Labor

Why We Shouldn’t Fall For Members-Only Unionism Trap

December 27, 2017 By Chris Brooks, Portside.org Strategize! Corporations, Labor, Propaganda, Unions

One of corporate America’s next big goals might surprise you: passing legislation to prevent unions from having to represent workers who don’t pay dues. This is just the latest of many business-friendly labor law reforms proliferating across the country. Over the past decade, the Republican Party has ascended to become the dominant political force in the U.S. government, controlling two-thirds of state legislatures, a majority of governorships, both houses of Congress and the White House. Conservatives also make up a majority on the Supreme Court. This growth in power of the GOP has also given rise to a new slew of anti-union legislation. States in over half the country have passed open-shop laws, euphemistically referred to as “right-to-work.”

2017 Year In Review: Turning Lemons Into Lemonade

December 26, 2017 Alexandra Bradbury, and Samantha Winslow, Portside.org Organize! Labor, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

If there’s one lesson labor can draw from the events of 2017, it’s this—to survive and grow in the face of a nationally coordinated employer offensive, we’ll have to use the attacks against us as organizing opportunities. Everywhere you look workers are either on the defensive or just plain getting crushed. Take anti-union “right-to-work” laws, which weaken union strength and budgets by giving workers covered by union contracts a short-term financial incentive to opt out of membership. Since Kentucky fell in January, the entire South is right-to-work. Such laws cover much of the Midwest and West too, a total of 27 states. A February law put Missouri on track to become number 28—until unionists blocked it from going into effect by collecting an astounding 310,567 signatures for repeal.

12 Charts Show Real Problems Policies Must Tackle, Not Made-Up Ones

December 23, 2017 Staff, epi.org Educate! Labor, New Economy, Workers Rights and Jobs

Inequalities, and the inequities in opportunity that they represent, permeate all areas of American society. The real problems policies must tackle include stagnating wages of American workers who have lost economic leverage, wage and wealth gaps based on race, and unequal educational opportunities for children from lower-income families. Unfortunately the policy focus on the last year, culminating in the end-of-year passage of massive tax cuts for corporations, addressed nonexistent problems rather than the real problems we face. EPI’s Top Charts of 2017 tell the story in images.

Will AI Jobs Revolution Bring About Human Revolt, Too?

December 22, 2017 Kentaro Toyama, theconversation.com Educate! Labor, Revolt, Revolution, Robots

But the job apocalypse might have a silver lining. The Luddites of the 1800s were unsuccessful for a number of reasons: They were politically marginal. They were not well-organized. They misdiagnosed the problem as being either about the technology or their employers. And, at least in some tellings, they had little public support. In contrast, those involved in a white-collar movement would have strong ties to influential people. They would organize effectively. They would understand the larger problem as an imperfect economic system whose pathologies technology merely amplifies. And, they would have the rhetorical skills to draw the sympathy of the public – who are likely to be themselves jobless, too.

Labor Storm Brewing From Below As Workers Attacked From Above

December 22, 2017 Shaun Richman, inthesetimes.com Resist! Class Struggle, Labor, Workers Rights and Jobs

The first year of any Republican presidential administration is sure to bring new attacks on unions and their allies. This year has seen plenty of anti-labor offensives, as well as inspiring fights and encouraging signs for the future. Let’s start with the most over-blown “fake news” labor story of 2017: the asinine notion that Donald Trump has a cunning plan to cleave white working-class voters away from the Democratic party by protecting American jobs and giving unions a fair shake. From the coalmines of West Virginia to the Carrier plant of Indiana, Trump’s claims of saving jobs have been spectacles of hucksterism that resulted in fewer good jobs.

Tips Should Go To Workers, Not Their Bosses

December 21, 2017 By Negin Owliaei, otherwords.org Educate! Exploitation, Labor, New Economy, Workers Rights and Jobs

Thea Bryan is a single mother putting herself through graduate school. She spends her days at an unpaid internship for her social work program. At nights, she bartends for tips. Sometimes, the pay is lucrative. But around October, her work — and money — started to lag. “When business is slow, as it has been for me lately, I don’t get paid. The managers get paid, the kitchen staff gets paid, the dishwasher gets paid. I don’t,” Bryan said. The Department of Labor could make things much worse for Bryan. Under a proposed new rule, she might have to hand her tips over to her bosses. The new rule would let minimum wage employers take over the tips that customers leave for their servers. That’s right: If you serve, your boss would get your tips. Bryan shared her story at a press briefing put on by Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United on December 12.

