Labor

Workers Show How To Transform Unions And Rebuild Labor Movement

It's Saturday afternoon in December 2017 at the hotel workers' union hall in Stamford, Connecticut, a mere two days before a scheduled union election at the Hilton Stamford. Where one would expect nerves and chaos, a quiet calm covers the hall. American unions have struggled for decades to successfully organize non-union workers, with the movement's difficulties organizing workers only intensifying. Notwithstanding a recent small uptick amongst white-collar workers and scattered victories, unions have been unable to figure out how to organize US workers en masse. Recent high-profile election losses, much of the labor movement choosing not to even attempt elections and some unions beginning to experiment with minority unionism all evidence this struggle.

Unions Winning Major Demands In Germany

February 9, 2018 Damien McGuinness, Bbc.com Create! Germany, Labor, Unions

Industrial workers in south-western Germany have won the right to reduced working hours as part of a deal that could benefit millions of employees across the country. Workers will be able to reduce their weekly hours from 35 to 28 for up to two years to look after their families. The deal covers almost one million workers in Baden-Württemberg state and also gives them a pay rise. It could be extended to the 3.9 million workers in Germany's industrial sector. What has been agreed? A reduced working week to care for children, the elderly or sick relatives was a key demand by IG Metall, the country's biggest trade union representing metal and engineering workers.

Chicago Teachers Union And Charter School Teachers Join Forces

February 5, 2018 Jeff Schuhrke, Inthesetimes.com Organize! Charter Schools, Chicago, Chicago Teachers Union, Labor, Unions

With the approval of a historic union merger, teachers in Chicago are positioning themselves to mount a greater challenge to privatization and austerity. On Monday, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) announced that its members had voted in favor of amalgamating with the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (ChiACTS), which, since 2009, has organized about 1,000 educators at over 30 charter school campuses. While cooperation between unionized educators at charters and district schools in the United States is common, this is the first known case in which teachers from both types of schools have merged into a single union local. The move was approved by 70 percent of voting members, according to the CTU. In a similar vote last June, 84 percent of ChiACTS members endorsed the merger.

EU Imposes Anti-Union Law On Greece

February 5, 2018 Will Podmore, Counterpunch.org Educate! European Union (EU), Greece, Labor, Unions

Under instructions from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Greek government pushed through the most anti-union legislation in Europe on Monday 15 January. The move was demanded, along with other draconian measures, as a condition of the latest tranche of what is called Greece’s bailout but which in reality is bailing out the European financial institutions which recklessly encouraged Greek borrowing. The key concession required from the Syriza government was that industrial action would now require a yes vote from more than half of the total number of union members in a workplace, regardless of the actual turnout. This is even worse than the provisions in the Trade Union Act which came into law in the UK in March 2016.

Unions Widen Who They’re Fighting For

January 30, 2018 By Katherine Barrett & Richard Greene, Governing.com Organize! Class Struggle, Labor, Unions

Historically, public-sector unions have focused their attention almost entirely on negotiating for higher wages and better benefits. These days, though, many are showing up at the bargaining table to fight not just for themselves but also for the people they serve -- like students, foster children and taxpayers. “Unions in past decades were largely in the habit of servicing their members,” says Dan McGrath, executive director of TakeAction Minnesota, a progressive advocacy group. “Now they’re asking themselves to be at the edge of social change.” Many cite the 2012 strike by the Chicago Teachers Union as a seminal moment in what's called bargaining for the common good. That’s when the union began to use its power to push progress beyond pay and benefits. By 2015, the union’s new contract included several requirements to help students, such as access to medical or mental health services and the expansion of after-school programs.

Biggest Gains In Union Membership In 2017 Were For Younger Workers

January 29, 2018 By John Schmitt, Epi.org Create! Labor, Unions, Workers, Workers Rights and Jobs

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released data on changes in union membership from 2016 to 2017. It was good news for workers, as the total number of union members grew by 262,000 in 2017. Three-fourths of these gains (198,000) were among workers aged 34 and under, who account for less than 40 percent of total employment. Historically, younger workers have been less likely than older workers to be a member of union. In 2017 about 7.7 percent of workers 16–34 were members of a union, compared with 12.6 percent of workers age 35 and older. But last year, of the 858,000 net new jobs for workers under age 35, almost one in four (23 percent) was a union job.

