Labor Notes Magazine, October 2008, No. 355

Unions Talk Race as Election Nears

-- Jane Slaughter

Labor leaders who want desperately to chase the Republicans from the White House are confronting a hurdle in their outreach to members: the question of race. Obama’s record on economic issues, they say, should put him way ahead of John McCain with working-class voters. But will the facts be enough to overcome some members’ deep-seated prejudice?
Read More

As Profits Soar, Boeing Demands Concessions, Driving Machinists On Strike

-- Tiffany Ten Eyck

Aircraft maker Boeing has been groaning under a $275 million backlog of orders for new airplanes that waste less fuel. The company booked a $4.1 billion profit last year, and its principal union, the Machinists (IAM), says Boeing’s profits have soared by 828 percent in recent years.But all that cash didn’t stop the company from demanding concessions from 27,000 employees. IAM members called the company’s bluff and struck, after rejecting a final offer on September 4 with an 80 percent vote.... Read More

Under Shadow of Corruption Scandals, SEIU Launches Hearings Against Dissidents

-- Mark Brenner

It’s crunch time for the November election, but top officials in SEIU are struggling to focus as corruption scandals and internal divisions over a threatened trusteeship spread across the union.... Read More

Labor Board Limits Political Strikes

-- Robert Schwartz

On May Day 2006, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers walked off their jobs to protest restrictive immigration legislation. Some were fired, and brought complaints to the board. Ronald Meisburg, the National Labor Relations Board general counsel, responded by posting a directive on “political advocacy” this July that enables bosses to immediately fire employees who participate in work stoppages of a political nature.... Read More

Hospital Organizing Has Slowed, Two Years After Labor Board's Controversial Supervisor Decision

-- Mischa Gaus

Joanne Thompson found out the hard way how management is exploiting a loose definition of a supervisor to strip workers of the ability to form unions. She had spent five years as a “charge nurse” at West Houston Medical Center, checking up on medication schedules and juggling workloads for the nurses on her floor, who monitor heart patients.... Read More

Democrats Host Union Bashers

-- Candi Peterson

Port Truckers Step Closer to Shedding Dirty Past

-- Paul Abowd

Nurses Should Be in Their Own Union

-- Marilyn Albert and Ed Bruno

Mississippi: Unions, Community Respond to Largest Raid on Immigrant Workplace Yet

-- Tiffany Ten Eyck

Bronx Nursing Home Workers Win Back Health Care Benefits

-- Mark Brenner

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

-- Chris Rigaux

Maine Shipbuilders Battle Trusteeship

-- Jane Slaughter

Plywood Workers Strike in North Carolina

-- Tiffany Ten Eyck

'Why Privatize? We Can Run It Better!'

-- Dave Cohen

That’s the question United Electrical Workers Local 274 and the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) asked when their wastewater treatment plant was threatened with privatization.... Read More

Garment Workers Walk over T-Shirt

Boeing’s Australian Workers Want Their Union

Workers in Ukraine Fight Privatization