If there’s an engine that continues to draw millions of workers into the Persian Gulf’s draconian labor regime, it is the middlemen—the underground network of recruitment agents that reaches into every corner of rural South Asia, dangling the possibility of a better life before communities ravaged by neoliberalism.
We should not to romanticise the work of the past, indulge in ‘smokestack nostalgia’, but equally we need to acknowledge a world we may be losing. While the ‘job for life’ may have been a fleeting experience for a few, the social patterns that that stability engendered were profound for generations of workers and can still be seen working their way through the contemporary workplace
A new long-lasting anti-worker suppository that drastically reduces economic equality and the middle class.
Wisconsin has joined a host of other states whose right-to-work laws emulate "model legislation" produced by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) describes ALEC as a "bill mill" supported by several conservative foundations and dozens of high-profile corporations, like Koch Industries and ExxonMobil. So-called 'Right-to-Work" favors corporations at workers' expense.
A growing number of German construction and public works companies are using labor subcontractors. They are not genuine construction firms. They look like it on paper, but their only activity is to supply labour at a low cost. They often only pay wages for the first few months. They then stop paying and expect the workers to keep going until the job is finished, in the hopes that they will be paid at the end of the contract.
The movement led by Cesar Chavez , Dolores Huerta and others created a union and reduced the oppression of farm workers for a time. Then the corporations and the Right Wing forces adapted their strategies of oppression. The assault on the UFW and the current reconquest of power in the fields are examples of strategic racism, that is a system of racial oppression created and enforced because it benefits the over class -- in this case corporate agriculture.
Crucial to winning labor support for climate protection is the idea of a “just transition.” The burden of policies that are necessary for society—like protecting the environment—shouldn’t be borne by a small minority who happen to be victimized by their side effects. Climate protection advocates should insist from the outset that part of any transition away from fossil fuels includes protection for impacted communities.
A new AFL-CIO Commission on Racial and Economic Justice will attempt to create a "safe, structured and constructive opportunity for local union leaders to discuss issues pertaining to the persistence of racial injustice today in the workforce and in their communities, and to ensure that the voices of all working people in the labor movement are heard."
“[Right-to-work] is going to bring everybody down,” said Russ Krings, the directing business representative for the Milwaukee union International Association of Machinists District 10, during a press conference with other labor leaders on Monday. “It’s going to affect not only the union families and nonunion families. It’s going to affect all the businesses that we go and spend our money at. This is going to bring the economy down."
Spread the word