Worker Rights

West Virginia Teachers Take A Stand

February 25, 2018 Joseph Kishore, World Socialist Website. Resist! Education, Strike, Teachers, Worker Rights

More than 20,000 teachers and public school employees in West Virginia are taking a courageous stand in defense of their interests and those of the entire working class. On Friday, teachers completed the second day of a strike that has shut down schools in all 55 counties in the state. The teachers have defied threats of injunctions, fines and even imprisonment from government officials, who have declared any strike action illegal. The American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia (AFT-WV) and the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA) announced on Friday that what was originally announced as a two-day strike will be extended by at least one day, to Monday.

Day 8 Of Countdown To Launch: Daniel Cooper Bermudez

December 3, 2017 Daniel Cooper Bermudez, www.popularresistance.org Organize! TPP, Trade, Worker Rights

By Daniel Cooper Bermudez. Trade for People and Planet is a campaign created by Popular Resistance, an organization that has been fighting for justice since 2013 with roots growing far before then. Popular Resistance is designed to operate from the two-prong strategy: create and resist. This is how Trade forPeople and Planet was born. Years of fighting the Trans-Pacific Partnership resulted in wide swaths of the general population putting pressure on the US government to pull out of the deal. Through Popular Resistance’s “Flush The TPP” campaign, hundreds of people protested through petitions, protests, marches, lobby days, direct action… we did whatever we could to stop the deal. And it worked.

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.

Amazon’s Last Mile: Unprotected Workers

November 19, 2017 Bryan Menegus, www.gizmodo.com Educate! Amazon, Capitalism, Worker Rights

By Bryan Menegus for Gizmodo. In terms of size, efficiency, and ruthlessness, Amazon has few equals. The least publicly accountable of the big tech companies—Google, Apple, and Facebook face considerably greater scrutiny—Amazon’s stock is one of the most valuable on the market, it’s among the fastest-growing companies in the United States. Atop its vast empire, CEO Jeff Bezos commands the single largest personal fortune on the planet. Estimates place Amazon as the recipient of approximately one third of all dollars spent online. Control over the manufacture, storage, sales, and shipping of an extraordinarily diverse set of products has led the company to expand into film and TV production, web hosting, publishing, groceries, fashion, space travel, wind farms, and soon, pharmaceuticals, to name just a few.

The Creative Resistance Of Domestic Workers

September 3, 2017 Rose Mahi, www.opendemocracy.net Organize! Domestic Workers, Refugees, Women's Rights, Worker Rights

By Rose Mahi for Open Democracy. Many conditions play into the exploitation of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Lebanon. Most of the time, MDWs are women, and some of us are illiterate. And at times, this illiteracy furthers existing exploitation, which is already embedded in sexism, classism, and racism. These factors are present in our home countries, and migration renders us even more vulnerable to them. Our employers often believe that people migrate because they had nothing to do, were not qualified, or lacked opportunity in their home countries, and that we therefore owe them for saving us.

Workers May Have Just Killed Missouri’s Right to Work Law

August 20, 2017 Jeff Schuhrke, www.inthesetimes.com Organize! ALEC, Unions, Worker Rights

By Jeff Schuhrke for In These Times. Missouri - In a badly needed victory for organized labor, a coalition of workers’ rights groups in Missouri is poised to halt a devastating new anti-union law from taking effect later this month. The deceptively named “right-to-work” (RTW) legislation—quickly passed and signed into law this February by Missouri’s new Republican governor, Eric Greitens—would prohibit unions in private sector workplaces from automatically collecting dues from the workers they are legally required to represent. Designed to decimate unions by cutting off their financial resources, RTW laws are currently in place in 27 other states. Though the law is set to take effect on August 28, the pro-union We Are Missouri coalition, led by the Missouri AFL-CIO, says it has collected enough signatures from voters to call for a state-wide referendum in November 2018 that could nullify the legislation.

