Workers Rights and Jobs

UAW, Democrats Block Workers Struggle Against GM Shutdowns

December 30, 2018 Marcus Day, WSWS Resist! Democratic Party, General Motors, Workers Rights and Jobs

“We absolutely have to unify to take on GM. In the 1960s, there were hundreds of thousands of GM workers and it’s been dwindling for decades.” “If we are to fight GM, we are going to have to take them on around the world, in Canada, Mexico, China and everywhere. Everyone who works for GM has got to unite to handle GM,” she said. “We’re not going to get any support from the politicians in Washington,” she continued. “It doesn’t matter if they are Democrats or Republican, they are for the money, not the workers."

Marriott Hotel Strikers Set A New Industry Standard

December 29, 2018 By Samantha Winslow, Labornotes.org Resist! Class Struggle, Hospitality, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

After two months of strikes, workers at the largest hotel company in the world have won their biggest demands and set a new pattern for the hospitality industry. The seven UNITE HERE locals in Hawaii, San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, San Jose, Detroit, and Boston bargained separately, but similar contract expiration dates allowed 7,700 workers to strike Marriott at the same time. Their common demands focused on three areas—job security, workload, and wages and benefits—and the slogan, “One Job Should Be Enough.” Employees stopped Marriott from making them choose between wages and benefits. Details varied local by local, but across the country they won on both.

General Motors’ Factories Should Not Be Closed. They Should Be Turned Over to the Workers

December 16, 2018 By Rich Whitney, Counterpunch Create! Employee Ownership, New Economy, Worker Cooperatives, Workers Rights and Jobs

General Motors’ November 26th announcement that it will be eliminating more than 14,000 jobs and closing seven factories worldwide by the end of next year, including four factories in the U.S. and one in Canada is an opportunity. These facilities should be condemned by government authority and turned over to the workers whose labor created the wealth and profits that General Motors’ shareholders enjoy. They could then, with government assistance, be retooled and placed under the ownership and control of their workers, organized into democratic cooperatives for that purpose.

What The ‘Yellow Vests’ Movement Tells Us About The Massive Level Of Discontent In France

December 7, 2018 By Marie Brunerie, Dcmediagroup.us Resist! Class Struggle, France, Protests, Workers Rights and Jobs

It all started three weeks ago when a social media-launched campaign against the announcement of a price hike on fuel turned viral and almost instantaneously rallied tens of thousands of people. “Enough is enough!” they cried out. The tax rise was aimed at injecting money into a climate-related support program. But, yet another tax increase was too hard to swallow for these working- and middle-class citizens who both feel–and objectively are–written off. Average citizens gathered at traffic circles in mass protests to show their despondency, all sporting the yellow safety vests required to be carried in every car. The vast majority of them were protesting for the very first time in their lives.

GM Closures: Oshawa Needs More Than ‘Thoughts And Prayers’

November 28, 2018 Steven High, Theconversation.com Educate! Class Struggle, Factories, General Motors, Workers Rights and Jobs

All eyes in Canada have turned to Oshawa, Ont., following the announcement by General Motors that it will end auto manufacturing in the city after more than a century of production. In the coming days we will hear about community resilience and the inevitability of market forces. Some of those impacted will be asked to share their feelings and politicians of all stripes will send their thoughts and prayers to the nearly 3,000 autoworkers who will be out of work. Then we will all move on. Does any of this sound familiar? It should. We have been living this story for decades. North America is filled with former mine, mill and factory towns. Some were once synonymous with the departing company or the products that they produced.

Climate Action In A Climate Of Job Insecurity

November 27, 2018 Hazel Graham and Stephen Graham, Theecologist.org Resist! Climate Change, Workers Rights and Jobs

Workers and environmentalists are joining forces to fight climate change. The seriousness of our environmental plight comes more clearly into view with each passing news cycle. The Canadian glaciers are melting faster than we forecast. Humanity has wiped out 60 percent of animal populations since 1970. Only 12 years remain to act if we are to keep the global average temperature rise below 1.5C as required – yet global action on climate change consistently falls far short of what is needed. The ecological rifts opening up are legion. From climate change to biodiversity loss, nitrogen cycle disruption to ocean acidification, the realisation that we are at – or will soon be reaching – points of no return has dominated headlines in recent months.

Chilean Workers Observe National Strike Demanding Labor Rights

November 17, 2018 Staff, Peoplesdispatch.org Resist! Chile, Class Struggle, Strikes, Workers, Workers Rights and Jobs

On November 8, hundreds of thousands of Chilean workers organised a massive rally in Santiago as part of their national strike. The call for strike was given by Worker’s United Centre of Chile (CUT) demanding an increase in wages, equal pay, decent pensions, decent housing, quality public health, protection from workplace abuse, etc. They also protested against massive layoffs, pro-rich tax reforms, pension reforms, and the overall labour policy of Chilean president Sebastian Piñera. Several trade unions and student federations attended the march. Similar rallies were held in 40 other locations across the country.

A Different WWI Anniversary

November 11, 2018 By Robert Ovetz, Portside Educate! Labor, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

More than a decade before the New Deal, a wildcat strike wave during WWI brought about extensive concessions including right to organize, mandatory arbitration for employers, higher wages, and shorter work weeks. As we approach the anniversary of the end of WWI the history of this little-known period of class conflict has many critical lessons for us today. Above all, the lesson is that class conflict drives reform not the other way around as is commonly argued.

