Portside

The University of Illinois at Chicago United Faculty successfully organized a union in 2012 but have not been able to reach an agreement with the administration on a first contract. The union is prioritizing higher wages, particularly for non-tenure track faculty, and a greater share of decision-making power in the university. They have called a two-day strike for the next two days.

"The outcome of the vote, however, does not change our goal of setting up a works council in Chattanooga," Gunnar Kilian, secretary general of VW's works council, said in a statement on Sunday, adding that workers continued to back the idea of labor representation at the plant.

Under intense anti-union political pressure, workers at the Chattanooga Volkswagen voted today on joining the United Auto Workers Union. On February 18, the tenure track and non-tenure track faculty who make up the University of Illinois-Chicago faculty union UICUF Local 6456 will walk out of the classroom and onto the picket line for a two-day strike.

George Goehl and National People’s Action spent the last 6 years developing a new organizing strategy. The organization now commits itself to a vision of a “new economy”: democratic and public control of finance, and cooperative and alternative forms of business ownership. NPA also envisions giving workers real decision-making power within corporations and giving the public the right to revoke the charters of corporations that provide too little social value.