Workers

GM Workers Ratify Contract Though ‘Mixed At Best’

October 29, 2019 Chris Brooks and Jane Slaughter, Labornotes.org Resist! Class Struggle, General Motors, Strikes, Workers

The Auto Workers' strike against General Motors came to a close this weekend after six weeks on the picket lines, with workers voting to ratify a contract that was clearly unloved but accepted with a yes vote of 57 percent. “I don't think we'll get any more out of it,” said Nelson Worley, who will have 42 years with GM in March. Although he called the proposed deal “mixed at best,” he planned to vote yes, worried about “public perception,” that others would see GM workers as “a bunch of whiners.”

Two Leading Economists Say Medicare For All Would Give Workers ‘Biggest Take-Home Pay Raise In A Generation’

October 28, 2019 By Jake Johnson, Commondreams.org Create! Health Care, Medicare, Reform, Workers

Medicare for All would give most U.S. workers "the biggest take-home pay raise in a generation," two economists from the University of California, Berkeley said Friday, countering one of the main insurance industry talking points against single-payer. In an op-ed for The Guardian, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman directly challenged the claim that Medicare for All would "involve massive tax increases for the middle class," an attack line centrist Democratic presidential candidates like former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg have recently deployed against the popular proposal.

As GM Strike Enters Fifth Week, Mack Truck-Volvo Workers Launch First Strike In More Than 35 Years

October 17, 2019 Nick Barrickman, Wsws.org Resist! Class Struggle, General Motors, Strikes, Workers

Over 3,500 Mack Truck assembly workers walked out at plants in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida late Saturday night. Mack Truck workers will join nearly 50,000 General Motors automotive workers, whose strike is entering its fifth week. The strike is the first work stoppage to hit the heavy truck company in over 35 years, a further demonstration of the return of the class struggle. Strike statistics for this year have already shattered 2018 levels, which, driven by a wave of public teachers strikes, were the highest in the United States since the 1980s.

Efforts To Claw Back Stolen Wages Painfully Slow, As California Employers Who Cheat Workers Often Get Away With It

October 16, 2019 By Eli Wolfe, Fairwarning.org Educate! California, Exploitation, Wages, Workers

In February, when California labor officials announced the biggest wage theft case against a private company in state history, they made sure to include a warning for all bosses: “Stealing earned wages from workers’ pockets is illegal in California and this case shows that employers who steal from their workers will end up paying for it in the end,” said Labor Secretary Julie Su in a press release announcing nearly $12 million in citations against RDV Construction, Inc. RDV has appealed the penalties.

How Arts Workers Took On Big Oil

October 14, 2019 By Katherine Hearst, Newint.org Organize! Fossil Fuels, Oil, Workers

Seven and a half years ago, a group of arts workers, actors and campaigners jumped on stage before a BP-sponsored Royal Shakespeare Company production to do a guerrilla Shakespearean performance against the oil industry. The group soliloquized over the RSC’s decision to accept the sponsorship in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster, and BP’s decision to start extracting oil from the highly polluting and destructive tar sands in Canada. That first performance marked the launch of BP or not BP’s manifesto.

UAW Responds To GM’s Latest Offer With Counterproposal

October 14, 2019 By Dave Bartkowiak Jr., Kayla Clarke, and Rod Meloni, Clickondetroit.com Resist! Class Struggle, General Motors, Strikes, Workers

DETROIT - A letter sent to union members Friday indicates that United Auto Workers and General Motors Co. could be one step closer to reaching a tentative agreement. That's only if GM accepts the latest proposal. UAW Vice President and Director Terry Dittes said the UAW made a counterproposal to GM's latest offer. He said that, if GM "accepts and agrees to this group of proposals, we will have a tentative agreement." This is not the first time a counterproposal has been offered.

A Bay Area Housing Solution With Worker Empowerment Built In

October 10, 2019 Aaron Fernando, Shareable.net Create! Affordable Housing, Housing, San Francisco, Workers

As housing crises heat up across American cities, the San Francisco Bay Area is experiencing an extreme disparity: in 2017, it added three times as many jobs as it did new housing units for those workers. To address this challenge, the region and others will need to embrace a number of different complementary solutions. One creative solution, available for decades but growing in popularity, is bottom-up in its nature: the granny flat. Technically known as Accessory Development Units (ADUs), these residencies are small housing units built on existing single-family lots...

21st Century Corporate Governance: New Rules For Worker Representation On Corporate Boards

October 7, 2019 Lenore Palladino, Rooseveltinstitute.org Create! Corporations, New Economy, Workers

In a new working paper, Roosevelt Senior Economist and Fellow Lenore Palladino argues that the 21st century American economy requires a new, more accurate, and more effective model for corporate governance—one that can advance worker power and employee representation within American corporations and curb inequality. As it stands, outsized shareholder power is contributing to rising economic inequality; and workers have no part in the decision-making that determines the future of the corporations they work for, nor do they have a say in what happens to the value they help create.

How Have Health Workers Won Improvements To Patient Care? Strikes.

October 5, 2019 Suzanne Gordon, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Class Struggle, Health Care, Strikes, Workers

On September 20, 2,200 nurses represented by the National Nurses United (NNU) went on a one-day strike at the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago nurses were protesting unsafe working conditions and forced overtime—and had been in contract negotiations with the hospital for months. The Medical Center has just spent $269 million on a hospital expansion that it, insists, represents an “ investment to improve our community's health.” In response to the strike, the Medical Center’s top officials went on a P.R. offensive, accusing striking nurses of engaging in “shameless behavior,” and insisting they are recklessly endangering their patients.

How Employees And Employers Get Bled By Health Insurance

September 30, 2019 Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism. Educate! Health Insurance, Healthcare costs, Workers

“The single biggest issue in health care for most Americans is that their health costs are growing much faster than their wages are,” KFF CEO Drew Altman said. “Costs are prohibitive when workers making $25,000 a year have to shell out $7,000 a year just for their share of family premiums.” Many lower-wage workers cannot afford the contributions and forego the health insurance even if their companies offer it. As a result, at companies with many lower-wage workers, only 33% of the workers are covered by the employer’s health insurance, compared to 63% at the other companies. For single coverage of the employee only, the annual cost of the average health insurance premium — employer and employee contributions combined — rose 4.2% in 2019, to $7,188, with the employee paying 17% or $1,242 (up from 14% in 1999) and the employer paying 83% or $5,946 (down from 86% in 1999).

Doctors’ Climate Blockade

September 28, 2019 Tess De La Mare, Theecologist.org Resist! Climate Change, Protests, Reform, Solidarity, United Kingdom (UK), Workers

Doctors backing the Extinction Rebellion movement have blockaded the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to highlight the impact of climate change on public health. Thirty doctors from all over the UK joined the protest on Wednesday to call on the Government to take rapid action to create a carbon neutral health service. Two doctors scaled the building to glue themselves to the glass porch over the entrance, while several others held a banner reading "government inaction will cost thousands of lives".

iPhone Workers Today Are 25 Times More Exploited Than Textile Workers In 19th Century England

September 27, 2019 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Educate! Exploitation, Technology, Workers

A recent report by the International Labour Organisation shows that the total global labour force is now measured at 3.5 billion workers. This is the largest size of the global labour force in recorded history. Talk of the demise of workers is utterly premature when confronted with the weight of this data. Most of these 3.5 billion workers, the ILO says, ‘experienced a lack of material well-being, economic security, equal opportunities or scope for human development. Being in employment does not always guarantee a decent living.

Exposing Wage Theft Without Fear Is Possible And Necessary

September 21, 2019 By Noreen Ahmed, NELP. Educate! Coal, Jobs and Wages, Wage Theft, Workers

For more than five weeks now, coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky have been camped out on railroad tracks, blocking a train loaded with coal, to demand that their bankrupt employer pay them their owed wages. Their story highlights the rampant nature of wage theft and the need to address it, along with retaliation, or the fear of retaliation, that keep millions of other workers silent. Wage theft refers to the countless ways in which employers fail to comply with workers’ most basic pay protections. It includes, for example, an employer’s failure to pay the minimum wage or overtime, an employer’s refusal to pay a worker for all hours worked, asking workers to work off the clock, employee misclassification, illegal deductions, and stealing tips.

Unions: We Must Back The Climate Strike!

September 19, 2019 By Rosa Pavanelli, Commondreams.org Resist! Class Struggle, Climate Change, Labor Unions, Workers

In 1968, workers around the world joined students in taking to the streets to challenge injustice and the complacency of the political establishment. Now, once again, students are leading the way—this time to prevent climate disaster. They ask adults—and unions—to support them. We must respond by showing that the labour movement is willing to stand for broader interests and support popular movements for change. The fight for climate action is a fight to put people and planet over profit.

GM Just Took Away Our Insurance, But They Can’t Stop Our Strike

September 19, 2019 Steve Frisque, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Class Struggle, General Motors, Repression, Strikes, Workers

Just after midnight on September 15, nearly 50,000 members of the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) walked off their jobs at 33 General Motors (GM) plants across the Midwest and South. For two days, workers have been picketing against GM’s dismal wages and two-tier contracts. Steve Frisque was among them. Frisque is a full-time union steward and committee lead at the GM parts plant in Hudson, Wisconsin.

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