Worker’s Rights

Decisions Spell Disaster For Working Women

July 2, 2014 Sarah Jaffe, www.inthesetimes.com Educate! Religion, Supreme Court, Women's Rights, Worker's Rights

Retail sales and home healthcare work are two of the three fastest-growing jobs in this country. That’s an important consideration when looking at the decisions the Supreme Court handed down today in Harris v. Quinn and Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services v. Hobby Lobby Stores: If you are not affected by these rulings yet, you well could be in the future. Both 5 – 4 decisions were written by Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative Catholic from New Jersey appointed by George W. Bush, and both rested on narrowly tailored legal arguments that just happen to cut wide enough to impact groups of workers who are almost exclusively female. Harris creates the special designation of “partial public employees” for publicly-funded home healthcare aides who work both for the client and for the state—who are 90 percent female, most of them poor, immigrants, and of color. Hobby Lobby, meanwhile, in deciding whether an employer with religious beliefs can be required to provide health insurance that covers contraception, singles out women by targeting its arguments towards workers who use birth control—but not any other form of healthcare. As Sheila Bapat, author of Part of the Family? Nannies, Housekeepers, Caregivers and the Battle for Domestic Workers' Rights, tweeted, “These decisions speak squarely to the value of women's labor.”

Supreme Court Backs Koch-Funded Anti-Union Case

July 2, 2014 Mike Hall, www.aflcio.org Educate! Corporatism, Labor, Law, Unions, Worker's Rights

In a 5-to-4 decision today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Illinois home care workers who benefit from higher wages and better working conditions that their union negotiated for—but who choose not to join—do not have to pay their fair share of the cost of the union’s bargaining for and representation of all workers. Text STRENGTH to 235246 to fight back against these attacks on working families. The suit was filed in 2010 by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an extreme anti-worker group whose funders include billionaires like the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation and the Walton Family [of Walmart] Foundation. But the suit was dismissed first by a federal district court and then again on appeal by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court agreed to hear it in October. Said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: The extreme views of today’s Supreme Court aimed at home care workers aren’t just bad for unions—they’re bad for all workers and the middle class. But the attacks on the freedom of workers to come together are nothing new. They are part of an onslaught from anti-worker organizations hostile to raising wages or improving benefits for millions of people. These attacks are a direct cause of an economy in which middle-class families can’t get a break because their wages have stagnated and their incomes have declined.

Academic Sweatshop: My Life As An Adjunct

July 2, 2014 Nicole Troxell, www.socialism.com Educate! Adjunct, Education, Worker's Rights

When I was 19 years old, a college professor changed my life. I took his Feminist Political Thought course and realized for the first time that I could be smart and capable. I decided I wanted to give students what he had given me. I talked to professors about what it was like to teach college and it seemed perfect. There would be time for artistic and intellectual work, a chance to foster curiosity and critical thinking, building community, freedom to work a flexible schedule mostly from home, good wages and benefits, and opportunities to contribute to research. I knew this course would also make my family proud. I come from a long line of working-class union employees who spent their lives in tobacco factories, brickyards, construction, and working for the state. They had little choice of jobs and stayed with them until they retired.

Bread And Roses A Hundred Years On

June 29, 2014 Andy Piascik, www.iww.org Educate! Bread and Roses, IWW, Labor, Occupy, Worker's Rights

One hundred years ago, in the dead of a Massachusetts winter, the great 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike—commonly referred to as the “Bread and Roses” strike—began. Accounts differ as to whether a woman striker actually held a sign that read “We Want Bread and We Want Roses, Too.” No matter. It’s a wonderful phrase, as appropriate for the Lawrence strikers as for any group at any time: the notion that, in addition to the necessities for survival, people should have “a sharing of life’s glories,” as James Oppenheim put it in his poem “Bread and Roses.” Though 100 years have passed, the Lawrence strike resonates as one of the most important in the history of the United States. Like many labor conflicts of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the strike was marked by obscene disparities in wealth and power, open collusion between the state and business owners, large scale violence against unarmed strikers, and great ingenuity and solidarity on the part of workers. In important ways, though, the strike was also unique. It was the first large-scale industrial strike, the overwhelming majority of the strikers were immigrants, most were women and children, and the strike was guided in large part by the revolutionary strategy and vision of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