Minimum Wage Of $15 An Hour Passed In Minneapolis

July 2, 2017 Staff of NELP and Fight for $15, www.PopularResistance.org Create! Fight for 15, Minimum Wage, Worker Rights

By Staff of NELP and Fight for $15. Since the Fight for $15 began in November 2012, more than 40 cities and counties, and more than 20 states have adopted minimum wage increases. NELP estimates that about 19 million workers have won almost $62 billion in annual raises, and a growing numbers of U.S. states and cities in just the last few years are adopting a minimum wage of $15 per hour. SeaTac, Washington, which was the first city to do so, approved a $15 minimum wage in 2013. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee brokered an agreement between labor and business to place a $15 minimum wage on the November 2014 ballot, which the voters overwhelmingly approved, and the Los Angeles city council approved a $15 minimum wage in 2015. California and New York approved a statewide $15 minimum wage in 2016. About 10 million workers have benefitted from these $15 minimum wage laws so far. An increase in the Minneapolis minimum wage to $15 per hour will benefit 23 percent of workers in Minneapolis, or approximately 71,000 people.

True Food Systems Change From The Bottom Up

June 18, 2017 Families United for Justice, www.popularresistance.org Create! Farm Workers, Food and Agriculture, New Economy, Worker Rights

By Families United for Justice. On June 15th FUJ members turned out to overwhelmingly ratify the tentative collective bargaining agreement presented by their negotiations committee. After an overview of the contract the Mixteco and Triqui hand harvesters, men and women, lined up to cast their ballots. Official vote counters Jeff Johnson President of the WA State Labor Council and Steve Garey former President of the Steelworkers Local 12-591 tallied the vote and announced it was over 85% in favor of ratifying the tentative agreement. The harvesting season will begin soon with contractual benefits for members of FUJ hand harvesting the berries. Among the benefits union members will receive is an average $15 an hour wage. While this contract is truly a great victory, C2C's vision for a better food system stretches far beyond this moment.

Boycott Wendy’s

May 21, 2017 Staff, www.allianceforfairfood.org Resist! boycott, Farm Workers, Food and Agriculture, Worker Rights

By Coalition of Immokalee Workers. For over three years, farm workers and consumers have been demanding that Wendy’s join its major competitors – Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Subway and Burger King – in participating in the Fair Food Program. Yet, Wendy's has instead consciously and shamefully opted to profit from farm worker poverty and abuse, continuing to cling to the low-bar standards of the past when presented with an acclaimed and proven alternative. Rather than participate in what was called the "best workplace-monitoring program” in the U.S. in the New York Times, Wendy's ran from responsibility and abandoned the Florida tomato industry altogether. In response to increasing pressure from consumers to join the Fair Food Program, Wendy's released a new code of conduct for its suppliers, a perfect example of the failed, widely-discredited approach to corporate social responsibility that is completely void of effective enforcement mechanisms to protect farm workers’ human rights.

AT&T Workers Begin Three-Day Strike

May 21, 2017 David Bacon, www.inthesetimes.com Resist! AT&T, Strike, Unions, Worker Rights

By David Bacon for In These Times. Around 40,000 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) at AT&T walked off their jobs Friday, for a three-day strike, as pressure continues to mount on the corporation to settle fair contracts. In California and Nevada, around 17,000 AT&T workers who provide phone, landline and cable services have been working without a contract for more than a year. Last year, they voted to authorize a strike with more than 95 percent support. And in February, an estimated 21,000 AT&T Mobility workers in 36 states voted to strike as well, with 93 percent in favor. Workers had issued an ultimatum, giving company executives until 3 p.m. ET on Friday to present serious proposals. They didn't; the workers walked. It isn't the first strike at AT&T. Some 17,000 workers in California and Nevada walked off the job in late March to protest company changes in their working conditions in violation of federal law.

