Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:02:49 -0500

Excerpt:

Who has paid the price for the painful restructuring the government demanded of GM and Chrysler? Labor Notes' Mark Brenner talks it over on Fox.

Available Online:
Yes

Video: A Worker's Vision for a New Auto Industry

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:24:24 -0500

Excerpt:

Frank Hammer, former president of UAW Local 909, talks about his vision for the auto industry--and how it differs from Obama's.

Available Online:
Yes

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:57:59 -0500

Author(s):
Marilyn Albert and Ed Bruno

Available Online:
No

Bronx Nursing Home Workers Win Back Health Care Benefits

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:54:43 -0500

Author(s):
Mark Brenner

Available Online:
No

Winnipeg Transit Workers Ratify Contract on Third Vote, but Many are Less Than Thrilled

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:52:36 -0500

Author(s):
Chris Rigaux

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:41:36 -0500

Author(s):
Robin Alexander and Alan Hart

Available Online:
Yes

Auto Makers Push VEBA Solution for Industry Crisis

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 08:42:39 -0500

Author(s):
Chris Kutalik

Excerpt:

A rising chorus of business gurus is singing the praises of a new solution to the U.S. auto industry’s ongoing crisis: one big health care trust for all the Big 3’s workers. According to the proposal’s cheerleaders, by making giant one-time pay-ins the Big 3 auto makers can slice off an estimated $116 billion worth of retiree health obligations from their balance sheets in one swoop and restore profitability. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Landmark Ruling Guarantees Canadian Workers Collective Bargaining Rights

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:22:08 -0500

Author(s):
Glen Chochla

Excerpt:

A coalition of health care unions in British Columbia scored a groundbreaking victory on June 8 when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down key provisions of the province’s Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act. Overturning two lower court decisions and a number of its own decisions dating back to the 1980s, the country’s top court ruled that collective bargaining is constitutionally protected as part of the guarantee of freedom of association in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:50:41 -0500

Author(s):
Teófilo Reyes

Excerpt:
The Service Employees International Union, the American Civil Liberties Union, and community organizations have announced a discrimination lawsuit on behalf of immigrant airport screeners. They are charging the federal government with violating the immigrant screeners’ rights to due process and the Fifth Amendment...

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:00:00 -0600

Excerpt:

“Gary Rusnell will come back inside over my dead body,” Detroit Newspapers labor relations boss Tim Kelleher once vowed. That was more than a year ago. A court had reversed the firing of Rusnell, a rank and file leader of the newspaper strike, and Kelleher was appealing. But recently, the court ordered management to take Rusnell back immediately while the case proceeds. Not wanting Kelleher to have to eat his words, members of the Workers Justice Committee dusted off a papier maché Tim Kelleher head that they’d stuffed with play money during the strike. They attached it to a mannequin body and laid it at the door, where Rusnell stepped over it on his way to claim his job in the composing room.

Available Online:
Yes

Smithfield Workers Arrested in Immigrant Raids

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:54:23 -0600

Author(s):
William Johnson

Excerpt:

21 immigrant meatpackers were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers January 24 at the Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina. The Tar Heel plant’s 5,000 workers have been fighting to organize a union since the early 1990’s. Pro-union workers have faced fierce employer opposition, including retaliatory firings, beatings, and harassment...

Available Online:
Yes

Viewpoint: Longshore Workers Vote for Port Shutdown: Stopping Union-Busters Means Defying the Law

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 21:12:46 -0600

Author(s):
Jack Heyman

Excerpt:

San Francisco has been a union town since the historic 1934 maritime strike of sailors and longshoremen which turned into a citywide general strike after two strikers were killed by police. The strikers’ slogan then was, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” Now, every July 5, “Bloody Thursday,” West Coast ports close from the Canadian to the Mexican border to commemorate the militant strike that forged the organized labor movement. But will San Francisco remain a union town? . . .

