stops, in breakrooms, at public meetings, and on social media. As workers resist budget-crunching, ATU International President Larry Hanley said, “the companies are fighting back using the power of the police and the power of discharge.”

Tell The USTR What You Think About The TPP

December 29, 2015 Staff, www.flushthetpp.org Resist! Labor, TPP, Trade, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Flush the TPP. According to the Federal Register, the Office of the US Trade Representative announced on Dec. 28 that it “is seeking public comments on the impact of the TPP Agreement on U.S. employment, including labor markets.” The open comment period extends until January 13, 2016. It is critical that as many people as possible write to them about this. (In 2014, millions of public comments pouring into the FCC saved the Internet) We make it easy with step-by-step instructions, information about the TPP's impact on labor with links to places where you can read more and a sample comment that you can copy and paste. This only takes a few minutes to do. Please share this with others. Let's flood the USTR with comments opposing the TPP!

It’s Time To Take A Stand For Workers On TPP

December 8, 2015 James P. Hoffa, Leo W. Gerard and Dennis Williams, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Labor, TPP, Workers Rights and Jobs

By James P. Hoffa, Leo W. Gerard and Dennis Williams for The Huffington Post - We serve as representatives of American organized workers on the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN) and together have stated that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a bum deal we cannot support. By registering our dissent to the ACTPN report that endorses the agreement, the Teamsters, the United Steelworkers and the United Auto Workers are letting Congress and the public know this deal fails everyday Americans and must be rejected by our elected representatives. The TPP is simply the latest in a long line of terrible trade pacts that ship jobs overseas and lower wages at home. At a time of outrageous economic inequality and stagnate wages, TPP is the last thing we should do.

Cooks And Janitors At U.S. Capitol Strike Against British Company

November 17, 2015 Alan Pyke, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Bernie Sanders, Labor, Strikes

By Alan Pyke for Think Progress - Workers who serve food at the United States Capitol went on strike Tuesday morning to protest their low wages and call attention to retaliatory actions they say their employer has taken against workers who want to unionize. That company, Restaurant Associates, holds the federal contract to operate the cafeterias in the Capitol Visitors Center and in the Senate itself. The government contracts out janitorial and food service work at many public buildings, paying taxpayer money to private companies rather than employing service workers directly.

South Korea Vows No Tolerance Against Labor Protesters

November 15, 2015 Jack Kim, www.reuters.com Resist! Labor, Labor Rights, South Korea

By Jack Kim for Reuters. The South Korean government vowed on Sunday to crack down on any more violent protests, a day after dozens were arrested during a rally against labor reforms, the largest street protest of President Park Geun-hye's term. Organizers say they will take to the streets again on Dec. 5. More than 60,000 people took part in Saturday's protest, according to police, and a group of a few dozen fought with the police at the front line, trying to break through barricades of police buses blocking off downtown Seoul's main thoroughfare. Police used water canons to disperse the crowd and sprayed liquid laced with an irritant found in chilli pepper to fight off protesters swinging metal pipes and sharpened bamboo sticks.

Dozens Of CUNY Faculty And Students Arrested In Labor Protest

November 6, 2015 Noah Hurowitz, www.dnainfo.com Resist! Labor, Protest, Students, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Noah Hurowitz for DNA Info - MURRAY HILL — About 50 CUNY faculty and staff members were arrested Wednesday after blockading the entrance to a CUNY administrative building in protest of going five years without a contract, according to organizers and police. Protesters wearing black T-shirts with the words “Five Years without a Contract Hurts CUNY Students,” were seen being handcuffed and led from the front of 205 E. 42nd St. Wednesday evening, video showed. “Tax the rich, not the poor, stop the war on CUNY,” protesters were heard chanting while blocking the entrance to the building, which houses the system’s human resources and administrative offices.

Napa Vintner Says ‘No Pesticides, No Problem!’

October 6, 2015 Kari Birdseye, www.earthjustice.org Create! Farmworkers, Labor

By Kari Birdseye for Earth Justice - Ceja was eleven told by a patriarch of the wine industry not to market to the Hispanic community because "they do not buy that much wine." She told him, "You concentrate on your market, I'll concentrate on mine." Ceja You have grown a successful business while introducing wine to new audiences for more than a decade. But you can read all about that in the glossy trade magazines. What I find MOST compelling About Ceja's story and her family's approach to running the business is the genuine love and respect for all their they show workers, from farmhands to managers. Because the Cejas Provide a pesticide-free work environment, pay good wages and treat workers to "parties" and family gatherings, Most of the field workers at Ceja Vineyards have been with the company for many years-a rarity in farm work. As the Obama administration finalizes a new Worker Protection Standard-the woefully outdated regulation protecting farmworkers from pesticide exposure-Ceja Serves as a shining example of how doing right by the environment (and your work force) can be good for business.

Labor Unrest Continues At West Coast Ports

September 29, 2015 David Moberg, www.inthesetimes.com.com Resist! Labor, Los Angeles, Worker Rights and Jobs

By David Moberg for In These Times - The nation’s largest port—spread across parts of both Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA—is a strangely varied workplace. And after years of tenacious effort, workers throughout the port may soon share one important tool their predecessors once had: a union and, therefore, a better job. At one extreme of the state's ports, there are longshore workers who belong to one of the most progressive unions in the U.S., the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. It has brought annual incomes of over $100,000 and higher skilled work to many of its members, once regarded as low-skilled. Once these jobs were unionized and paid reasonably decent “middle-class wages,” but the unions—mainly Teamsters—lost their contracts and members.

US Labor Law At 80: Enduring Relevance Of Class Struggle Unionism

September 28, 2015 Immanuel Ness, www.portside.org Educate! Class, Labor, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Immanuel Ness in Portside - In examining the long-term failure of organized labor, we must first note the alternative, organic, workers' movement embodied in particular by unions affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the early 20th century. From its inception in 1905 until the 1920's, the IWW represented a significant alternative to contract unionism. The IWW stood for the solidarity of all workers and it was fiercely opposed for that reason -- by capital, by reformists such as Daniel DeLeon of the Socialist Labor Party and by the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The IWW engaged in a genuine form of democracy and a mass industrial organizing model ultimately adopted by the AFL and the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO), which both utilized for very different purposes.

Labor Unions Say ‘No’ to Coal in Oakland

September 20, 2015 Darwin BondGraham, www.eastbayexpress.com Resist! Coal, Environment, health, Labor

By Darwin BondGraham for East Bay Express. Alameda, CA - The official voice of the labor movement in the East Bay has come out against plans to export coal from Oakland. This morning, the Alameda Labor Council’s executive committee passed a resolution opposing the export of coal from the bulk commodity terminal planned for construction at the city’s former Army Base. The resolution cites health hazards and environmental harms that are likely to result from shipping and storing coal in West Oakland — hazards that will impact both workers and Oakland residents. “Jobs involving coal are unhealthy and unsafe due to dust emissions; coal is increasingly an anti-union industry,” states the resolution.

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