Just over 10 percent of workers are unionized, down from 35 percent in the mid-1950s. Potentially, though, a wave of Democratic victories in 2018 and 2020 could give labor groups a chance to turn things around. With an eye toward that moment, labor’s leading strategists are coming together to build a program that avoids the mistakes of the past.
Leaders must also know when it’s time for a new person to take the helm. To keep new blood flowing through the labor movement, older leaders have to make room for their successors, RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, said.
“You have to get out of the way. You can’t just talk about it,” she said. “If you’re a leader, a strong leader, you step down and open that up to someone you believe reflects where this union needs to be.”
Reader Comments: It's a New Beginning - Election Day Victories; AFL-CIO Delegates Support #BlackLivesMatter; Lessons for Democrats; Painters Union Support Nicaraguan Workers and their Families; Readers Debate: Why Soviet Union Collapsed; Workers' Tips; Lots of Announcements: Los Angeles, Pasadena, Culver City, New York, and Cuba; and more....
During the 1970s women and people of color were organizing their workplaces at impressive rates — they just weren’t winning. Lane Windham in her new book recounts that history and its consequences.
Union leaders say they take sexual harassment seriously. In addition to expanding staff training and counseling as needed, SEIU has established additional channels through which employees can report potential issues. At its executive council meeting in March, the AFL-CIO approved a new, stronger code of conduct and a new process for addressing issues like sexual harassment and requiring its state and local affiliates to do the same.
Acting on the principle "All of us or none," delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention joined Black Lives Matter protesters outside the meeting hall.
Delegates to the Duluth AFL-CIO Central Labor Body passed a resolution calling on the national AFL-CIO to release sealed documents on its history with AIFLD, the American Institute for Free Labor Development. In 1992, workers at a Ford assembly plant in Mexico were attacked after a strike, leaving 12 workers wounded and one dead. Questions remain that have not been answered about AIFLD's role in what happened.
Delegates to the Duluth AFL-CIO Central Labor Body passed a resolution calling on the national AFL-CIO to release sealed documents on its history with AIFLD, the American Institute for Free Labor Development. In 1992, workers at a Ford assembly plant in Mexico were attacked after a strike, leaving 12 workers wounded and one dead. Questions remain that have not been answered about AIFLD's role in what happened.
Puerto Rico has been hit by a triple disaster - Hurricane Maria; outrageous debt owed to vulture hedge funds; racist, colonial indifference by the Trump Administration. Puerto Ricans - on the island, and in the U.S. have called for the lifting of the Jones Act, as it applies to Puerto Rico; canceling the debt; and abolishing PROMESA. Yesterday a solidarity flight of medical and emergency organized by AFL-CIO unions brought needed supplies and aid workers to the island.
Spread the word