- Will Trump’s Labor Board Say Workers Have No Right to Float a Balloon? (1/29/2019) - Union activists eager for a free speech fight after the Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME attack on union rights may have found one in the form of a giant inflatable rat. Bloomberg reported last week that Trump-appointed General Counsel Peter Robb wants to issue a rule making it illegal to engage in any protest activity in the company of a balloon rat. Cartoon rats—often with nasty red eyes, gnarly teeth and occasionally suitcases and neckties—have been a feature… …
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- The Rise of Feminist Labor Unions in Japan (1/18/2019) - A good union is a feminist organization. We reduce the gender wage gap, fight for family-work-life balance and non-discriminatory promotion standards and sometimes literally sound the alarm on workplace sexual harassment and assault - among many other ways that working women use their union membership to fight for equality. For a time, Japanese labor unions fell far short of that standard. Although there are very strong labor protections and anti-discrimination laws on the books in Japan,… …
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- You’re a Sad Scab, Mr. Chait (12/14/2018) - Is there a German word for when a presumptive scab confirms your lowest expectations? The writers and editorial staff at New York Magazine have formed a union, joining a veritable organizing wave in digital and traditional news media. Nearly 80 percent of the workers have signed union cards and are asking management to voluntarily recognize their union. Longtime columnist Jonathan Chait did not sign a union card, and rushed to Twitter this week to lick… …
- Staten Island Goes Purple (11/13/2018) - Voters on Staten Island—long the only Republicn corner of New York City—have turned their Republican Congressman Dan Donovan out of office. New York’s 11th District—which the island shares with a couple of neighborhoods across the Verrazanno Bridge in Brooklyn—was the last part of the city to be represented by a Republican in the U.S. House. Although Democrats in the district outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin, Donald Trump won 58 percent of the vote there… …
- America’s Great Strike Waves Have Shaped the Country. We Can Unleash Another. (10/1/2018) - Workers’ power is rooted in the work we do and our occasional refusal to do it. But, until recently, that refusal had become rare: Work stoppages have declined to historically low levels over the past four decades. There were 187 major strikes in 1980, involving 795,000 workers. In 2017, there were just seven, with 25,000 workers. How then do we revive the strike when so few workers have seen one, let alone participated? For one,… …
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- A history lesson on saving labor: Look to how unions rebounded in the 1920s for insight on how they can make progress today (9/3/2018) - Many obituaries have been written for labor. The anti-union Janus vs. AFSCME Supreme Court decision is already being followed by a dark money campaign to convince workers to quit their unions. In the private sector, employers evade the reach of workplace-based union contracts by off-shoring, sub-contracting and freelancing jobs. Despite occasional bright spots like Missouri voters’ rejection of right-to-work, this is labor’s lowest point in a century. The parallels between today and the 1920s are… …
- The Case for “A Right to Your Job” Campaign (8/30/2018) - [This article was co-authored by Moshe Z. Marvit.] It is time for the labor movement to campaign for a “Right to Your Job” law. With anti-union Republicans in control of Washington, this might not seem like the best time to think and plan about workers’ rights. But to surrender to a mere survival mentality would be a mistake. We are on the verge of a major opportunity for labor renewal. Among congressional Democrats, there is… …
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- ‘Cut red tape?’ People are dying in the workplace! (8/16/2018) - The horrific death of Carlos Gabrielli on a Westerleigh construction site should shock us all to the core. His throat slashed by an electrical saw after a slip and fall, he died in an ambulance after his coworkers frantically tried to stanch the bleeding with the shirts off their backs in the immediate aftermath of the gruesome accident. As the Advance notes in its coverage, this was only the second of three dreadful workplace accidents… …
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- Nonunion Workers Can Save Unions. We Just Need to Reimagine How We Collect Dues. (7/20/2018) - IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A MOMENT OF TRIUMPH. The writers at DNAinfo and the Gothamist network had voted to form a union. But a few days later, on Nov. 2, 2017, their sullen jerk of a CEO decided to fold operations in perfectly legal retaliation. Our peculiar labor relations system bases whether or not you are protected by a union contract on whether you can survive a campaign of threats, harassment and outright lies to… …
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- Take This Bullshit Job and Pretend to Love It (6/11/2018) - The British economist Joan Robinson once remarked, “The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.” What kind of misery is it, then, if your particular form of exploitation is being asked to do nothing particularly useful? David Greaber explores this question in his thought-provoking and hilarious new book, Bullshit Jobs. Five years ago, he wrote an essay for the radical magazine Strike!, asking why… …
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