Worker Rights

The Plot To Keep Meatpacking Plants Open During COVID-19

May 16, 2022 Michael Grabell, Pro Publica. Educate! COVID-19, Meat Packers, Trump, Worker Rights

As hundreds of meatpacking workers fell sick from the coronavirus that was spreading through their plants and into their communities in April 2020, the CEO of Tyson Foods reached out to the head of another major meatpacker, Smithfield Foods, with a proposal. Smithfield’s pork plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, had been hit particularly hard, and state and local officials were pressuring the company to shut it down. “Anything we can do to help?” Tyson CEO Noel White asked in an email. Smithfield’s CEO Ken Sullivan replied that he wished there was. But White had an idea. Would Sullivan like to discuss the possibility of getting President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to keep meatpacking plants open?

What If We Use Public Money To Transform Local Media?

May 14, 2022 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Create! Journalism, Local Media, Media, Worker Rights

CounterSpin listeners understand that the news media situation in this country works against our democratic aspirations. There are so many problems crying out for open, inclusive conversation, in which those with the most power don’t get the biggest megaphone, leaving the vast majority outside of power to try and shout into the dominant noise, or try to find the space to talk around it. It’s no surprise, in that context, that conversations about how to make a different media system—differently structured, differently accountable—are among the hardest to have. But while corporate media can give the impression that, like it or not, billionaires controlling the flow of information is the only way things can go, that, like a lot of the elite narrative on political possibility, is simply untrue. One project proving that is an effort to replenish and re-imagine local news, which listeners know has suffered dramatically in years of media consolidation, in this case in New Jersey.

Hundreds Of Day Cares Are Closed Today As Educators Go On Strike

May 10, 2022 Alia Wong, Portside. Resist! Child Care, Essential workers, Strike, Worker Rights

Hundreds of child care providers in 27 states and Washington, D.C., went on strike Monday to remind policymakers how essential they are, not only to families but to the nation’s economy. Early childhood professionals – and the parents they serve – said they’re fed up with the lack of progress on policy promises such as better wages and expanded subsidies. “I’ve never met a family who has said child care is affordable,” said Allyx Schiavone, a member of the Ideal Learning Roundtable, a national group of developmental early childhood education experts. Schiavone helped organize a Connecticut-specific day of activism this year. Few providers make much of a profit, and many are in the red: Teaching and caring for young children is as expensive as it is essential.

25 Issues Of Increasing And Serious Concern In India

May 10, 2022 Bharat Dogra, Popular Resistance. Educate! India, Poverty, Privatization, Worker Rights

There is increasing worry that in some areas of critical importance the situation in India has been deteriorating steadily during the last eight years or so. As India is home to about 18 per cent of people in the world, this is clearly a matter of urgent concern. Hence a review of these disturbing trends is urgently needed with a view to suggesting suitable remedial actions for checking this deterioration. Inequalities have been increasing recently to record levels. According to the World Inequality Report, after years of significant reduction of inequalities in the post-independence period, inequalities are coming back to their colonial levels in recent times. This report tells us that the bottom 50% have only 6% of the wealth, while the top 1% have 33% of the wealth. The bottom 50% have only 13% of the income, while the top 1% have 22% of the income.

Public Universities Need More Democracy, Not More Administrators

May 6, 2022 Larry Hanley and Vida Samiian, Truthout. Educate! Democracy, Higher Education, Managerial Class, Worker Rights

The current crisis in higher education leadership is on full display at California State University (CSU) — the nation’s largest four-year public university system. Take the case of former CSU Chancellor Joseph Castro. Castro’s problems began with an underling — Fresno State’s Vice President of Student Affairs Frank Lamas — who was the subject of ongoing sexual harassment complaints and investigations. In 2018, Castro “enthusiastically” nominated his colleague to become the next president of CSU San Marcos. But later, as complaints about his VP’s behavior avalanched, Castro authorized a $260,000 payout and retirement package for the troubled subordinate. The sweetheart deal included a glowing recommendation letter. That’s golden parachute number one.

Germany: Amazon Workers Strike Over Pay, Data Protection

May 5, 2022 DW, Portside. Resist! Amazon, Germany, Strike, Worker Rights

The German trade union Verdi on Monday launched strikes at seven Amazon locations across the country, with up to 2,500 workers demanding higher wages and better protection of their personal data. A Verdi spokesman said strikes were underway at the two distribution centers in Bad Hersfeld as well as in Koblenz, Leipzig, Rheinberg, Graben and Werne. Some strikes would last several days, he said. Amazon has 17 distribution sites across the country. The trade union has been trying for almost 10 years to force Amazon to pay workers according to the going rates for retail and mail-order workers. Amazon has persisted in paying them as logistics services providers. In addition, workers are demanding information about personal data about them that has possibly been recorded by the company.

Workers Are Tired Of Being Exploited And They’re Fighting Back

May 2, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Labor Unions, Media, News Guild, Worker Rights

This past weekend, workers around the world celebrated May Day, also called Labor Day and International Workers Day. May Day marks the accomplishments and contributions of workers and reminds them of their rights. Clearing the FOG spoke with Stephanie Basile and Brittany Carloni of News Guild, part of the Communications Workers of America, about the many victories they have had in organizing media outlets over the past five years. They use a model that can be replicated everywhere of training member organizers and connecting them with other shops across the country to build a powerful labor movement that is democratic. Stephanie and Brittany talk about this moment and why workers are fighting back.

