Labor

Faith, Labor Leaders Ask Pols To Focus On Morals

January 14, 2015 Matthew Hamilton, www.blog.timesunion.com Resist! Faith, Labor, North Carolina

Community, faith and labor groups took advantage of the silence at the state Capitol Monday to hold a brief vigil to call for state politicians to concentrate on passing what they say is morally sound legislation this year. The “Moral Monday” vigil comes two days before the state Senate and Assembly will convene for the first time this year. Those gathered outside the Senate Chamber didn’t call for anything they haven’t already; rather, they placed the emphasis on the morality of raising the minimum wage, upping public school funding and assisting non-wealthy New Yorkers. “This year, this group is calling on our legislators to start paying attention and start listening to the people of New York who need them to create good jobs, institute systems of fair taxation and invest in public education and a social safety net,” Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State Executive Director Sara Niccoli said.

The Consequences Of TPP

January 5, 2015 Michael T. Hertz, www.nationofchange.org Educate! Democratic Party, Environment, Labor, TPP

Despite the attitude of the Democratic Party, which has a strong contingent in opposition, President Obama (and former President Clinton and future possible President Hillary Clinton) are for the TPP. (She supported the TPP while calling for protections for labor, the environment, and other regulations. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/215817-clinton-vs-warren-where-they-disagree. But if the final product is deficient in those areas, she will still support TPP’s adoption). President Obama is in a perfect position to get TPP passed. While there was a Democratic majority in the Senate, passage was in doubt. But now he can work with the Republican majority to get it enacted. And that is precisely where he is headed.

Workers Must Lead Transition To Green Economy, Unions Say

December 21, 2014 Renee Lewis, www.america.aljazeera.com Organize! Climate Change, Jobs, Labor, Solar, Worker Rights and Jobs

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.” Trade unions send delegations to every COP, but they do not participate in negotiations. That makes it difficult to ensure workers are not left out of the energy industry’s “huge transformation,” Anabella Rosemberg, a sustainable development adviser for the International Trade Union, said from Lima.

Slavery In America Fueled By Need For Cheap Labor

December 12, 2014 Frederick Reese, www.facebook.com Educate! Immigration, Labor, Slavery

The 13th Amendment explicitly prohibits slavery in all forms, except as criminal punishment, yet as many as 60,000 native-born Americans and both lawfully-admitted and undocumented immigrants are forced into bonded labor, sex trafficking, or forced, unpaid servitude. A broken immigration system and a failure to effectively respond to a call for reforms reflect on some hard truths about immigrant life in America — including the fact that slavery still exists in the United States and is as pervasive as it has ever been. The media and the public, however, generally tend to focus on sex trafficking, creating a situation in which the realities of labor trafficking are overlooked or ignored wholesale.

15 Years Ago Today, Seattle WTO Shut Down

November 30, 2014 David Solnit, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Environment, Labor, Movement, Seatlle, WTO

I’m thinking about 15 years ago in the rainy streets of Seattle, but even more about farmworkers in the fields of Immokalee and the roads of Burnaby Mountain, British Columbia where First Nations-led mass blockades against Kinder Morgan’s tar sands pipeline are currently happening. After not writing about the Seattle WTO protests for many years, I realized that what people think and know about the past shapes what they do now and thus the future. It’s important to keep some continuity between movements and generations, so new movements and generations can take what is of use and understand what really happened and why from the past and continue to innovate. When Hollywood actor Stuart Townsend called me and told me he was going to make the film Battle in Seattle, I started writing analysis and reflections about Seattle to combat the false myth’s about the Seattle WTO mass direct action shutdown. At this time each year I think and write reflections and analysis around this time.

If Not Now, When? A Labor Movement Plan To Address Climate Change

October 13, 2014 Jeremy Brecher, Ron Blackwell, and Joe Uehlein, www.sagepub.com Organize! Climate Change, Environment, Labor

We are on a climate change path that, unless radically altered, will lead to an unsustainable global warming of seven degrees Fahrenheit or greater. We also face the most serious employment crisis since the Great Depression, with wages that have stagnated for four decades and economic inequality now at levels not seen since the 1920s. Many leaders and activists at different levels of the labor movement recognize the challenges we face in creating a more just and sustainable economy.1 A few unions have supported strong climate protection policies and have actively participated in the climate protection movement; many have stood aloof; a minority have feared their members’ jobs are threatened by some climate protection measures.