Catalyzing Big Growth For Worker Co-ops

June 25, 2014 Hilary Abell, www.geo.coop Create! Cooperatives, Future, Labor, Worker's Rights

Today, corporate profits are at an all-time high and employee wages are at their lowest ever as a percent of GDP.i Worker cooperatives embody the hope that we can reverse the downward spiral in wage stagnation, wealth distribution, and concentration of ownership to build an economy that truly serves people and communities. But what will it really take to create a more cooperative economy? My new white paper Worker Cooperatives: Pathways to Scale, published by The Democracy Collaborative, describes the many benefits of worker cooperatives for their members, for business and for society; explores barriers and success factors in worker co-op development; and proposes strategies for increasing the scale and impact of worker co-ops in the United States. This article, adapted from the paper, summarizes three high-level strategies for scaling up the worker cooperative sector and illustrates the need for capacity building through a story of two cooperatives.

Leveling The Playing Field For Worker Cooperatives

June 25, 2014 AbScher, www.truth-out.org Create! Cooperatives, New York City (NYC), Poverty, Worker's Rights

A quiet revolution is rumbling through New York's municipal offices as they retool to support the creation of worker cooperatives as a way to fight poverty. Spurred by the powerful example of immigrant-owned cleaning cooperatives and the longstanding example of Cooperative Home Care Associates in the Bronx - the largest worker cooperative in the country - progressive city council members are allying with a new network of worker cooperatives, community based organizations that incubated immigrant-owned coops and the influential Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies to figure out how the city can encourage this still-tiny economic sector. Once fully in place, New York City will be a national leader in providing municipal support for these democratic enterprises. The pace of change is dizzying. In January, the federation released a short report arguing that worker coops help improve traditionally low-wage jobs by channeling the enterprises' profits directly to their worker members, improving their lives in tangible ways. Then in February, Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, chairwoman of the Committee on Community Development, held a hearing which put staff from the city's Small Business Services and Economic Development Agency in the hot seat about how they were promoting worker cooperatives.

Employee Confronts Starbucks CEO At Public Meeting

June 21, 2014 Anne Meador, www.dcmediagroup.us Resist! CEO, Starbucks, Unions, Worker's Rights

Washington, DC-area Starbucks employee Sam Dukore put a few tough questions to Howard Schultz, the corporate CEO, when he came to town promoting a new benefit that Starbucks is offering its employees: tuition reimbursement for online college classes. Dukore, who makes less than $10/hour working as a barista at Starbucks for 2 1/2 years, says Schultz should address low wages throughout the company. Although Starbucks made $1.7 billion in profits last year, the average pay for a barista at Starbucks is about $8/hour, and hours scheduled tend to fluctuate from week to week. Schultz was paid $28.9 million in 2013, an 80% pay raise over the year before, plus $18 million in stock awards and an invitation to work as head of the company for three more years. Dukore says that he was promised a promotion six months ago, but it’s failed to materialize.

How A Large Worker Co-op Got Started

June 20, 2014 Undernews, www.prorevnews.blogspot.com Create! Cooperatives, Maine, Worker's Rights

Cooperative Development Institute - Employees of three rural Maine businesses – Burnt Cove Market, V&S Variety and Pharmacy, and The Galley – are now the owners. All of them. By forming the Island Employee Cooperative , the largest worker cooperative in Maine and one of the larger worker co - ops in the United States, the employees were able to purchase the businesses from retiring owners Vern and Sand ra Seile. Combined, the three businesses are one of the island’s largest employers and provide the community with a full array of groceries, hardware, prescription drugs, pharmacy items, craft supplies, and other goods and services. The employees were concerned when word first circulated that the Seiles were thinking about selling the stores and retiring. Potential buyers who were not part of the community would doubtfully have maintained the same level of jobs and services, and other employment options on the island are limited.