Available Online:
No

Call for ‘Stewards Army’ Opens Door for New Labor Activism

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 21:07:51 -0600

Author(s):
Rand Wilson

Excerpt:
IUE-CWA Local 201 Can unions train and mobilize tens of thousands of new member-activists on a large enough scale to take on labor’s greatest challenges? Backers of the Communication Workers’ (CWA) new “Stewards Army” plan think so. . . .

Available Online:
No

Union Leadership Re-Elected with Less than Half the Vote: NY Transit Workers Get Contract They Rejected

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:33:09 -0600

Author(s):
Steve Downs

Excerpt:

More than a year after their three-day strike, New York City’s subway and bus workers finally have a contract—the same one they rejected a year ago. Sharp differences over the contract were reflected in the December 2006 local election, where incumbent president Roger Toussaint was re-elected with less than 43 percent of total vote. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Communication Workers Fight Rural Telecom Redlining In New England

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:25:01 -0600

Author(s):
Steve Early

Excerpt:
Four local unions representing 3,000 Verizon workers in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire are waging grassroots campaign to block Verizon’s attempt to abandon its “low-value” landline customers in northern New England. . . .

Available Online:
No

Members Write Their Own Plan for Rail Unity: UTU-BLET Merger Proposed

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:20:30 -0600

Author(s):
Ron Kaminkow

Excerpt:
Railroad engineers and trainmen from two unions are building solidarity and union democracy on the rails. On January 1, Railroad Operating Crafts United (ROCU), a cross-union rail workers’ reform group, officially launched its campaign to unite the two unions: the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and the United Transportation Union (UTU). . . .

Available Online:
No

Author(s):
David Mitchell

Excerpt:

The immigration reform bill that passed in the House of Representatives in December is an open attack on all immigrants. It makes being an undocumented worker a felony, provides no legitimate path to citizenship and exploits workers to the benefit of their employer...

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 23:00:00 -0600

Federal prosecutors filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit against the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) July 6, alleging widespread corruption and ties between the union’s leadership and organized crime. The government is seeking to appoint a trustee for the 45,000-member union, which represents longshore workers on the East Coast, Gulf Coast, and Great Lakes . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 13:49:06 -0600

Author(s):
Kim Moody

Excerpt:

Though there’s a lot of debate within the AFL-CIO these days, it seems like everyone favors mergers to make the unions bigger and, presumably, better.

But what kind of mergers to what ends? Who decides? . . .

Available Online:
Yes

My Union President Went to Vegas… and All I Got Was This Strange Debate

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 13:24:47 -0600

Author(s):
Matt Noyes

Excerpt:

These have been odd debates going on in the AFL-CIO.

To begin with, many of the debaters are reformers, or claim to be, even though some of them are top union officials—people with significant power in the largest U.S. unions. The terms we use to describe unions get an extra stretching when James Hoffa of the Teamsters is described by some in the press as a “dissident.” . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Health and Safety Programs May Be on the AFL-CIO Chopping Block

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Jordan Barab

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Marsha Niemeijer

Excerpt:

Editor's Note: Dave Brown has been a setup operator and machinist in Greenville, North Carolina, for over 18 years. He works for Bosch (formerly known as Vermont American), one the world's biggest tool manufacturer. Together with about 200 co-workers he produces standard precision tools, such as drill bits, router bits and so forth . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Independent Union Struggles Against Partnership Schemes And Union-Busting on Russia’s Docks

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Liz Vladeck

Excerpt:

For Igor Vdovchenko, going to work every day has become an act of resistance. Vdovchenko is a dockworker in Kaliningrad, a small area of Russia tucked between Poland and Lithuania. Whether or not they like their jobs, Vdovchenko and the others in the port share a certain pride in the simple ability to do the work: in their skill with the wide variety of equipment, and the complexity of the cargo they’re qualified to load, stack, and stow . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Two-Tier Contract at Caterpillar Worsens; Retirees Stiffed

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Larry G. Soloman

Available Online:
Yes

Northern California Contract Continues Concessions in Grocery Industry

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Bill Pearson

Excerpt:

Shortly after the New Year, members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 588 in Northern California ratified a new contract that will insure the continued decline of organized labor in the grocery industry. Perhaps no other union is as adept as the UFCW at making concessionary contracts look like a good thing. The assault on wage and benefit packages by grocery employers has been going on for years, with no end in sight . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Union Made in El Salvador

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Teofilo Reyes

Excerpt:

Just Garments (Confección de Prendas con Justicia) – one of the first unionized garment shops in El Salvador – is an unusual experiment in garment production . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Doubly Divided: The Racial Wealth Gap

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Meizhu Lui

Excerpt:

Race has always been a basis on which U.S. society metes out access to wealth and power. Both in times when the overall wealth gap has grown and in times when a rising tide has managed to lift both rich and poor boats, a pernicious wealth gap between whites and nonwhite minorities has persisted . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

End to Garment Quota System Spells More Competition, More Poverty

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Sheila McClear

Excerpt:

You know we’ve hit a new low when sweatshop workers are sad to see their jobs go. But in an unexpected, and possibly nightmarish, collision of global free trade policies, that’s what workers in developing countries with emerging garment industries, ranging from Bangladesh and Cambodia to Mexico and South Africa, are facing . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Dispatches From The Shop Floor

Sat, 01 Jan 2005 21:55:24 -0600

Author(s):
Labor Notes staff

Excerpt:

To begin addressing the neglect of the workplace, Labor Notes runs a series of "shop floor dispatches," reports from workers on how restructuring, reorganization, and new technologies have altered their workplaces. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Mandated Programs Push Classroom De-Skilling

Sat, 01 Jan 2005 21:40:34 -0600

Author(s):
Molly Sides

Excerpt:

"When I stand in the hallway, I should be able to hear all fourth grade teachers saying the same thing. Do not deviate from the scripted program and do not fall behind in the pacing plan.” The “program” this principal was referring to was Open Court, Los Angeles’s mandated reading curriculum. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

San Francisco Hotel Lockout Boxed Employers In

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
David Bacon

Excerpt:

Sometimes the fate of a single battle foretells the outcome of a war, long before it’s over. The end of the San Francisco hotel lockout promises to be this kind of watershed moment . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Strategy Debate: What Will Save the Labor Movement?

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Chris Kutalik

Excerpt:

To date, the debates about the future of the AFL-CIO have centered around positions issuing from the tops of three major unions. Each union projects its existing leadership style as the cure for ailing unions. And included in the mix are proposals for some innovative strategies—many of which have been advocated for decades by reformers and others at the grassroots of the labor movement . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Mandated Programs Push Classroom De-Skilling

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Molly Sides

Excerpt:

"When I stand in the hallway, I should be able to hear all fourth grade teachers saying the same thing. Do not deviate from the scripted program and do not fall behind in the pacing plan.” The “program” this principal was referring to was Open Court, Los Angeles’s mandated reading curriculum . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Making the Case for Insourcing

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Mike Parker

Excerpt:

Outsourcing has become a mantra for managers. If the union is strong enough and the economic conditions sufficiently favorable, the union can prevent outsourcing simply by making clear that it will not tolerate loss of jobs and that it is up to management to figure out ways to do the jobs efficiently . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Auto Workers Walk Off Line at Ford’s Showcase Truck Plant over Overtime Violation

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Ron Lare

Excerpt:

About three dozen workers at a Ford truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan walked off the assembly line after eight hours of work December 1. Production halted immediately. The previous day management had violated a contractual rule about notice of overtime, so the workers on trim and chassis lines walked after eight hours instead of the ten Ford wanted . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Working For Change: Interview With An SEIU Reformer

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
William Johnson

Excerpt:

Of the unions involved in the New Unity Partnership, only one—the Carpenters—has an active rank-and-file reform movement. However, each of the other unions has rank-and-file leaders on the local level who are working to promote member control . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Railroads Reduce Crew Sizes with New Technology