Utopia And The Right To Be Lazy

January 26, 2018 David F. Ruccio, Anticap.wordpress.com Create! Inequality, Labor, Utopia

Students are much too busy to think these days. So, when a junior comes to talk with me about the possibility of my directing their senior thesis, I ask them about their topic—and then their schedule. I explain to them that, if they really want to do a good project, they’re going to have to quit half the things they’re involved in. They look at me as if I’m crazy. “Really?! But I’ve signed up for all these interesting clubs and volunteer projects and intramural sports and. . .” I then patiently explain that, to have the real learning experience of a semester or year of independent study, they need time, a surplus of time. They need to have the extra time in their lives to get lost in the library or to take a break with a friend, to read and to daydream. In other words, they need to have the right to be lazy.

Tip Stealing Rule Would Cost Workers $5.8 Billion

January 20, 2018 By Heidi Shierholz, David Cooper, Julia Wolfe, and Ben Zipperer, Epi.org Educate! Class Struggle, Labor, New Economy, Workers

The Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed a rule that would make it legal for employers to pocket their workers’ tips, as long as they pay those workers at least the minimum wage. The proposed rule rescinds portions of longstanding DOL regulations that prohibit employers from taking tips.1 We estimate that if the rule is finalized, every year workers will lose $5.8 billion in tips, as tips are shifted from workers to employers.2Of the $5.8 billion, nearly 80 percent—$4.6 billion—would be taken from women who are working in tipped jobs.3 DOL has masked the fact that this rule would be a windfall to restaurant owners and other employers—out of the pockets of tipped workers—by making it sound as if this rule is about tip pooling. Of course, once employers have full control of tips, one of the things they could do with those tips is distribute them to “back of the house” workers like dishwashers and cooks.

First Step To Stand Up To Bosses Is To Unionize Workplaces

January 18, 2018 Staff, Pressprogress.ca Organize! Class Struggle, Labor, Unions

So your boss is having a meltdown and taking out their emotions on you and your co-workers because Ontario finally raised the minimum wage. What do you do? That’s a very real question for Ontario’s most vulnerable workers. Even though many businesses are managing to adapt and remain profitable, some bosses are punishing workers – in some cases, potentially illegally too. Despite a wealth of economic data showing a minimum wage raise is good for workers and good for businesses, workers report some business owners have clawed back benefits, cancelled paid breaks and even poached tips from their workers. One Tim Hortons even took an extraordinarily petty step and ended a perk giving workers a free timbit during coffee breaks – how does that help their bottom line?

Lessons From Immigrant Rights Organizer: We Are Not Our ‘Productivity’

January 16, 2018 Alan Pelaez Lopez, Rewire.news Strategize! DACA, Immigration, Labor, Undocumented

When I started organizing as part of DREAM Act mobilization in 2010, I had high hopes: I thought the act would be my way out of poverty, fugitivity, and uncertainty. But I never thought: At the expense of whom? Back then, I lived in fear, which prevented me from slowing down and contextualizing systems of oppression like colonialism, anti-blackness, and patriarchy. My fears were about basic needs: living without heat in another Boston winter, fear of not being able to afford the $1.50 bus ticket, and so on. The fight for daily survival was all-consuming, and these fears made me want to trust the DREAM Act’s promises of a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who entered the United States before age 16.

