It takes continuous organizational effort—in the form of training and recruitment, new leadership development, and structural change–to insure that the bullying, harassing, divide-and-conquer behavior of bosses, big and small, doesn’t infect and weaken the “house of labor” too.
Puerto Rico has been hit by a triple disaster - Hurricane Maria; outrageous debt owed to vulture hedge funds; racist, colonial indifference by the Trump Administration. Puerto Ricans - on the island, and in the U.S. have called for the lifting of the Jones Act, as it applies to Puerto Rico; canceling the debt; and abolishing PROMESA. Yesterday a solidarity flight of medical and emergency organized by AFL-CIO unions brought needed supplies and aid workers to the island.
The now-rejected proposed contract deal included wage hike totaling 11% over four years and some job security promises, but also increased employees' healthcare contributions to cover insurance premiums to 29% by 2020.
On Tuesday, over 15,000 U.S. bank workers with the Spain-based bank Santander will declare their intent to establish this country's first bank workers' union. They'll deliver petitions, take over corporate lobbies and begin the long struggle to bring collective bargaining to an industry with predatory practices and lots of low-wage workers.
This election proved that you overlook the labor movement at your peril. Democrats took rank-and-file union members for granted. They must make labor central to the conversation again
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Between Trumka’s DAPL endorsement and the Fraternal Order of Police’s endorsement of Donald Trump for president, this week has shown a stark divide between parts of American labor and today’s social movements.
If unions find better strategic partners outside the labor movement on a particular issue, they should proceed on the basis of their analysis of what is needed, not hold back and wait for labor unity. Too often a particular union’s political stance may reflect a private employer’s growth plans, not the general good for working people.
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