Wed, 01 Dec 2004 21:25:13 -0600

Author(s):
Ron Kaminkow

Excerpt:

Like many other industries, railroads have undergone dramatic restructuring over the past few decades. Advances in radio, telecommunications, computers, and other forms of technology have decimated the ranks of the nation’s railroaders, from brakemen and switchmen to clerks and car inspectors. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Airline Changes Break Up Crews and Solidarity

Wed, 01 Dec 2004 17:35:24 -0600

Author(s):
Joshua DeVries

Excerpt:

After 9/11, airline managers saw the opportunity to do what they had wanted to 9/10, 9/9, and every day before. They pushed hard for concessions, and won. Alongside the huge reductions in pay and benefits that made the front pages of many papers, the companies also pushed hard for and won workplace restructuring inside the airplane cabin. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

What Labor Needs: Thousands of New Shop Stewards

Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Hetty Rosenstein

Excerpt:

The labor movement is a mess and drastic reform is in order. Some say that if drastic reform can’t occur through internal struggle and commitment, then maybe it should all be blown apart and scrapped to start over....

Available Online:
Yes

Editorial: What Will Make Unions a Power in Politics?

Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Excerpt:

The re-election of George W. Bush is cause for concern on many levels. Anti-worker appointments to the NLRB and the Supreme Court can be predicted for the near future. Card-check organizing may be eliminated by the NLRB in the next year, and OSHA will likely be under further attack . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Atlantic City Casino Strike Settled

Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Sheila McClear

Excerpt:

Ten thousand casino workers in Atlantic City, New Jersey, returned to work November 4 after a month-long walkout, the longest strike the city’s industry has seen since gambling was legalized there 26 years ago. Close to 6,000 bartenders, cocktail servers, housekeepers, food servers, cooks, and other members of UNITE HERE Local 54 from seven of Atlantic City’s 12 casinos approved the contract by a 96 percent margin . . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Dispatches from the Shop Floor

Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Ron Kaminkow and Joshua DeVries

Available Online:
Yes

Using Quality Language To Exert Shop Floor Power

Mon, 01 Nov 2004 21:34:58 -0600

Author(s):
Gregg Shotwell

Excerpt:

In the right hands rules can be powerful tools. Just-in-time inventory—which demands that no more stock be available on site than is immediately required for production—makes the production system exceedingly vulnerable to “work-to-rule” strategies. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Postal Unions Need Not Surrender to Automation

Mon, 01 Nov 2004 17:07:14 -0600

Author(s):
Lance Coles, Lori Richardson

Excerpt:

In 1969 the rock band Zager and Evans sang, “In the year 5555, Your arms hanging limp at your side. Your legs got nothing to do. Some machine doing that for you.” In almost every industry, automation and technology have “de-skilled” workers—bringing some reality to these 35-year-old lyrics. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

L.A. Nurses Take Direct Action on the Hospital Floor To Protect Patients, Themselves

Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
William Johnson

Excerpt:
In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a health care crisis in the United States. Two symptoms of this crisis are understaffed medical centers and health care workers who are overworked and underpaid...

Available Online:
Yes

Hotel/Casino Workers Strike Both Coasts as Union Puts National Strategy to Work

Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Sheila McClear

Excerpt:
Strikes involving 14,000 workers in San Francisco hotels and Atlantic City casinos are shaking up the tourism industry on the East and West coasts, as part of a concerted effort by UNITE HERE to line up contracts to expire at or around the same time within industries. With this strategy, the union hopes to set the stage for greater bargaining power for workers whose job sites are scattered across the country but often part of the same multinational chains...

Available Online:
Yes

Steward System Is Key to Building Downtown Workers Union in Vermont

Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Tenaya Lafore

Excerpt:
Supporters of an innovative city-wide union in Montpelier, Vermont are redoubling organizing efforts as the project enters its second year...

