- The Legal Argument That Could Overturn ‘Right-to-Work’ Laws Around the Country (4/21/2016) - Union supporters had reason to cheer earlier this month when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s hated “right to work” law was overturned by a Dane County Circuit Judge. Unfortunately, the decision is all but certain to be overturned by Wisconsin’s conservative Supreme Court. But contained in the case is a line of questioning over the constitutionality of the right-to-work concept that has quietly been playing out in federal courts. The result could be that all right-to-work… …
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- Bernie Sanders Wasn’t Our First Socialist Mayor: Remembering Milwaukee’s Socialist Party History (4/6/2016) - As the country’s politics take a right turn, an unlikely progressive wins office as mayor of a major U.S. city. In an era marked by conformity and the primacy of business interests over the common good, he has the temerity to call himself a socialist. Both locally and nationally, his example serves as a beacon of hope for the waning left and a lightening rod of criticism for the resurgent right. His fundamental decency and… …
- It’s Time for the Labor Movement To Pursue a New Judicial Activist Agenda (3/21/2016) - Unions that were bracing for a major defeat in Friedrichs v. CTA breathed a sigh of relief following the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He was expected to be the decisive fifth vote against the California Teachers, and the outcome likely would have severely weakened American public sector unions. But Friedrichs likely died with Scalia. More than a respite between anti-union attacks, this moment is an opportunity for a new judicial activism by… …
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- Our Political System Is in the Midst of a Massive Realignment. Here’s How the Left Should Respond. (3/14/2016) - America needs a New Democratic Party. No, I don’t mean a Democratic Party made new by a restored commitment to liberal idealism (although that would be useful, too). I mean an American version of Canada’s NDP: an explicitly socialist party that can win on a regional basis, credibly compete on a national basis and actually win on issues that matter. The leftist debate on electoral activism is depressingly reductive. It’s either be the “left-wing of… …
- Friedrichs Is Dead; Labor’s Crisis Is Not. The ‘Scalia Dividend’ Is a Rare Opportunity for Unions. (2/16/2016) - The Friedrichs vs. CTA Supreme Court case, a nakedly partisan assassination attempt on the labor movement, has died with Justice Antonin Scalia. What cannot die with it is the sense of existential crisis within the labor movement. We need a far-reaching conversation about the pathway back to increased activism, membership and power. Like few moments before it, the Friedrichs case sparked a broad consensus within labor that our movement faced an existential crisis and that… …
- With 3 Recent High-Profile Walkoffs, Is the Wildcat Strike Back? (2/12/2016) - Three high-profile wildcat strikes have caught business watchers and union leaders by surprise in recent weeks. Could they be bellwethers for a rising tide of worker militancy? A wildcat strike is one that occurs with little notice or legal sanction. Wildcats are often organized in violation of a contractual commitment not to strike or a legal prohibition to do so, and in defiance of both the employer and official union leadership. Non-union workplaces wildcat by… …
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- Could a New NLRB Case Limit Bosses’ Best Anti-Union Tool, the Captive Audience Meeting? (2/4/2016) - The captive audience meeting, “management’s most important weapon” in an anti-union campaign, is finally being challenged in a petition to the National Labor Relations Board that could help re-balance the scales in union representation elections. Held in all-staff, small-group or one-on-one formats, employers use these mandatory meetings to confuse and intimidate employees into voting against union representation. In a 2009 study, labor relations scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner found that nine out of ten employers use captive… …
- How ‘Friedrichs’ Could Actually Unleash Unions from Decades of Free Speech Restrictions (1/22/2016) - 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… …
- As Attacks on Unions Continue, Bringing Back the Strike May Be Our Only Hope (1/13/2016) - 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… …
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- How the Friedrichs v. Calif. Teachers Association SCOTUS Case Could Actually Be a Boon for Unions (12/11/2015) - As unions file their legal briefs in the epic Friedrichs vs. CTA anti-union Supreme Court case, one clever legal scholar argues that Friedrichs is “an unexpected tool for labor.” University of Chicago Teaching Fellow Heather Whitney’s forthcoming paper in the NYU Journal of Law and Liberty makes a compelling case that an adverse decision in Friedrichs would hand unions a first amendment argument to refuse to represent non-members. And, as I have argued, that is… …