Portside

For New Orleans, the debate over charter schools and teachers unions has always been an either-or proposition. The Orleans Parish School Board voided the city’s union contract after Hurricane Katrina, and charter schools began taking over rapidly thereafter. Now, New Orleans is beginning to find out if this hard divide between charters and unions is really necessary, or if the two can somehow learn to coexist.

The workers at Piston Automotive factory went on strike to prove that they wanted to join the United Auto Workers Union. After 8 hours, the company agreed to recognize the Union.

In the long-term, the Technological Revolution may prove to be a giant leap forward in freeing humans from being chained to jobs that are unsafe, unhealthy, physically taxing, and mentally unsatisfying. In the short-term, new technologies are contributing to structural unemployment, rising inequality, job insecurity, and micro-management of workers as these two news stories illustrate.

New study concludes that contracting out is undemocratic and leads to corruption as well as lowers wages and benefits.

Gregg Shotwell is a retired UAW member who frequently contributes poems to the Blue Collar Review, and is the author of Autoworkers Under the Gun (Haymarket Press, 2012).

Municipalities contact out an estimated 35 percent of services. The federal government has doubled the amount it spends on contracts since 2000, with most of the spending on services. Yet it is clear that contracting out public services has major negative consequences.

More than 1,000 members of Culinary Union Local 226 (UNITE HERE) picketed downtown Las Vegas on Saturday, April 12. Contracts covering 10 downtown casinos are expired, as well as Brady Laundry. Major Strip casinos, including those owned by MGM Resorts and Caesar's, were settled in recent months. In addition to picketing, workers queued up from 8am until 7pm to sign up for strike relief benefits and strike picket shifts.

Last month, UPS in New York City fired 250 drivers who had rallied in support of a fired union member. Teamsters Local 804 gained massive public support in favor of the fired workers, and this week UPS agreed to rehire all 250 workers.

As ‘employee’ and ‘employer’ become hazy categories, experiments in worker advocacy are replacing unions as we’ve known them.

New York State United Teachers ousts incumbent President and elects Karen Magee and her entire slate. Ms Magee is NYSUT's first female President. She had the support of New York City's United Federation of Teachers as well as the Professional Staff Congress. The vote was seen as a repudiation of the incumbents close relationship with Governor Cuomo.