May Day: Worker’s Struggle Celebration Is Well-Deserved

April 30, 2022 People's Dispatch. Resist! Labor Unions, May Day, Socialism, Worker Rights

Working people across the globe are gearing up celebrate International Worker’s Day this May 1. Workers have been participating in monumental struggles since the previous year’s May Day, making this year’s celebration well-deserved. Peoples Dispatch looks back on some of the most important labor struggles of this past year: In Colombia, the National Strike Committee (CNP), which brought together diverse groups of social movements, organizations and trade unions, presented ten bills in Congress, which included measures to alleviate the worsening socio-economic conditions, protection and security for social leaders, actions against gender-based violence and violence against LGBTQ+ people, financial support to the agricultural sector, and strengthening of education and healthcare.

Fired Starbucks Workers Bring Their Fight Directly To The CEO

April 30, 2022 James Dennis Hoff, Left Voice. Resist! Labor Unions, NLRB, Starbucks, Worker Rights

Sanchez and McGlawn are two of the seven workers, known as the “Memphis Seven,” who were fired by Starbucks in February, just weeks after they announced their plans to form a union there. In a blatantly illegal move, the company terminated the workers (about a third of the entire staff) for supposedly violating company policy after they met with reporters in the store to talk about unionization efforts. But almost all of the workers who were fired were involved in organizing for the union, and it is clear that the terminations were a direct act of retaliation designed to crush these workers’ efforts to form a union and put an end to the unionization wave spreading throughout the company. The National Labor Relations Board has called the firings illegal, and has already filed complaints against the company.

Move To Unionize Tour Could Rewrite How Theater Industry Operates

April 17, 2022 Ezra Brain, Left Voice. Organize! Labor Union, Theatre Workers, Tours, Worker Rights

On April 12, the New York Times broke the story that the theater actors union Actors’ Equity Association is, for the first time in over 20 years, attempting to unionize a workplace. Inspired by recent wins at Amazon and Starbucks, actors and stage managers on the non-union national tour of the musical Waitress are moving to unionize after being contacted by Equity, as the union is known in the theater industry. This attempt represents one of the biggest developments in labor organizing within the theater industry in years and has the potential to largely rewrite the way that the theater industry operates. This development represents a major change in strategy for Equity. For years, it operated less as a union of workers, and more as a league of professionals.

How To Build Fierce And Worker-Centered Unions

March 31, 2022 Paige Oamek, In These Times. Organize! Organizing, Unions, UNITE, Worker Rights

In the early 2000s, UNITE was a small, scrappy union that put an immense amount of resources into new organizing. They had small teams of organizers who flew around the country and lived in hotels and motels and spent their life organizing. I think it’s really important for unions to be oriented in that way, to have just about every arm focused around new organizing and building the labor movement and having militant sites. At the same time, we have to really think critically about the role of organizers. Organizing can be such a science: We assess things, map workplaces, determine our tactics. Our tactics add up to be our strategy. It’s all very methodical and stripped of emotion. I write about standing up in front of the group and telling the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which is something organizers in UNITE get trained to tell.

Remembering The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

March 26, 2022 Lucie Levine, 6ftsq. Educate! History, Unions, Women, Worker Rights

Around 4:30 p.m. on March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Asch Building at Washington Place and Greene Streets, just as the young employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, who occupied the building’s top three floors, were preparing to leave for the day. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed 146 people, nearly all of them Jewish and Italian immigrant women and girls who toiled in the city’s garment industry. Triangle stood out as the deadliest workplace tragedy in New York City before 9/11. It served as a bellwether in the American labor movement, galvanizing Americans in all walks of life to join the fight for industrial reform. It also highlighted the extraordinary grit and bravery of the women workers and reformers – members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and the Women’s Trade Union League – who fought and died for fairer and safer working conditions in New York and around the country.

Women And Labor: Key Struggles In The MENA Region

March 19, 2022 Valentine M. Moghadam, ROAR Magazine. Strategize! Labor Unions, Tunisia, Women's Rights, Worker Rights

How do women and gender equality measures advance in a context of conflict, climate change, high unemployment, low labor force participation, limited democratization and a pandemic? These are challenges facing the Arab region as many citizens, women’s rights organizations, some governments and external partners seek wide-ranging institutional changes and an improved environment for women’s participation and rights. Surveys show public support for some — but not all — proposals for gender equality. Equal inheritance rights for women, for example, remain off the table, even in progressive Tunisia. Family laws that confer most privileges to men and place women under the guardianship of male kin or the spouse are difficult to change.

Postal Reform Act Passes In Senate, Sent To President Biden’s Desk

March 8, 2022 National Association of Letter Carriers. Resist! Congress, US Postal Service, Worker Rights

Today, in a 79-19 vote the Senate passed the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 (H.R. 3076). Following House passage on Feb. 8, the bill will now be sent to President Biden for his signature to become law. “This is a monumental victory for letter carriers and all Americans who depend on the Postal Service for affordable and high-quality universal service,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said. “I want to congratulate and thank all the NALC members who lobbied their members of Congress to win passage in the Senate and the House. Thanks to your support, dedication and action, bipartisan postal reform, that was 12 years in the making, has finally passed in both chambers.” This bipartisan legislation will improve the financial stability of the Postal Service.

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