1,500 Protest For Worker’s Rights In NC, 20 Arrested

June 18, 2014 NCNAACP, www.naacpnc.org Resist! North Carolina, Protest, Protestors Arrested, Worker's Rights

In a fourth week of peaceful protest at the North Carolina General Assembly during this legislative session, more than 1,500 people from across the state gathered on Monday to challenge the state legislature's extreme agenda and the regressive policies passed last year that have hurt workers. Members of the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, labor unions, the fast food workers' organization Raise Up, as well as teachers' and women's groups highlighted the many ways in which budget proposals from state lawmakers are devastating for the poor, working people and most vulnerable residents of the state. Yesterday, the Forward Together Movement introduced youth organizers who are kicking off Moral Freedom Summer - in which 50 trained organizers will be anchored in 50 communities across North Carolina to register and mobilize voters. "The main reason for the short session is to pass budgets, but the budgets that we've seen pass here violate the constitutional principle to govern for the good of the whole," said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, during the rally on Halifax Mall.

Working Families Party Pulls Plug On Working Families

June 8, 2014 John Halle, www.jacobinmag.com Educate! Elections, Labor, Worker's Rights

Just a few weeks ago, those daring to suggest that a Working Families Party endorsement of the notoriously right-wing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was in the offing were assailed by the WFP’s liberal supporters as cynics at best or GOP moles at worst. But that, to their evident displeasure, is precisely what materialized last weekend. The driving forces included, most conspicuously, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio who, despite his being slapped down by the governor on charter schools and in his attempt to finance universal pre-K with a millionaires tax, urged delegates to accept on faith his portrait of Cuomo as a genuine progressive blocked by Senate Republicans. (That the governor has supported and engineered a working Republican majority in Albany was left unmentioned.) As a loyal Democrat, this display of blind partisanship, while plenty unappealing, was what was necessary and required from him. The same cannot be said for the other shoulder on the battering ram, the state’s major unions, who have not (or at least not yet) officially merged operations with Democratic Party.

Walmart Workers Launch Effort To Unseat Rob Walton

May 30, 2014 Claire O'Connor, www.forbes.com Resist! Walmart, Worker's Rights

Walmart has a new CEO in Doug McMillon, a one-time warehouse worker who took over the top job this year. Is it time for a new chairman, too? A coalition of Walmart workers believe so, and they’re mobilizing fellow shareholders in an effort to boot billionaire Rob Walton off the board at the big box giant’s annual meeting on Friday, June 6. Last week, union-backed employee group Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) sent a letter and voting guide to shareholders asking that they vote against Rob Walton’s re-election as chair. The letter, signed by three store-level Walmart workers, also suggests shareholders vote for an independent chair proposal that would bar Walton family members from leading the board at the world’s largest retail chain. “Over the last decade or more, Wal-Mart Stores , Inc. has experienced a series of internal control and legal compliance breaches, and a number of investors have expressed concerns that these breaches have created risks for shareholders,” reads the letter, which can be seen in full here along with the voting guide.

International Report Ranks US Poorly For Treatment Of Workers

May 30, 2014 Kevin Short, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! US, Worker Rights and Jobs, Worker's Rights

Where are the worst places on the planet to be a worker? A new report by the International Trade Union Confederation, an umbrella organization of unions around the world, sheds light on the state of workers' rights across 139 countries. For its 2014 Global Rights Index, the ITUC evaluated 97 different workers' rights metrics like the ability to join unions, access to legal protections and due process, and freedom from violent conditions. The group ranks each country on a scale of 1 (the best protections) to 5 (the worst protections). The study found that in at least 35 countries, workers have been arrested or imprisoned "as a tactic to resist demands for democratic rights, decent wages, safer working conditions and secure jobs." In a minimum of nine countries, murder and disappearance are regularly used to intimidate workers. Denmark was the only country in the world to achieve a perfect score, meaning that the nation abides by all 97 indicators of workers' rights. The U.S., embarrassingly, scored a 4, indicating "systematic violations" and "serious efforts to crush the collective voice of workers."

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