What Lena Dunham Taught Us About Unpaid Labor

October 1, 2014 Shen Trotter and Isabelle Nastasia, www.youngist.org Organize! Human Rights, Labor, Solidarity, Youth

Could a movement of part-time and temporary laborers, who are frequently mothers, caretakers, and homemakers, be a part of the revival of a movement demanding living wages for housework? What if interns and freelancers supported the growing movement in the US prison system by establishing connections with those struggling behind the walls? We often speak of all our oppressions as connected; taking the first steps towards creating and strengthening these bonds can lay the social groundwork that will support a popular or revolutionary mass movement. As this work is done, we should also look to the organizing that is happening as we speak.

American Ghandi: A. J. Muste And The History Of Radicalism

September 19, 2014 Leilah Danielson, www.upenn.edu Educate! History, Labor

In American Gandhi, Leilah Danielson establishes Muste's distinctive activism as the work of a prophet and a pragmatist. Muste warned that the revolutionary dogmatism of the Communist Party would prove a dead end, understood the moral significance of racial equality, argued early in the Cold War that American pacifists should not pick a side, and presaged the spiritual alienation of the New Left from the liberal establishment. At the same time, Muste committed to grounding theory in practice and the individual in community. His open, pragmatic approach fostered some of the most creative and remarkable innovations in progressive thought and practice in the twentieth century, including the adaptation of Gandhian nonviolence for American concerns and conditions.

Socialism And Workers’ Self-Directed Enterprises

September 18, 2014 Richard D. Wolff, www.mrzine.com Create! Economic Democracy, Labor

A tiny minority of persons (directors and major shareholders) makes all the key economic decisions in capitalist enterprises. The mass of workers who must live with those decisions and their effects are excluded from making them. Capitalist enterprise organization is thus the opposite and enemy of the democratic enterprise organization that socialism affirms. In socialism redefined along these lines, all the workers in an enterprise collectively and democratically make all the key economic decisions: what, how, and where to produce and what to do with the enterprise’s surplus or profits. Such a socialism would advocate social ownership, planning, and the democratization of enterprises, i.e. their transition from capitalist to workers' self-directed enterprises (WSDEs).

Workers In Maine Buy Out Their Jobs

September 16, 2014 Rob Brown, Noemi Giszpenc and Brian Van Slyke, www.truth-out.org Create! Cooperative, Economic Democracy, Labor

On remote Deer Isle, Maine, the movement for a more just and democratic economy won a major victory this summer. More than 60 employees of three retail businesses - Burnt Cove Market, V&S Variety and Pharmacy, and The Galley - banded together to buy the stores and create the largest worker cooperative in Maine and the second largest in New England. Now the workers own and run the businesses together under one banner, known as the Island Employee Cooperative (IEC). This is the first time that multiple businesses of this size and scope have been merged and converted into one worker cooperative - making this a particularly groundbreaking achievement in advancing economic democracy.

Chipotle Closes Amid ‘Heinous’ Working Conditions

September 11, 2014 Onward State, www.onwardstate.tumblr.com Resist! Capitalism, Labor

After four managers quit in the last two days and an angry letter was posted in the window of Chipotle, the extremely popular Hiester Street restaurant is currently closed. This morning, a since-removed sign was posted in the window of the store reading, “Ask our corporate offices why their employees are forced to work in borderline sweatshop conditions. Almost the entire management and crew have resigned. People > Profits”: image According to former manager Brian Healy, the Chipotle was extremely understaffed with no help from its corporate offices. On days when they needed 13-14 workers in the store, they usually had about six to eight, often resulting in workers doing 10-12 hour shifts without any breaks to eat. In the last two days, the Chipotle staff has incurred huge losses, Healy said. This morning, he arrived at the Chipotle to open up, when one of the workers quit on the spot. At that point, he decided to shut down the store, and he and another manager put that sign on the window. Healy surmises that people from the corporate offices are in town to try and re-open the store. “We just felt neglected,” he said. “…Working conditions are heinous. I’m not trying to take down the Chipotle corporation, I just want to see people treated better. We’re not trying to start a strike or anything like that.” Neither the State College Chipotle nor the corporate offices could be reached for comment. We’ll keep updating as we get more information.

