Can the movement rebuild itself below the Mason-Dixon line, and change Southern politics in the process?
Sometimes I hear dangerous conversations from progressives. They tell me the days of collective bargaining are over, and we've got to find another formula. Yes, we should find other formulas, but I don't want to lose the bread and butter of workers leading their own organizations. That's why you see a lot of union workers on the street. They come through their organizations. They know it's their organization, their union.
At the center of the liberal democratic system, workers have fiercely resisted exploitation through the development of worker-based organizations rooted in the ideal of paving the road to a classless and democratic society. All those seeking greater labor militancy must recognize that traditional unions are unable to escape the trap set in the 1930s through fidelity to the collective bargaining agreement. [An earlier version was published by CounterPunch.]
Before winning over AFL-CIO, she hopes to gain backing of individual unions.
Leaders with the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group for 56 member unions representing more than 12.5 million workers, will press her on issues such as trade, infrastructure and the types of officials she would name to the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.
June 22 kicked off AFL-CIO Worker Center Advisory Council. There, UCLA Labor Center’s Victor Narro presented the center’s most recent analysis of labor-worker center partnerships, Building a Movement Together: Worker Centers and Labor Union Affiliations.
Part two of a series looking back on the 20th anniversary the AFL-CIO’s New Voice movement. Most successful organizing is not done in a vacuum, existing members have to be front line apostles
John Sweeney, former AFL-IO President his officers, and their staff came into office with high expectations and great optimism. A good part of their inspiration was drawn from SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign that many had directly participated in or saw as a model of success. After all, Justice for Janitors had succeeded in mobilizing members, winning better contracts and organizing thousands of new, mostly Latino members while garnering broad public support.(1)
The New Voice wasn’t just about growth, it envisioned a labor movement that reclaimed its place as a powerful force for justice in the community and strongly allied with the country’s progressive intelligentsia. But organizing was the magic word.
Spread the word