Portside

Guess what happens when the government and power structure forsake labor peace? Labor war.

Anchored by its two gargantuan wins in South Florida—MDC and Broward boast a total of around 4,500 unionized adjuncts—the SEIU’s higher education campaign has taken on a steamroller quality in Florida.

In 2008, just before Trumka assumed power, 12.4 percent of American workers were union members. A decade later—with organizing spending much reduced—union density in this country stands at 10.5 percent.

Biden thinks he’s well positioned because after the shock of the Trump years, people want to go back to where we were. Wrong

The Uradnik case could be the next step. It has just been appealed to the Supreme Court.

The rise of inequality in America is the outcome of a very clear political agenda of disempowering and undermining workers. Corporate dominated globalization is a key part of undermining the bargaining power of workers by giving multinational corporations massive mobility, massive flexibility, and political power.

"If the American labor movement thinks that we can just go out there and start and control the organizing that takes place, we’re not going to be successful," says Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. "I think what we can do is create an environment in which organizing takes place... We have to think of ourselves less as an institution, and more as a movement."

The fact that your company gives you good free lunches and shuttles to work and nice paycheck does not change the fact that you could get more by negotiating together, as a union. Anyone smart enough to get a job at Google is smart enough to grasp these facts.