Apple Could Lead If It Had An iConscience

September 11, 2014 HeartBeat Earth, www.heartbeatearth.wordpress.com Create! Apple, Gentrification, Human Rights, Labor, Technology

Tim Cook says he wants Apple to be about more than just profit . Among other things the quote “We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment,” stood out to me. I applaud the sentiment, and when Apple takes positive action and when they make changes after I’m encouraged, but I can’t be silent while this amounts mostly empty rhetoric. I’m looking forward to future Apple where it takes the initiative to better the world. Today I was at the Apple launch event at De Anza College. Rather I was outside. Protesting. Speaking out about Apple’s poor record on human rights. From the small box the De Anza police had designated as our protest zone. Mind you this is MY campus and the building just across the little access road is where we hold our weekly club meetings. Yesterday we weren’t allowed to have our meeting there because of Apples invasion of our campus. For almost a month the corporate bully Apple has intimidated admin, faculty and staff into being silent or scared. What happened to Tim Cook’s recognizing ¨workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment.¨ Far from safe and fair, palpable fear was evident when we the students asked to speak or even speculate about what this monstrous mystery cube that was dominating campus was about. Today the police said if we crossed the few feet over to where we normally meet we might be arrested. What a crazy situation our corporate overlords have driven this species into. It has to stop. Now. The full list of Apple (among the world’s leading ¨Super Evil Mega Corps¨ human rights violations is lengthy but here’s the summary:

Join The People’s Climate March

September 6, 2014 Daniel Adam, www.socialistaction.org Organize! Climate Change, Labor, March, New York City (NYC), Protest

The People’s Climate March, scheduled for Sept. 21 in New York City, is poised to live up to its promise of mobilizing the largest number of people that the U.S. has ever seen against the mass production of greenhouse gases. With more than 1000 endorsing organizations, buses scheduled to leave from more than 200 locations, alongside chartered trains (including three leaving from Connecticut and one from San Francisco), over 200,000 Facebook invites, and countless meetings and events around the country, the march will create major advances for the climate movement. By marching, participants will affirm for all to see that, at root, climate change is not a matter of isolated individual consumer decisions but of institutional forces that refuse to respond to the will of the majority. They will show that climate activists can go beyond local organizing on dispersed projects and can come together to articulate their vision. The absence of mass demonstrations for many years kept the movement from forging a visible political expression—until the marches against the Keystone XL pipeline in 2012 and 2013. This had allowed climate change to appear like a fringe issue of the relatively well-to-do, or simply something beyond the scope of human intervention. September will mark an advance from the fringes to the mainstream, and from paralysis to action. In particular, the participation of more than 30 unions presents a ground-breaking opening for labor and the climate movement. Endorsers include the Communication Workers of America, the Amalgamated Transit Union, 32BJ, the United Federation of Teachers, Transport Workers Union 100, US Labor Against the War, and other formations including machinists, electrical workers, farm workers, and a variety of food and service workers.

Deer Isle’s Model Worker Cooperative

September 6, 2014 Violeta Duncan, www.community-wealth.org Create! Cooperatives, Finance and the Economy, Labor

Beloved for its charming landscapes and fresh lobster, the rural community of Deer Isle, Maine is now gaining attention in the cooperative world. When Verne and Sandra Seile, proprietors of Burnt Cove Market, V&S Variety and Pharmacy, and The Galley, decided to retire last year, they sold their businesses to their employees. With 62 new worker-owners, Island Employee Cooperative, Inc. is now the twelfth largest worker cooperative in the nation. In a small community of just more than 2,500, with a workforce of 1,300, the loss of 62 jobs would have been felt intimately. Where family-owned businesses are significant, communities face additional challenges. Only 30 percent of family-owned businesses, like the Seile’s, survive to the next generation. When these businesses are closed or sold to outside investors, communities lose wealth. For example, an Institute for Local Self Reliance study analyzing the local multiplier effect in Maine, found that for every $100 spent at a big box retailer, $14 in local spending is generated compared to $45 when the money is spent at a locally-owned business. Additionally, communities sacrifice social benefits fostered by ownership of local business, such as good health and a politically engaged community. Hoping to keep wealth rooted in their home of over 40 years, the Seiles began working with the Maine- based Cooperative Development Institute and the Independent Retailers Shared Services Cooperative to convert their businesses to a worker-owned cooperative.

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