Bucking a nationwide trend that is forcing public workers to take unpaid time off, thousands of New Jersey state workers are dogging their governor's heels, resisting his plans to furlough them for nearly three weeks. . . .
Long repressed, Iraqi unions are finding remarkable ways to resist the conditions rising from a foreign army’s occupation and help serve the people of Iraq. . . .
The UNITE HERE secessionists have not exactly made a clean break. Their founding convention took place in Philadelphia, but not all of the union's members in the city — much less the country — were on board. . . .
Eight doctors and other advocates of a national single-payer health care system were arrested yesterday when they disrupted a Senate committee meeting, demanding to know why experts representing their position were being excluded. . . .
The media consensus is that union auto workers escaped the government-imposed restructuring of their industry basically unharmed, exchanging a few dings for control of the companies. Nothing could be further from the truth. . . .
In what could act as a signal to other big union companies, AT&T is playing on hard times to demand a raft of concessions. The telecommunications giant and its workers are battling over who will carry the burden for health care.
Workers at a Visteon plant in Belfast, Northern Ireland, staged an occupation of their plant March 31 after management told them it would close in six minutes. Workers in two plants in England followed their lead, and soon 600 Visteon workers were occupying their factories.
The plants were part of Ford Motor Company until a restructuring plan nine years ago, when Ford promised that Visteon workers’ contracts would always “mirror” Ford’s. Ford had promised “redundancy contracts”—benefits and pay workers would get if the plant were to shut down. Now Visteon is offering nothing, and workers fear they will lose their pensions as well.
The Iraq Teachers Union (ITU) has been actively working for greater union and organizing rights under the new Iraqi constitution. But in the last few weeks the government has attempted to seize the union from its members and leaders.
The government appointed a special body to preside over the union and force it to hold elections. The ITU has had multiple conferences in which union leaders have been elected openly and democratically, the last one in late 2007 to elect a new president.
The government is demanding that the union hand over the keys to its buildings and offices, as well as its records and membership information. It has told the elected leaders of the ITU to step down or be jailed.