Call For Global Unity On May Day

April 29, 2017 James E. Rabbitt, III, www.popularresistance.org Organize! May Day, Minimum Wage, Worker Rights

By James E. Rabbitt, III. This May Day (Monday, May 1, 2017), workers worldwide are invited to participate in an unprecedented call for global unity demanding that all full-time workers are paid a living wage by means of a May Day General Strike, which transcends borders and all other divides among fellow workers. The success of this event is dependent upon word of mouth and social media to invite others who will collectively stand together in solidarity to end the unjustifiable inhumane suffering and exploitation of underpaid workers everywhere. This act of global unity to improve the quality of life for millions, possibly even billions, of people can be held at every place of employment, with workers determining which type of strike is best suited for their unique workplace (i.e. sick-ins, picketing, good work strikes, etc.).

Support Education Activist Sarah Chambers

April 16, 2017 Michelle Strater Gunderson, livingindialogue.com Resist! Chicago Teachers Union, Public Education, Teachers, Worker Rights

By Michelle Strater Gunderson for Living in Dialogue. Chicago, IL - If you are fortunate, every once in a while you will meet someone who breathes the fire of justice. In my life Sarah Chambers, a special education teacher from Maria Saucedo School in Chicago, fills that role. Yet, this is the teacher who the Chicago Public Schools suspended last week pending a hearing that could lead to her firing. Sarah is everywhere in Chicago when there is a call to defend children with disabilities. She is the leader of the Chicago Teachers Union Special Education Task Force, the co-chair of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators, a member of the union’s executive board, and a negotiator on our latest bargaining team. So, why would the Chicago Public Schools send her a letter the night before our Spring Break removing her from the classroom?

Fight For $15 And Movement For Black Lives Plan Nationwide Action

March 26, 2017 Fight for $15 and Movement for Black Lives, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Civil Rights, Jobs and Wages, Racism, Worker Rights

By Fight for $15 and Movement for Black Lives. MEMPHIS -- The Fight for $15 and the Movement for Black Lives will take to the streets nationwide April 4 – the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination – in a two-dozen-city “Fight Racism, Raise Pay” protest. Thousands of underpaid workers, local racial justice activists, elected officials and clergy will hold rallies, marches, teach-ins, and other demonstrations to stress that the push for economic and racial justice remains as deeply linked today as when Dr. King was killed in 1968 supporting striking black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn. The coast-to-coast protests will culminate in a march by thousands of workers, national civil rights leaders and politicians on the Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis, where they'll hold a memorial at the site of Dr. King's assassination 49 years ago.

Get To Know The BATS: Teachers Fighting Privatization

March 6, 2017 Marla Kilfoyle and Melissa Tomlinson, www.popularresistance.org Organize! Charter Schools, Education, Teachers, Worker Rights

By Marla Kilfoyle and Melissa Tomlinson in partnership with Read the Dirt for Popular Resistance. Chris Christie once told a Badass Teacher that he was “sick”of people like her. It was his response to the question posed by her sign: Schools in NJ are among the top 3 in the country. Why does Governor Christie portray our schools as failure factories?“You know what,”he said, “I’m tired of this. I’m so sick of you people. What do you want?”He pointed his finger in her face, “just go do your job.” It was 2014, seven years into Melissa Tomlinson’s career as a public middle school special education teacher in Buena, NJ—and six months after the founding of the Badass Teachers Association (BATs) network. Some might know BATs for their online activism and role in the campaign against Betsy DeVos. Organized horizontally through committees, we have chapters in every state, but all are autonomous to account for unique obstacles and local culture.

Workers, Civil Rights Leaders Join ‘March on Mississippi’

March 5, 2017 Sue Sturgis for Facing South. www.facingsouth.org Resist! Mississippi, Unions, Worker Rights

By Sue Sturgis for Facing South. n what's expected to be the largest protest in Mississippi in years, hundreds of workers, civil rights leaders, and social justice advocates plan to march to the Nissan factory in Canton this Saturday and call on the automaker to respect employees' right to a union election free from fear and intimidation. The March on Mississippi is being organized by the Mississippi Alliance for Fairness at Nissan, a coalition of civil rights leaders, ministers and worker advocates. It will be led by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and actor Danny Glover, a longtime advocate for the Nissan workers, and will be joined by NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, Sierra Club President Aaron Mair and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi). The march will also be streamed live on the Good Jobs Nation Facebook page.

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