Jane Slaughter

In 2011 Frank Bardacke published an 800-page history of the Farm Workers union: Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. It opened many eyes to the reasons the UFW became a shadow of its former self.

Bardacke starts the book with an epigraph, a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “O what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down...”

A Lack of Democracy in the United Farm Workers Gave Chavez Immunity

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Seven women stand by a car holding a Farmworkers Union flag

What has happened to workers in Turkey since the country voted to concentrate power in one man, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, should be a warning flashing red to workers elsewhere.

Take It from Turkish Workers: You Don’t Want a Strongman

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A huge crowd, as far as the eye can see, many wearking red, march down a street flanked by tall buildings.

Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), the reform caucus in the Auto Workers, voted to dissolve at its quarterly online membership meeting April 27.

“It was a heartbreaking decision to come to,” said UAWD founder and chair Scott Houldieson, a 36-year electrician at Ford. “UAWD had become a caucus that is ‘resolutionary,’ and focused more on caucus discipline than on actually organizing workers. Meetings had become dreadful. We can have differences as long as we make a decision and move on.”

UAW Reformers Close Caucus, Launch New Organization

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View from back of an auditorium at UAW convention. People in red shirts sit in rows; one red hoodie front and center has UAWD logo on the back. Onstage, Shawn Fain is at the podium, someone in a suit stands near him, and other people mostly in red shirts sit arrayed at long tables on the dais. A big blue screen behind them has UAW logo and intials repeated, and some other images not clearly visible.

Teamsters at Marathon Petroleum in Detroit have been on the picket line since September 4, their first strike in 30 years. Tankers filled with gasoline regularly exit the massive, belching refinery on a main Detroit artery, as Marathon continues production with supervisors brought in from other facilities.

You're Already On Strike. How to Turn Up the Heat?

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Striking workers and supporters hold signs that say Marathon Teamsters on ULP strike at a rally.

Viewpoint: We Won’t Win Until We’re Troublemakers

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Jane Slaughter

Unions weren’t strong enough, in numbers or in influence with their members, to make a difference in this election. One sample showed union households at only 54 percent for Kamala Harris vs. 43 percent for the billionaire, with non-union households at 51 percent Trump, 47 percent Harris. If union voters had listened to their officers, Trump’s numbers would have been in single digits.

A year after the United Auto Workers’ Stand-Up Strike, the union caucus that helped make it possible is setting out to transform locals still stuck in the mud. Their first step is to fight a new onslaught of layoffs, broken promises, and retaliation from CEOs.

UAW Reformers Muster Forces to Hold Bosses to Their Word

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An audience listens to a man at a lectern. One audience member has a blue shirt with “Union Strong” on the back.

For the first time in 30 years, Teamsters at the Marathon oil refinery in Detroit are on strike. Close to 300 workers walked out September 4. Welders, firefighters, and heavy equipment operators in the union are demanding a raise that keeps up with cost of living, along with better hours. See a great video here.

Marathon Petroleum Teamsters Strike

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a group of picketers face three police officers. They are holding strike signs. A refinery truck is to the left.

A no-holds-barred campaign by Mercedes management convinced a majority of workers at its Alabama factory complex to vote against forming a union.

In addition to anti-union videos and mailings, captive-audience meetings, firings, and an onslaught of pressure from state politicians and even a local pastor, the winning move was to fire the company’s U.S. CEO and replace him with a vice president who promised to care about the “team members.”

Alabama Mercedes Workers Lose First Union Election, Vow to Fight On

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A person in a T-shirt with the message "#RidinwithRico" and a Mercedes logo hat looks down at their phone. They are standing in front of a vending machine.

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