Hundreds Of Workers Go On Strike At Reagan National & Dulles

December 18, 2017 By Nick Iannelli Resist! Airport, Labor, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of contracted airport service workers walked off the job Wednesday morning at Dulles International and Reagan National airports, speaking out against their employer and demanding to be paid a minimum of $15 an hour. “They’re on strike today to demand higher standards,” said protest organizer Jaime Contreras, vice president of Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ. “This is something that is very hard for them to do, but they’ve had enough.” The employees, including baggage handlers and wheelchair attendants, are with Huntleigh USA Corporation, a contractor that does business directly with airlines. It has around 400 workers at the two airports. Organizers of the demonstration said the employees often have to work two or three jobs to support their families and earn as little as $6.15 an hour plus tips.

CUNY Workers Say: ‘Resist Austerity!’

December 15, 2017 G. Dunkel , workers.org Organize! Austerity, CUNY, Labor, Workers Rights and Jobs

Holding a huge, electrified banner reading “Resist austerity,” while chanting to the rhythm of a brass band, hundreds of members of the Professional Staff Congress marched from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York to a board of trustees’ meeting at Baruch College on Dec. 4. They were making it clear that they do not want to wait six years for a new contract to get significant pay raises. In particular, the PSC wants adjuncts — the part-time instructors who do over 50 percent of the instruction at CUNY — to get a pay increase to a minimum of $7,000 per class. Currently, the best-paid adjuncts get about $4,500 per class.

How New Orleans Hospitality Workers Organize Their Industry

December 14, 2017 Kat Stromquist, bestofneworleans.com Organize! Class Struggle, Labor, Workers, Workers Rights and Jobs

On a chilly evening just before Thanksgiving, about a dozen New Orleans Hospitality Workers Committee (NOHWC) members were gathered around a long table in a well-worn Claiborne Avenue meeting room papered with signs from other activist projects ("Reproductive Rights Are Not for Sale," "Homes for People, Not for Profits"). One by one, members took turns speaking up: not to give thanks, but to say what they hoped to change at their job or in the hospitality industry. Stopping the manager who skims tips from employees, someone said. Waitstaff not paying for kitchen mistakes out of their paychecks. Getting a guaranteed 40-hour work week and a chance to earn overtime.

A New School To Prison Pipeline That Might Surprise You

December 6, 2017 Staff, educationalchemy.com Educate! Labor, Mass Incarceration, Prison Industrial Complex, Prison Labor

By Staff of Educational Alchemy - Maryland Correctional Enterprises (MCE) is the state’s own prison labor company. A semi-autonomous subdivision of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS), MCE commands a workforce of thousands of prisoners, paid just a few dollars per day. MCE workers make far less than minimum wage, earning between $1.50 and $5.10 for an entire day’s work. Most of us are familiar by now with the concept of a school-to-prison pipeline, but here it is, a prison-for-school pipeline, or better yet, prison-for-profit (all hail 21st century slavery alive and well) in the name of “education reform.” It might be a “great day” for Ed St John and U of M, but I doubt its a great day for the forced laborers who did the work. The new center will “transform teaching and learning” but it will not transform systemic oppression or racism. In fact, it benefits from the fruits of oppressive labor. This is not the only time that U of M, or other institutions of higher learning have used prison labor. That is a deep seated problem in itself that warrants our attention. As one news article states, “”Maryland is just a symptom … of how the prison industrial complex affects African-Americans and poor people of color nationwide.”

Market Economy: Deep Roots Of Dysfunction

December 2, 2017 Jane Roelofs, www.globaljusticecenter.org Create! Capitalism, Labor, Trade, Worker Rights

By Jane Roelofs for the Center for Global Justice. There is nothing new in the disaster anticipated from NAFTA. The market economy hasn't "broken down," or suddenly reached environmental limits. Its inherent faults are simply more clearly manifest in an age of mass communication and heightened consciousness. Here I will focus on the conflict between the market—the backbone of capitalism—and Green values. Many people, even some socialists, believe that both trade and commodification are beneficial. These processes, essential to the creation of a market economy, are considered progressive because they offer both more choice and a larger amount of stuff. While these effects cannot be disputed, their hidden costs in human and environmental terms must be taken into account.

