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Michigan GOP Explores Further Limits on Unions

Chad Livengood Detroit News
Arguments against Michigan's 5-day-old right-to-work law are prompting conservative activists and Republican authors of the historic legislation to consider other ways to reduce the power of public-sector unions.

Construction Booming In Texas, But Many Workers Pay Dearly

Wade Goodwyn NPR
One in thirteen workers in the Lone Star State - nearly one million - are employed in the booming construction industry. But large numbers of these workers are undocumented and unorganized, and employers are taking advantage.

NYC Fast-Food Workers Fight Back Against Super-Sized Corporations

Peter Rugh The Indypendent
The ongoing organizing effort of fast-food workers has highlighted the highly exploitative conditions faced by those at the deep fryers and cash registers of America’s most profitable fast food outlets, which include Burger King, McDonald’s, Dominos, Pizza Hut and KFC. The actions and considerable media attention has also begun to chip away at the conventional image of a fast-food worker as someone who bears her servitude with a youthful grin.

The Forgotten Radical History of the March on Washington

William P. Jones Dissent Magazine
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which occurred fifty years ago this August 28, remains one of the most successful mobilizations ever created by the American Left. Organized by a coalition of trade unionists, civil rights activists, and feminists—most of them African American and nearly all of them socialists—the protest drew nearly a quarter-million people to the nation’s capital.

State Supreme Court Limits Union Rights In Texas

Chuck Lindell Austin American-Statesman
Unionized government workers in Texas — including firefighters, police and teachers — don’t have the right to be accompanied by a union representative while being questioned during internal investigations, a divided Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday. Such representation is a basic right for unionized private sector and federal government employees.

Obama, Social Security Cuts & The Labor Party

Jim Kuhnhenn, Chris Townsend
President Barack Obama’s proposed budget will call for reductions in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs. The reductions in the growth of benefit programs, which would affect veterans, the poor and the older Americans, is sure to anger many Democrats. Labor groups and liberals have long been critical of Obama’s offer to Boehner for including such a plan.

Can Worker-Owners Make a Big Factory Run?

Jane Slaughter Labor Notes
How does a worker cooperative with 1,050 members function? It’s hard enough for worker ownership to succeed at any size, because any company that competes in a market is subject to the same cost-cutting rat race as a capitalist firm. Yet the TRADOC co-op—translation: Democratic Workers of the West—is thriving.