viewpoint

  • LA Teacher Cuts Prompt Walkouts, Arrests, Hunger Strike
    Joshua Cook
    Jul 15 2009 - 12:59pm

    Each year around budget time, Californians hear a familiar story from Sacramento: There’s another stalemate, because state law caps property tax rates and requires two-thirds of legislators to approve tax hikes.

  • UNITE HERE Split Gets Even Messier
    Paul Abowd
    Jul 15 2009 - 12:47pm

    It’s been three months since UNITE split from HERE, morphing into Workers United (WU) and affiliating with the Service Employees (SEIU). The battle, primarily over money and members, rages on after settlement talks fizzled in May and International President Bruce Raynor resigned from UNITE HERE. Three days later he took the top post at WU as the breakaway union fights for viability in court and in the shops.

  • Viewpoint: An Evening with Andy Stern

    Steve Early

    It’s April Fool’s day, plus one, in what Bob Dylan once called "the green pastures of Harvard University." What does the guest, Andy Stern, think makes for a good union? “If I was being hypothetical, I’d say democracy" . . . .


    Yes
  • New Organizer Recruits Recognize Flaws in Staff-Centered Organizing Model

    Daisy Rooks

    Jeff Lacher makes some compelling arguments in his "Members as Organizers Build Stronger Unions." But Lacher relies on a false dichotomy between member involvement and paid organizing staff. We could spend hours debating the correct percentage of organizing that should be done by members versus paid staff, but that is not the real issue.


    Yes
  • Viewpoint: Workplace Power: It’s Skill that Gives Workers Clout on the Job

    Mike Parker

    Power in the workplace itself. That is the underlying issue in the West Coast longshore struggle and facing most other unions across the world. Unfortunately, unions don’t like to talk about their members having power; they fear that power plays negatively in the media, so they paint a picture of “workers as victims” instead...

    Yes
  • What Is A Democratic Union?

    Association for Union Democracy

    Labor Notes’ book Democracy Is Power, by Mike Parker and Martha Gruelle, talks about a “culture of democracy” in unions -- a relationship between leaders and members that is more than following a set of rules...


    Yes
  • Viewpoint: Unity Is Achieved by Confronting Differences, Not Avoiding Them

    Paul Bigman, Lynne Dodson, Mary Ann Schroeder, and Lonnie Nelson

    While we certainly agree that labor must continue our coalition work on globalization, we have concerns with some of the views in Russ Davis’s April Viewpoint...

    Yes