Union Shuts Down Three-Day Strike By California Health Care And Service Workers

October 29, 2018 Evelyn Rios, Wsws.org Resist! California, Health Care, Strikes, Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

A three-day strike by service and patient tech workers at the University of California ended on Thursday, despite the fact that nothing has been won for the workers, who are the lowest paid in the public institution of higher learning. Nearly 24,000 workers are in the union that organized the strike, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). This includes over 8,000 service workers (custodians, food and hospital service workers, and shuttle bus drivers) and 13,000 patient care workers, such as operation room specialists, respiratory therapists, patient care assistants, pharmacy technicians, hospital lab techs, phlebotomists.

Labor’s Real Innovators Will Come From The Ranks, Not The Corporate World

October 25, 2018 By Chris Brookse, Labornotes.org Strategize! Class Struggle, Labor, SEIU, Workers Rights and Jobs

“Put your faith in the rank and file” was the advice that famed longshore union organizer Harry Bridges used to give. But instead of turning to union members for the bold ideas we need, some labor leaders are taking cues from the corporate world. Take the Service Employees (SEIU), which recently posted a job for an “Innovation Specialist.” What would such a specialist do? It’s impossible to tell from the posting, a garble of buzzwords that reads like a Silicon Valley venture capitalist’s TED talk. For instance: “The Innovation Specialist will train and guide teams in the use of innovation methods, tools, and practices to enable staff in SEIU’s locals and in its International Union to innovate systematically with method and rigor.”

Glasgow: Thousands Of Women To Strike Over Pay Discrimination

October 17, 2018 LibBrooks, Theguardian.com Resist! Class Struggle, discrimination, Sexism, Strikes, Wages, Women, Workers Rights and Jobs

Thousands of women council workers across Glasgow plan to bring the city to a standstill this week in what is believed to be the biggest equal pay strike seen in the UK. More than 8,000 workers, mostly women who have never been on a picket line, will take part in the two-day action that starts next Tuesday and will affect homecare, schools and nurseries, cleaning and catering services across the city. While Glasgow city council insists there is no justification for the planned disruption, which it says will jeopardise the care of its most vulnerable residents, unions say that a failure of negotiations has left the women with no choice but to strike and make visible the decades-long pay discrimination that has affected this largely unseen workforce.

Black Domestic Workers Call For Pay, Professionalism, And Respect

October 16, 2018 By Negin Owliaei, Inequality.org Resist! Class Struggle, Domestic Workers, Workers Rights and Jobs

“The thing I hate about the job is the wear and tear on your body,” caregiver Allena Pass says. “It breaks you down: the aches and pains and soreness. The frustration you have when you have people in the home that can’t help and won’t help. When you have people in the home that are never satisfied no matter what you do or how you do it. I know what I’m doing, and I know I’m doing right.” “I want the public to appreciate me and treat me with respect because I treat my job with respect,” Pass says. She’s one of the many caregivers profiled in a new report, Pay, Professionalism, and Respect: Black Domestic Workers Continue the Call for Standards in the Care Industry, a collaboration between the Institute for Policy Studies and We Dream in Black, a project of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

Trump Wants To Make Union Pickets Illegal

October 15, 2018 Hassan A. Kanu, News.bloomberglaw.com Resist! Class Struggle, Electoral Politics, Repression, Trump Administration, Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

Protesting workers may need to be extra cautious about whose hand they’re trying to force in the wake of a recent NLRB ruling that will likely affect labor advocacy in a number of industries. The National Labor Relations Board recently ruled that a group of subcontracted janitors were justifiably fired for picketing at the San Francisco building where they worked. The board said the workers weren’t protected by federal labor law because they were trying to convince the building’s property manager to cut ties with their employer. Workers and their unions can picket or protest at job sites with multiple employers. They can also inform a “secondary” or “neutral” employer that they plan to do picketing directed at the primary employer they work for.

Marriott Hotel Workers Strike Spreads To Hawaii

October 10, 2018 Kevin Martinez, Wsws.org Resist! Class Struggle, Hawaii, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

More than 2,700 hotel workers in Honolulu and Maui walked off the job on Monday, joining Marriott workers who began striking last week in the San Francisco area. Nationwide, 7,700 workers from 23 hotels are now on strike in eight cities. Strikes are ongoing in Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, San Diego and Detroit. Workers are demanding better pay and safer working conditions. While there is growing support for a nationwide strike, the UNITE HERE union has sought to limit and isolate the strikes, negotiating piecemeal with the bosses for separate deals with each hotel. Workers picketed five Marriott hotels in Hawaii: Sheraton Waikiki, Royal Hawaiian, Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, Westin Moana Surfrider and Sheraton Maui. About 95 percent of the 3,500 workers in Local 5 authorized a strike last month.

City Colleges Of Chicago Workers Hit Picket Lines To Force Contract Talks

October 10, 2018 Kate McGee, Wbez.org Resist! Chicago, Class Struggle, Higher Education, Workers Rights and Jobs

Three unions that represent faculty and staff at City Colleges of Chicago say the college’s bargaining team will not come to the table to negotiate contracts. The unions said they plan to picket all City Colleges of Chicago board meetings until contract agreements are reached. In a statement, a college spokesperson disputed that accusation, saying the system has held more than 40 meetings with seven collective bargaining units over the past year. “City Colleges has been responding and will continue to respond to contract proposals.” Administrators also said they value the unions and that they “are working to reach mutually beneficial contract agreements.” The unions represent hundreds of employees, including professors, clerical staff, and security guards.

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