Viewpoint

  • Contracts Are Worth Defending, Even with No-Strike Clauses
    Guillermo Perez
    Jan 19 2012 - 1:51pm
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    After seeing hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate in Wisconsin and Ohio to defend collective bargaining, it seems odd to read in Labor Notes that union contracts are “a trap” that “hold unions back.”

    Stanley Aronowitz’s January 2012 Viewpoint said, “Labor is confined by contract unionism, whose core is the no-strike clause.”

  • No-Strike Clauses Hold Back Unions
    Stanley Aronowitz
    Dec 15 2011 - 12:24pm
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    When leaders of the Occupy movement’s most reliable labor ally, the Longshore Union (ILWU), declared the union would not participate in Monday’s shutdown of West Coast ports, they illustrated a great weakness plaguing our unions.

  • Big Organizing Challenge Remains After Temporary Truce at Verizon
    Steve Early
    Aug 22 2011 - 3:27pm

    As the unions at Verizon enter the uncharted waters of what could still be an intermittent strike, continued mobilization is needed to keep maximum pressure on Verizon.

  • Romney, Obama Health Care Reforms Offer No Relief for Unions
    Don Trementozzi, Steve Early
    Jun 22 2011 - 4:31pm

    When union members were encouraged to support the health care bills passed in Massachusetts in 2006 and by Congress last year, they were told there’d be less health care cost-shifting from employers onto employees.

  • Viewpoint: Let’s Stop Avoiding Our Best Tactic—The Strike
    Joe Burns
    Apr 20 2010 - 5:13am

    When the labor movement rises up again as a powerful force in the U.S., it won’t be as a result of legislation or of cutting deals with employers. It will be because workers have taken back their most powerful weapon—an effective strike.

  • Finally, Hospitals' Unsung Heroes Carry the Show
    Suzanne Gordon
    Jul 15 2009 - 1:41pm

    Since the birth of television, Hollywood has given doctors a permanent starring role in prime-time hospital dramas. But most doctor shows have relegated the nation’s largest healthcare profession - nursing - to the status of bit players.

  • 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.

  • Cut State Aid? Now's When We Need It!
    Amy Seidenbecker
    Jul 15 2009 - 12:36pm
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    As a state employee, a human service caseworker, I've gotten educated about Illinois's budget woes out of necessity. My job is to determine eligibility and serve people who are poor, disabled, or elderly and rely on state services--Medicaid and food stamps. More of us are in need of these services just as big business interests and their media mouthpieces launch another round of attacks on funding.