Blogs

  • 100 Years Later, the Cry for ‘Bread & Roses’ Still Resonates
    Steve Early
    January 12, 2012

    One hundred years ago today, thousands of angry textile workers abandoned their looms and poured into the frigid streets of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Like Occupy Wall Street in our own gilded age, this unexpected grassroots protest cast a dramatic spotlight on the problem of social and economic inequality. In all of American labor history, there are few better examples of the synergy between radical activism and indigenous militancy.

  • Critics of AT&T Contract Back Reform Candidate in CWA
    Steve Early
    July 12, 2011

    This week in Las Vegas, the Communications Workers (CWA) experienced a rare contested race for a top officer position. For the first time in many decades, a local leader ran against the consensus candidate of the union establishment, garnering a quarter of the vote.

  • SEIU Buys its Own Version of History
    Steve Early
    July 1, 2010

    In the last five years, the Service Employees (SEIU) has gone from being a media darling to generating more bad press for itself than any other labor organization. To bolster its fading progressive brand, SEIU has produced a slick $25 dollar coffee table book called Stronger Together: The Story of SEIU. It's a whirlwind of self-congratulatory and factually challenged material.

  • SEIU's Mary Kay Henry and Smoke Signals From the Purple Vatican
    Steve Early
    April 29, 2010

    In the top ranks of SEIU, little time has been wasted on tears over Andy Stern's retirement from the union, and an insurgent campaign to replace Stern's hand-picked successor apparently has succeeded. Who is Mary Kay Henry?

  • Labor Needs a New Survival Plan—Now
    Steve Early
    January 29, 2010
    For trade unionists already frustrated and disappointed with Obama, the collateral damage of the Democrat's defeat in Massachusetts is far worse than giving up on the unworkable mess of his health plan. As one dismayed union official in Washington, D.C., told me: “It’s the end of labor law reform for another generation.” There's no time to waste: We need a “Plan B” for more “bargaining to organize” that would better use remaining pockets of union strength before they disappear.
  • Labor Notes Conference: Home-based Workers Swelling Labor's Ranks, Still Struggling for Dignity and Power
    Steve Early
    January 13, 2010

    One unique aspect of the Labor Notes Conference is the special meetings that allow far-flung activists to gather and share information on a rare cross-union basis. This year's April 23-25 conference in Detroit will feature a daylong meeting of those involved in organizing and representing home-based workers—challenging work undertaken in the absence of a common workplace.

  • Requiem For A Heavyweight, Telephone Labor Division
    Steve Early
    December 18, 2009

    Former IBEW Local 2222 Vice President Jerry Leary was laid to rest yesterday under the raised and arched booms of two telephone company bucket trucks, with a union banner strung between the two. In the face of the grotesque caricatures of unionism projected today, it’s easy to forget what being a rank-and-file member means in the culture of mutual aid and protection, solidarity and friendship, that exists in the best local unions.

  • How a New Union Is Staying Afloat (with a Little Help from Its Friends)
    Steve Early
    August 17, 2009

    When California health care workers gave up on the project of democratizing the Service Employees (SEIU) and launched a rival organization instead last winter, the road to union recognition didn’t seem so long and hard. Soon after the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) was formed in January, in response to SEIU’s trusteeship of the United Healthcare Workers (UHW) local, the new union displayed enough rank-and-file backing to file election petitions in 350 private and public sector bargaining units covering about 100,000 employees. In many of these workplaces, a strong majority signed cards seeking a vote that would let them switch from SEIU to NUHW.