Labour Unions Protest Against Tim Hortons’ Reaction To New Minimum Wage

January 13, 2018 Staff, Labour-reporter.com Resist! Labor, Minimum Wage, New Economy, Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

TORONTO (CP) — Protesters rallied outside Tim Hortons locations across Ontario Wednesday to show support for employees after some franchisees made benefits and break cuts after a minimum wage increase — but many gatherers stopped short of committing to a boycott. Some, but not all, of the chain's franchisees have said employees will have to cover a larger share of their dental and health-care benefits as well as take unpaid breaks in order to offset the added costs of the province's hourly minimum wage rate increase to $14 an hour on Jan. 1. But labour groups who gathered outside stores in cities including Toronto, Ottawa and Coburg, Ont. Wednesday describe the company as “wildly profitable” and argue Tim Hortons and its parent company can afford to pay employees at the new rate without taking away previous perks.

Iowa Fast-Food, Hospital Workers Protest Gov. Reynolds

January 12, 2018 Staff, Fightfor15.org Resist! Fast Food, Fight for 15, Iowa, Labor, New Economy, Protests, Workers Rights and Jobs

Gov. Reynolds and Republican state lawmakers have waged a string of attacks on workers’ unions in recent years. Last February, then-Gov. Terry Branstad signed into law a bill endorsed by then-Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds curbing collective bargaining rights for thousands of public sector workers in the state. The law strips workers of the right to bargain over healthcare and other benefits and forces workers to recertify their union before each bargaining session. In March, Branstad signed into law a bill passed by the Republican legislature blocking all localities from raising their minimum wage, nullifying local wage increases that had been passed in Polk, Johnson, Linn and Wapello Counties.

NUMSA: S. African Union Confronts New Forms Of Apartheid Through Class Struggle

January 8, 2018 By Phakamile Hlubi, Blackagendareport.com Resist! Class Struggle, Labor, South Africa, Unions

I’ll answer your question first and then I’ll give some context. Our view of the current South African government is we have taken a very oppositionist perspective, we are opposed to the ANC -- African National Congress, ruling party in South Africa -- -led government. Up until 2013 NUMSA was an active member and an alliance partner and supporter of the ANC. This was because in the days of the liberation movement when we were still fighting the apartheid regime, all of the various formations, the trade unions, the NGOs and the popular community struggles which were all fighting against apartheid all came together in an alliance. So if you were an ANC member you were automatically a supporter of all of the trade union federations, of COSATU --Congress of South African Trade Unions -- for example.

Florida Prisoners Announce Work Stoppage To Cripple Prison System

January 5, 2018 Staff, Fighttoxicprisons.wordpress.com Resist! Florida, Labor, Prisoner rights, Prisons

The following message is from a group of prisoners who are spread throughout the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC). It was sent anonymously and compiled from a series of correspondences received on November 26 and 27 by both the Gainesville chapter of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) and the national Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons. We have been able to verify the authenticity of this message which was also posted on SPARC (Supporting Prisoners and Real Change), a social media page for Florida prisoners and their families. According to their statement, these prisoners plan to initiate a work stoppage or “laydown” beginning Monday, January 15th, coinciding with MLK Day, in nonviolent protest of conditions in FL prisons. They are calling it Operation PUSH.

Seymour Melman And The New American Revolution

December 31, 2017 Johnathan Feldman, counterpunch.org Create! Cooperatives, Labor, New Economy, Wars and Militarism

Seymour Melman believed that both political and economic decline could be reversed by vastly scaling back the U.S. military budget which represented a gigantic opportunity cost to the national economy. The other side of the $1 trillion military budget was a vast development fund which Melman believed could be used to modernize the U.S.’s energy and transportation infrastructure and reinvest in other areas of economic decay self-evident in collapsing bridges, polluted waterways, and congested transit systems. He linked urban under-development and deficits in ecological remediation to wasteful military budgets. Melman believed that peace movements, while opposing senseless wars, had “become safe for the Pentagon.” By being remote from the culture of production, they did not realize the simple fact that producing and selling weapons generates capital and power, thereby requiring more than a reactive protest system to Pentagon capital accumulation. In contrast, the founder of Mondragon, José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga, realized in the Nazi bombing campaign of the Spanish Republic that technology had become the source of ultimate power. The other side of Picasso’s Guernica was a system in which workers themselves could control technology for their own use, providing an alternative to capitalists and militarists monopoly over technological power.

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