Month: January 2016

How ‘Friedrichs’ Could Actually Unleash Unions from Decades of Free Speech Restrictions

As the spring semester starts up at the City University of New York, union activists continue the painstaking work of preparing for a strike authorization vote. Faculty and staff at CUNY have been working without a contract for over five years. While Governor Cuomo disinvests in the primary college system for working class New Yorkers, management proposes salary increases that amount to decreases after inflation. The parallels between the struggle to save CUNY and the struggle over the future of Chicago Public Schools are obvious, with one major exception: it is totally illegal for teachers to strike in New York. The last major union to violate the draconian Taylor Law, TWU Local 100, was fined $2.5 million for waging a 60-hour strike that shut down the city’s subway and bus system in 2005. On top of that, the union’s ability to collect dues money was suspended for a year, its […]

As Attacks on Unions Continue, Bringing Back the Strike May Be Our Only Hope

On December 14, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey announced the results of the union’s strike authorization vote. For the second time in three years, the union’s membership voted overwhelmingly to strike if necessary. “Our ability to withhold our labor is our power,” declared CTU President Karen Lewis on the eve of voting. That axiom, that strikes are where unions derive their power, is pretty out of favor these days. A wave of disastrous strikes and lockouts beginning in the Reagan era that helped deunionize much of American industry has left the surviving labor movement skittish about the prospect of full-scale walk-outs. But bright spots like Fight for 15, Bargaining for the Common Good and the Chicago teachers strike have shown that workers can win strikes (if one defines victory as workers walking away from the ordeal feeling more powerful). Labor activists and leaders, particularly as they anticipate a […]