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What Is A Democratic Union? »

August 31, 2002 | 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...

Auto Workers Use ‘Just-in-Time’ Leverage To Organize Parts Plants »

July 31, 2002 | Joanna Dubinsky

Workers at DaimlerChrysler’s Toledo, Ohio Jeep plant found themselves out of instrument panels to install-and on the street-for two days in June. The United Auto Workers had called a strike at the company that sends instrument panels to Jeep-Johnson Controls in Northwood, Ohio-to press the...

Florida Employers Guilty of Slavery »

July 31, 2002 | Micah Maidenberg

Esclavitud Agrícola en Florida »

July 31, 2002 | Micah Maidenberg (traducido por Ric Urrutia)

La esclavitud no ha muerto. Existe en la industria de fruta cítrica en la Florida. La convicción criminal de tres empleadores por mantenimiento de servidumbre involuntaria ha sido una gran victoria para la Coalición de Trabajadores Immokalee (CIW). Otras acusaciones contra Ramiro, Juan y José...

UE "Non-Majority" Union Organizes The Old-Fashioned Way »

July 31, 2002 | Jim Wrenn

Workers at two plants in North Carolina are struggling with a range of creative tactics and new methods of organizing to get their voices heard as a union. They are winning improvements and enforcing union rights--despite the fact that neither their employers nor the NLRB have ever recognized...

The View from Ontario: How Labor Can Rebuild the Anti-Globalization Movement »

July 31, 2002 | Herman Rosenfeld

In March-May Emily LaBarbera-Twarog, David Pratt,Tom Hansen and Jason Wallach, Russ Davis, Paul Bigman, Lynne Dodson, Mary Ann Schroeder, and Lonnie Nelson, and Judy Ancel debated in our pages how the global justice (or “anti-globalization”) movement and the labor movement could work together...

UPS Contract Falls Short of "Best Ever" »

July 31, 2002 | David Pratt

Just five years ago UPS Teamsters energized the labor movement with a campaign and strike considered one of the biggest union victories in decades...

Is It Time for the 8-Hour Day? »

July 31, 2002 | Jane Slaughter

On May 18 of this year, after eight hours of work on a springtime Saturday, 48 assembly line workers in Lordstown, Ohio, spontaneously walked off their jobs. After calling them in to work a mandatory shift building GM’s Cavaliers and Sunfires, management had suddenly changed the schedule to...

A Proposal to American Labor »

July 31, 2002 | Richard B. Freeman and Joel Rogers

The first constitution of the American Federation of Labor, adopted at its founding in 1886, declared the new organization open to the membership of any "seven wage workers of good character, and favorable to Trade Unions, and not members of any body affiliated with this Federation." Tens of...

Immigrant Meatpackers Join Forces With the Union and the Church »

June 30, 2002 | by David Bacon

St. Agnes Church and its sister parish, Our Lady of Guadalupe, are the heart of south Omaha, Nebraska. Every Sunday, hundreds of packinghouse workers-Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans-dress up in their best clothes and stream through St. Agnes’ doors for Spanish Mass...

Your Money or Your Job »

June 30, 2002 | by Rodney Ward

US Airways wants big concessions. The company, heavily concentrated in the eastern U.S., was hit hard by the aftermath of September 11, a tough competitive market, and the onset of recession in 2001. But it was made particularly vulnerable by years of spectacular mismanagement...

"Happy Days Are Here Again" at Auto Workers Convention »

June 30, 2002 | by Gregg Shotwell

Nothing in Vegas is real. Even the facades are fake. The only thing you can count on is that hucksters will take your money...

Disability Rights Activists Get Unions’ Attention »

June 30, 2002 |

ADAPT, the national disability rights group, blocked access to the headquarters of the AFL-CIO, AFSCME (right), and SEIU May 14 to demand meetings with union leaders. ADAPT is seeking union support for a Senate bill (S. 1298) that would reform Medicaid to give people a choice of long-term care...

Organizing: Union Takes the Long, Bottom-Up Route at GE »

June 30, 2002 | by Paul Bouchard

General Electric has an entire department dedicated to keeping unions out of its plants. The efforts of the “Union Avoidance” department have been successful. The last union win at a GE plant was in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in the mid-1980’s. By going back to an old union organizing strategy,...

NAFTA Labor Black Hole Lessons for the Fast Track Debate »

June 30, 2002 | by Sarah Anderson

Five years ago, Mexican workers at two factories in Tamaulipas state owned by U.S.-based Breed Technologies initiated a work stoppage to protest unsafe working conditions. Workers in these two plants, called Customtrim and Autotrim, glue and sew leather around automobile steering wheels and...

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