Tidbits - November 9, 2017 - Reader Comments: Election Day Victories - Lessons Going Forward; Painters Union Supports Nicaraguan Workers; Why Soviet Union Collapsed?; Lots of Announcements; and more....

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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....

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The New Workers, and New Militancy, of the Seventies

Justin Miller The American Prospect
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.

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U.S. Labor Leaders Confront Sexual Harassment in Top Ranks

Josh Eidelson Bloomberg
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.

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AFL-CIO Must Shine Light on Past Foreign Policy, Activists Say

Larry Sillanpa Labor World
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.

labor

AFL-CIO Must Shine Light on Past Foreign Policy, Activists Say

Larry Sillanpa Labor World
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: Cruelest Storm; Trump Political Disaster; AFL-CIO Labor Solidarity

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.

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Labor’s Legitimacy Crisis Under Trump

Barry Eidlin Jacobin
Isolated examples exist of union resistance and victory. Important as these are, they do not yet approach the scale needed to respond to the challenges that labor faces in the coming years. But they show that it is still possible to strike, and it is still possible to win. In each case, building workplace union culture and organization was key. Broadening this model outwards could provide ways of reversing labor’s fortunes.

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Funding Agreement Protects Orphan Miner Health Care, But Doesn't Resolve Pension Issues

Tracie Mauriello Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Democrats and coal-country Republicans say miners are uniquely deserving because of an agreement in 1946, when the government seized mines and ended a strike by agreeing to provide health and pension benefits. Legislative leaders have agreed to the provisions as part of a $1 trillion government funding bill, and rank-and-file members are expected to approve it later this week.
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