Available Online:
Yes

Discontent Spreads in East Coast Longshore Union

Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:00:00 -0600

Author(s):
Marsha Niemeijer and Rachel Padgett

Excerpt:
Four years after a southern-based reform group sprung up out of the campaign to defend the Charleston Five, a movement to democratize and strengthen the International Longshoremen’s Association has spread throughout the entire union...

Available Online:
Yes

Surrendering the Shop Floor Means Surrendering the Future

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 22:30:16 -0500

Author(s):
Charley Richardson

Excerpt:

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, is famous for having said that if he had his way, he would put his factories on barges and drag them around the world, in search of the lowest wages and least regulation. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

AFL-CIO Forms Special Committee To Ward Off Independent Unions

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
William Johnson

Excerpt:
The AFL-CIO has created an Independent Union Raiding Committee that will explore ways to stem the tide of workers decertifying AFL-CIO affiliates in favor of independent unions. According to the Bureau of National Affairs, the committee began its work “by looking at raiding by non-AFL-CIO unions” in the airline industry, but discovered that such campaigns are far more widespread...

Available Online:
Yes

Strikes Loom at Major Hotel Chains on Both Coasts

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Sheila McClear

Excerpt:
With their contracts recently expired, hotel workers at three UNITE HERE locals in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. voted to authorize a strike against a group of major hotel chains, including Hilton, Four Seasons, Hyatt, and Holiday Inn...

Available Online:
Yes

Support the Million Worker March

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Chris Kutalik

Excerpt:
For many union members the presidential election season is known mostly for a few painfully predictable things: glossy magazine covers from the International featuring the candidate of choice; appeals for COPE money by local officers; repeat calls to come down to the union hall and pick up yard signs; speeches at whistle stops; and countless other familiar activities...

Available Online:
Yes

8000 ‘Guest Workers’ Join Farm Union in North Carolina

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Teófilo Reyes

Excerpt:
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) and the North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA) signed in mid-September a historic contract covering 8,000 seasonal guest workers who travel each year from Mexico to work the fields of North Carolina...

Available Online:
Yes

Understanding the New Overtime Rules

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Randy Voss

Excerpt:
Changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) proposed by the Department of Labor and the Bush Administration went into effect August 23. In early September a bipartisan union-backed effort in the House of Representatives narrowly overturned the changes, but President Bush is expected to veto this attempt...

Available Online:
Yes

Companies Dump Pension Obligations on Taxpayers

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Jennifer Biddle and Richard Turk

Excerpt:
Here's a great Jeopardy question for any blue-collar union worker: It was the biggest corporate entity for its industry in the nation and lost huge amounts of revenue to rivals who used low-wage, non-union labor in the United States to provide a cheaper product. A revolving door of top executives squandered billions by acquiring and investing in business ventures that fell flat...

Available Online:
Yes

Toyota Organizing and the United Auto Workers

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Mike Parker and Gregg Shotwell

Excerpt:
The rapidly growing number of unorganized auto plants in the US South challenges the UAW as its tries to hold on to its density in the industry. Asian and European manufacturers now operate 10 assembly plants in the region employing close to 50,000 workers-all non-union...

Available Online:
Yes

Volunteer Organizers Report Progress Slow, But Improving at Plant in Georgetown, Kentucky

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Gregg Shotwell

Excerpt:
Workers at Toyota in Georgetown, Kentucky have been pounding the union drum for 16 years and counting. For the workers, progress has been slow but steadily improving. Toyota is feeling the heat. Union supporters have been fired and the number of temporary replacements is skyrocketing...

Available Online:
Yes

Skilled Trades Have Different Problem

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Mike Parker

Excerpt:
As in most auto plants, the skilled trades at Toyota have a different set of problems from production workers and therefore different reasons for organizing a union. A blurring line between the two groups of workers also provides some very similar reasons to join...

Available Online:
Yes

Choose Your Label ... Worker or Professional?

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
David Greene

Excerpt:
At a recent Delegates Assembly meeting, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten opened by announcing that the UFT (the American Federation of Teachers affiliate representing New York City’s public school teachers) was an 'organization of professionals.' Her words stuck in my ear...