Lessons From Sea-Tac: Rebuilding The Labor Movement

December 2, 2017 Dan Sisken, occupy.com Organize! Labor, Labor Movement, Social Movements, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Dan Sisken for Occupy - Over the past several decades with the decline of manufacturing and the worsening of labor law, organized labor in the United States has experienced a critical decrease in numbers and clout, begging the question: Can labor rebuild its strength in a period characterized by continuing de-industrialization and an increasingly hostile environment for organizing workers? In "Beyond $15: Immigrant Workers, Faith Activists, and the Revival of the Labor Movement," (Beacon Press, 2017), Jonathan Rosenblum argues that it is possible and uses the story of the fight for a $15 minimum wage in SeaTac, Washington, to explain how. For those interested in what labor can do and where the opportunities may lie, "Beyond $15" is a book filled with lessons learned and strategic insights. But Rosenblum also tells a dramatic story filled with personal vignettes of key figures as well as a play-by-play of the action at strikes, marches, and corporate board meeting disruptions. It is a story told from the vantage point of individual workers’ lives as well as from an analytical distance. Rosenblum’s intention is to provide insights into how to rebuild the labor movement in the 21st century, thus a key question he asks is: What are unions for? And more precisely, do they exist to negotiate the best possible deals for workers with management. By far the most common union model in the U.S. is what Rosenblum calls “business unionism,” whereby members pay dues in exchange for services provided by the union including contract negotiations, grievance handling, and work conditions. In effect, unions serve as a third party between workers and management, although they often do other things such as endorse political campaigns and advocate for reforms in labor laws and other legislation relevant to workers.

Labor Fights End To ‘Temporary Protected Status’ For 59K Haitians

November 25, 2017 Max Zahn, transform-network.net Resist! Class Struggle, Haiti, Immigrants, Labor, Undocumented

By Max Zahn for Waging Nonviolence - Wilna Destin, a UNITE HERE organizer, fled political unrest in Haiti 17 years ago for asylum in the United States. After arriving on her own in Miami, Florida, she worked restaurant and hospitality jobs in Orlando, eventually gaining accreditation as a nursing assistant. She married and had two children. She built a life. When the Trump administration announced on Monday night that it would end temporary protected status, or TPS, for approximately 59,000 Haitians in 2019, Destin learned that she will have to leave in a matter of months. “I was shocked,” she said. “I’m not ready to go back.” Labor advocates across the country aren’t ready to see her and her fellow Hatians go either. In the latest surge of labor opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, union leaders and rank-and-file members rallied on short notice Tuesday, vowing to fight the TPS decision and seek a path to citizenship for the Haitians affected by it. TPS is an immigration status granted to foreign-born residents unable to return home due to dangerous or challenging circumstances in their native countries. In 2010, the Obama administration granted TPS to Haitian-born residents after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti that year. “This is a very, very terrible moment for us in the labor movement,” said Gerard Cadet, vice president of Service Employees International Union 1199, at a press conference in lower Manhattan on Tuesday morning. According to Cadet, who was born in Haiti, over 12 percent of SEIU 1199 members are Haitian immigrants.

Universalizing Resistance To Attacks On Labor

November 14, 2017 Fred Redmond and Charles Derber, truth-out.org Resist! Electoral Politics, Labor, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Fred Redmond and Charles Derber for Truthout - In the last few months, Richard Trumka, president of the national AFL-CIO, resigned from a key Trump advisory board after Charlottesville; unions nationally are rallying with progressive Democrats to stop Trump's anti-union appointees to the National Labor Relations Board; graduate students at Harvard, Boston College and many universities are fighting to unionize; and Bernie Sanders has introduced a "Medicare for All" bill. This is the beginning of the "universalizing" resistance to the right wing seeking to destroy unions, end social protections, including the Affordable Care Act, and return to a Gilded Age plutocracy. Workers are beleaguered. Wages have been stagnant for 30 years, benefits such as health care are eroding, the middle class is dwindling. The compensation of the average Fortune 500 CEO has ballooned to 347 times that of the average US worker. Workers' hopes to secure the "American dream" are diminishing. Labor unions have shrunk to only 10.7 percent of workers, half the rate of 33 years ago. That decline is a result of unrelenting attacks by right-wing politicians. Wisconsin is a sad example. First Gov. Scott Walker kneecapped public sector unions; then he went after private sector labor organizations.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources