Workers Rights and Jobs

Richard Wolff: How Workers Can Take Over A Business

October 27, 2015 Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org Create! Fight for 15, TTP, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Andrew Smolski for Counter Punch - In this interview, we discuss wages, a pertinent current topic with the ongoing struggle for $15/hr, stagnating worker incomes, and what will be TPP’s further attack on wages in the United States. More importantly, what began as a discussion of wages quickly developed into a much broader critique of the current system’s political economy, and a way to fundamentally alter the way we produce, distribute, and consume. It is not enough to bargain with capitalists. We must instead look to how workers can take over the means of production and employ them for the benefit and wellbeing of all.

Workers Fight Back Against Brooklyn B & H Abuses

October 24, 2015 Michelle Chen, www.thenation.com Resist! Workers Rights and Jobs

By Michelle Chen for The Nation - This workweek got off to an unusual start for Jorge Lora. In recent months at his workplace, a Brooklyn warehouse run by photography-equipment retailer B&H, he and his coworkers had become resigned to a miserable routine of working to exhaustion while subjected to injury, racial abuse, and wage theft. But he was surprised when he arrived this week. The atmosphere was calmer, supervisors weren’t hassling them, and, best of all, his workday was shorter: Instead of the usual 13-to-18-hour shift, he worked “only 12 hours.” “Honestly, I was thinking that today there would be tension in the workplace,” Lora said through a translator on Tuesday.

Railroad Workers Fight Proposed Job Consolidation

October 14, 2015 Jon Flanders, counterpunch.org Resist! Workers Rights and Jobs

By Jon Flanders for Counter Punch - With the unprecedented scrutiny freight railroads are now under due to oil train wrecks, and with record profits on the books, you would think that the major carriers would be unusually solicitous of their mechanical maintenance workforce, the people that are the doctors in the shop “hospitals” that treat the defects of locomotives. But you would be wrong. One leading class 1 carrier, CSX, is demanding unprecedented changes in the working agreement of its machinists and pipefitters, changes that could potentially turn the lives of these workers upside down. A “Master Mechanic” tentative agreement (TA) is currently being discussed in its locomotive shops.

German Chancellor’s Quick Reversal On Refugees

September 20, 2015 Victor Grossman, www.portside.org Educate! Germany, Refugees, Syria, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Victor Grossman for Portside. Berlin, Germany - ”A million refugees in Germany this year,” predicted Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. But Angela Merkel had announced that all were welcome – winning her a reputation as the most humane leader in all Europe. Did her internationalist upbringing in East Germany, with a progressive Christian pastor as father, play some role at first? But suddenly the line was changed; German crossing points from Austria were shut down. Then Austria closed its entry points from Hungary, while Hungary, by far the most brutal, plugged up its entry points from Serbia with razor wire and, when it felt necessary, with batons, tear gas and multiple arrests. Now Serbia has followed suit, Croatia felt forced to do the same, and those Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and other refuge-seekers who survived dangerous crossing through ever stormier seas are caught in a series of mouse-traps.

Farm Worker Advocates Target Ben & Jerry’s

May 13, 2015 Mitch Wertlieb & Melody Bodette , www.digital.vpr.net Resist! Capitalism, Farmworkers, Workers Rights and Jobs

A group of farm workers is targeting ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's, a brand known for its social responsibility, asking the company to take part in a new program to ensure that the workers on Vermont dairy farms are guaranteed fair housing and decent wages. The Milk With Dignity Program is an effort of the group Migrant Justice, which is dedicated to human rights and food justice. Ben & Jerry's buys much of their milk in Vermont from St. Albans Cooperative. Many of the dairy farms that sell their milk to St. Albans use migrant labor on their farms. There are an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 migrant workers on Vermont's 800 dairy farms. "There are many problems that our community faces," said Enrique Balcazar, a 22-year-old who came to Vermont to work on a dairy farm.

Protests Occupy And Shutdown The Guggenheim Museum

May 3, 2015 Alanna Martinez,www.observer.com Resist! Living Wage, Workers Rights and Jobs

On Friday May 1, activists from Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (GULF) organized a sit-in at the Guggenheim Museum and demanded a meeting with board members to discuss the state of workers rights at the museum’s Abu Dhabi location. The protest is the fifth unsanctioned action by the group to date. At noon, GULF, a branch of the Gulf Labor activist group, unfurled a large, red banner at the base of the museum’s Rotunda that read “Meet Workers’ Demands Now!” and released thousands of red and blue pamphlets inspired by the artwork of On Kawara (the artist’s retrospective is currently on view) from balconies above, according to Artinfo writer Mostafa Hedaya. Protestors sang chants over the live reading of Kawara’s ongoing performance project “One Million Years,” and announced that they would occupy the space until they were able to meet with board members.

Worldwide Marches Mark Labor Day (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

May 2, 2015 RT, www.rt.com Resist! Labor Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

Thousands have rallied worldwide to celebrate International Workers' Day or May Day, the largest labor holiday in the world. In some countries demonstrations have turned violent with police deploying tears gas. Several hundred people took to the streets in Istanbul with police using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters at the landmark Taksim Square, the Hurriyet Daily reported. Some 10,000 officers were on patrol in the area. At least five people were detained in the Okmeydanı neighborhood of Istanbul after being found in possession of gas masks and marbles. Also two women were arrested at Taksim Square when they attempted to unfurl a banner. Policemen block a street to prevent people from gathering for May Day demonstrations near Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, May 1, 2015.

NY Airport Workers Strike, ‘Poverty Wages Don’t Fly’

April 27, 2015 Matt Surrusco, www.truth-out.org Resist! Airport, New York (NY), SEIU, Workers Rights and Jobs

The people who may have handled your baggage or helped you or a family member who uses a wheelchair navigate through the airport, or perhaps on or off a plane, continued their call for higher wages, more affordable benefits and union representation on April 23 in New York City. Striking baggage handlers and wheelchair attendants, joined by dozens of union members from 32BJ SEIU and a city politician, rallied outside LaGuardia Airport's Terminal D, calling for a union contract. For two years, Local 32BJ, part of the Service Employees International Union, which is funding the nationwide Fight for $15 campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour and unionize fast-food workers, has been organizing airport workers at LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International Airport, among the 12,000 subcontracted workers employed in New York and New Jersey.

Bad Trade Policies Destroyed My Hometown; TPP Coming For Yours

April 25, 2015 J David Cox, www.dailykos.com Educate! Finance and the Economy, Free Trade, NAFTA, Workers Rights and Jobs

The TPP is called “NAFTA on steroids” for good reason. It threatens to ship even more jobs to countries like Vietnam, where workers earn poverty wages and are forbidden from unionizing; where some of my best friends lost their lives. It would deregulate big business even further, endangering our communities and our environment. It would allow big pharmaceuticals to drive up the prices of life saving medications. And by fast tracking the TPP, big corporations are stopping our democratically-elected lawmakers from even making changes to the deal. I want to be clear about this: Not only do TPP's corporate backers have the gall to write and push this terrible trade deal, they want to do it behind closed doors, without even letting members of Congress read it.

Workers Say Walmart Closed Stores In Retaliation

April 23, 2015 Daily Kos, www.dailykos.com Resist! Living Wage, Walmart, Workers Rights and Jobs

The Pico Rivera workers and the labor group OUR Walmart say it looks awfully suspicious that the closures just happened to hit a store that's been a center of worker organizing, and they're claiming retaliation: The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which backs OUR Walmart, is listed as the filing party on the NLRB complaint, which claims that Wal-Mart targeted the Pico Rivera store because it has been “the center of concerted action by [workers] to improve wages and working conditions for all Walmart [workers] around the country.” The Pico Rivera store was the site of OUR Walmart’s first strike in 2012; workers at that location have participated in strikes and civil disobedience ever since.

Labor Leader Connects Working People To Environmental Cause

April 23, 2015 Blue Mountain Center, www.bluemountaincenter.org Educate! Environment, Workers Rights and Jobs

The commons has been consistent focus of Blue Mountain Center’s work for more than a decade, and BMC’s Harriet Barlow helped make Just Giving 2015 a showcase of the latest commons strategies and practices in her role as co-chair of the conference, sponsored by the Edge Funders Alliance. It was held April 8-10 at Baltimore’s Hyatt Regency Baltimore, whose union workers also received an ovation in the closing session. Uehlein notes that he has written five songs at BMC during retreats for climate change and new economy activists. “I don't know what it is about BMC—maybe the quiet, the solitude, the time allowed for contemplation. The beauty—being out on the lake in a canoe—is inspiring. The mountains are inspiring. And being in a space—the lodge where so many movement people have gathered and strategized over the years—is very inspiring.”

NGO: 105 Colombian Trade Unionists Killed In 4 Years

April 22, 2015 Telesur, www.telesurtv.net Educate! Colombia, Labor Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

The killings follow the implementation of a Labor Action Plan signed in 2011 as part of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The Colombia's National Union School presented a report to the U.S. Congress denouncing the killing of at least 105 trade unionists in the past four years. The killings coincides with the implementation of the Labor Action Plan (LAP) that Colombia signed in 2011 as part of the U.S.- Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. The LAP was promoted by the U.S. government in order to allay concerns about labor and human rights violations. According to the report, more than 1,933 threats and acts of violence have been levied against Colombian workers, including 1,337 death threats in addition to the registered assassinations.

At Home & Abroad, The Labor Movement Comes Roaring Back

April 18, 2015 Annelise Orlick, www.talkpoverty.org Organize! Labor Movement, Workers Rights and Jobs

On April 15, 2015, low-wage workers across the U.S. and around the world once again waged a flash strike intended to capture the attention of employers and policy-makers who control their wages. Protesters didn’t spend their limited monies to ride buses, trains or planes to Washington, D.C. where their actions might or might not have attracted much media attention. Instead, they took to the streets where they live and labor — in 200 U.S. cities and across the United Kingdom, Brazil, India, Italy, Bangladesh, Japan, and 30 other countries. At a time when multi-national corporations are 50 of the world’s largest 100 economies, this movement has had to be both intensely local and expansively global. Less than three years ago, the grassroots campaign for a living wage began in scattered Thanksgiving protests by New York City fast food workers and Los Angeles Walmart associates.

Getting Better Organized: The Fight For $15 And A Union

April 17, 2015 Carl Finamore, www.commondreams.org Strategize! Fight for 15, Living Wage, Workers Rights and Jobs

The Fight for $15 minimum wage campaign came to San Francisco in the very early hours of April 15. Around 100 protestors assembled at 6am and then marched very orderly through the doors, packed the dining area and shut down for one hour the McDonalds in the heart of the city’s Latino Mission district, an area which itself is a focal point of the city’s gentrification and displacement of working class residents. Speakers spoke inside with bullhorns, something that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago when arrests would have been certain. The political climate has dramatically changed in a very short time. A majority of Americans support the message that was heard loud and clear today, “workers need a raise, a big raise!”

Protests For $15 Minimum Wage Are Heating Up

April 16, 2015 Candice Choi, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Fight for 15, Living Wage, police brutality, Student Activism, Workers Rights and Jobs

The Fight for $15 campaign to win higher pay and a union for fast-food workers is expanding to represent a variety of low-wage workers and become more of a social justice movement. In New York City on Wednesday, more than 100 chanting protesters gathered outside a McDonald's around noon, prompting the store to lock its doors to prevent the crowd from streaming in. Demonstrators laid on the sidewalk outside to stage a "die-in," which became popular during the "Black Lives Matter" protests after recent police shootings of black men. Several wore sweatshirts that said "I Can't Breathe," a nod to the last words of a black man in New York City who died after he was put in a police chokehold.

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