Available Online:
Yes

California AFL-CIO Rebukes Labor’s National Level Foreign Policy Leaders

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Kim Scipes

Excerpt:
The 25th Biennial California State AFL-CIO Convention, held in July in San Diego, handed a rebuke to national-level foreign policy leaders of the AFL-CIO. By a unanimous decision, over 400 representatives of the state’s almost 2.5 million organized workers—approximately one-sixth of the AFL-CIO’s total membership—adopted resolutions against the war in Iraq and urged “an immediate end to the US occupation,” and decided to explore affiliation with US Labor Against War (USLAW)...

Available Online:
Yes

Honduran Teachers Win Month-Long Strike In Defense of Public Education

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Dan La Botz

Excerpt:
Honduran teachers won a month-long strike this summer that involved massive demonstrations, violent confrontations with police, arrests of union activists, and accusations that teacher “terrorists” were attempting to destabilize the government. The teachers struck to defend public education, their union, and their contract from policies being shaped not only by the government of President Ricardo Maduro, but by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and foreign corporations...

Available Online:
Yes

Deserting the Sick and Elderly, Some Unions Join Employers Seeking to Limit Lawsuits

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
William Johnson

Excerpt:
"Health care for all!" is the Service Employees International Union's new battle cry, and the push for universal health care seems indeed to have become one of this massive union's top priorities...

Available Online:
Yes

Why Organizing Toyota Should Be Job 1 for the United Auto Workers

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Mike Parker

Excerpt:
The future of the labor movement depends on the volunteer organizers at Toyota and workers like them in the growing number of auto plants without a union...

Available Online:
Yes

AFL-CIO’s Timid Approach Makes It Irrelevant in Health Care Debate

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 16:00:56 -0500

Author(s):
Kip Sullivan

Excerpt:

Workers in every industry, from trucking to telecommunications, know that there’s a health care crisis in the United States. Yet the AFL-CIO refuses to endorse the only proposal that can rein in health care inflation without damaging quality of care: a single-payer system. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Labor and Politics

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 23:56:24 -0500

Author(s):
Labor Notes Staff

Excerpt:

For many union officials, political work means little more than the art of delivering members’ votes to politicians. In that view, “more” is always best: more votes delivered; more money raised; more influence garnered. . . .

Available Online:
Yes

Labor Board to Non-Union Workers:‘You’re on Your Own When You Face the Boss’

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Ellis Boal

Excerpt:
Reversing course for the fourth time in 30 years, in June the NLRB announced it would no longer protect the right of a non-union worker to refuse to participate in an investigatory interview without the assistance of a co-worker. The new case is IBM Corp...

Available Online:
Yes

Longshore Rank and Filers Sue To Annul Contract Vote

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Marsha Niemeijer

Excerpt:
Rank-and-file members of the International Longshoremen’s Association filed suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on July 14 requesting that their contract vote be annulled. The contract covers 15,000 dockworkers from Maine to Texas...

Available Online:
Yes

Canadian Telecom Industry Rocked by Deregulation, Competition, Mergers, Technology

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Marsha Niemeijer

Excerpt:
Unrest is shaking the Canadian telecommunications industry from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland, as management presides over sweeping changes in the industry...

Available Online:
Yes

NLRB’s Weingarten Decision Also Hurts Workers in ‘Non-Majority’ Unions

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Paul Bouchard and Jim Wrenn

Excerpt:
The recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board to take back Weingarten rights from non-union workers will have an impact on innovative new kinds of workplace organizing...

Available Online:
Yes

Seattle Grocery Workers Locked in Contract Battle

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Author(s):
Jill Gannicott and Andrew Heyman

Excerpt:
Negotiations for Seattle-area grocery workers are at a critical crossroads. Contracts with Safeway, Albertsons, and Kroger-owned stores for 25,000 members of five United Food and Commercial Workers locals expired May 2. They have been extended several times, most recently through July 23...

Available Online:
Yes