It's a relatively new invention—is it time to shave another day off?
For global companies that have shifted production to Southeast Asia's low-cost manufacturing hub, greater cross-boarder labor coordination could mean less room for wage bargaining, a squeeze on profits and maybe even higher price tags on anything from shoes and clothing to cars and electronics appliances. But even as wages rise, labor activists are confident they aren't at risk of pricing themselves out of the market.
A recent National Labor Relations Board ruling means unions could one day organize nationally among all McDonald’s workers, rather than one store at a time. Nowhere perhaps did the ruling reverberate louder than in Atlanta, headquarters for Arby’s, Chick-fil-A, Popeye’s and other fast-food franchises, as well as many hotel, retail and temp agency chains.The ruling could be a huge boost for the Service Employees International Union, which is organizing fast-food workers.
Reader Comments - Gaza War - Israel, Palestine, the Jewish community and Zionism; Why Is Washington Risking War With Russia?; Labor - Kellogg Lockout and Coal Miners Anger; The Whitewashing of James Brown; Criminal Prosecution for Environmental Crimes; Bill Gates and the testing industry; Teacher Tenure (video);
Celebrate the Life of Vito Marcantonio - Aug 9; 9th annual Dissident Arts Festival - Aug 16 - both in New York
Today in History
Atlantic City needs to diversify its economy away from casinos if it wants to continue attracting large numbers of visitors, union leaders argue in response to announcements of closures. New solutions are needed for workers and the wider community to prevent Atlantic City from again going into decline.
Representatives Keith Ellison and John Lewis plan to introduce a bill Wednesday that would make labor organizing a basic freedom no different than freedom from racial discrimination. The legislation would amend the National Labor Relations Act to include protections found under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to include labor organizing as a fundamental right.
Fast food workers continue their fight for higher wages and the right to unionize. Over 1,300 workers gathered this past weekend in Illinois, and voted to ramp up their tactics.
The “Schedules that Work” bill (introduced by Representatives George Miller and Rosa DeLauro and Senators Tom Harkin and Elizabeth Warren) is the proletarian answer to the workplace “flex” policies that are common in corporate offices. After all, poor parents need flexibility more than anyone, as they cope with the chaos of economic hardship and work unstable jobs with few benefits..
Milking cows is a dirty, monotonous job, and as we found out in our latest episode of Immigrant America, it's not a job many unemployed Americans are willing to do. But the government doesn't give dairy farms a way to recruit foreign workers legally. We went to upstate New York to try to understand the cat and mouse game between dairy farms and immigration authorities.
In the auto plants of 1970s Detroit, where an all-white management and union leadership confronted a darkening workforce, grievances often assumed a racial edge. Of all the rank-and-file caucuses that formed in this tumultuous period, perhaps none was more militant than the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.
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