If workers vote to join a union at Volkswagen's Tennessee plant this week, they'll be changing America's labor relations for the better - Harold Meyerson. (Voting started yesterday, Feb. 12, and continues through tomorrow, Feb. 15) Lane Windham looks at past labor and UAW organizing efforts in the south.
Reader Comments - Cecily McMillan Update - Occupy Activist Faces Seven Years in Jail - Trial Postponed to March 3rd; Africa; Latin America; Learning from History; Slavery; UAW Campaign at Volkswagen; Amiri Baraka; Pete Seeger memories;
Announcements - CISPES Delegation to El Salvador; Workers Get a Cut on Powell Books purchases; New Video - The USA's new underclass; Labor Notes conference - April 4 - 6 - Early bird discount
George Goehl and National People’s Action spent the last 6 years developing a new organizing strategy. The organization now commits itself to a vision of a “new economy”: democratic and public control of finance, and cooperative and alternative forms of business ownership. NPA also envisions giving workers real decision-making power within corporations and giving the public the right to revoke the charters of corporations that provide too little social value.
Rahm Emanuel’s economic politics put him at the far right wing of the Democratic Party and out of step with the current breed of populist big-city leadership.
Reader Comments - Pete Seeger; Jews and Mayor de Blasio; Atlanta; NSA; Staples & Postal Jobs; Minimum Wage; Wars of Reconstruction; Brooklyn College CWE; Drugs and Philip Seymour Hoffman; Christie Scandal; Unions and Keystone Pipeline;
Announcements - New Music Video-Close Guantanamo; Egyptian Revolution in Perspective -NYC-Feb 8; Fight Against VEOLIA Privatization -SF-Feb 8; Book Signing-William L. Patterson bio -LA-Feb 11; Labor - A Poor People's Movement -NYC-Feb 21
"The Second Machine Age," by MIT professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, has gotten a lot of attention for its bold predictions of a forthcoming giant leap forward in the kinds of tasks that smart machines (robots) will be capable of performing. This could have a major impact on the nature of work, the number of jobs, the kinds of jobs, and the kind of society we will have in the future.
When workers want to vote on whether to form a union, they should have a fair chance to do so. The National Labor Relations Board is set to issue rules that aim to do that. A rule that Romney scorched and judges killed is being revived by Obama appointees. While the proposed rule is a basic step toward protecting workers' rights, much more needs to be done to fully address the significant challenges people face when they try to come together for a voice on the job.
Forming a union is one of the only ways that workers in home-care jobs have been able to have a voice and a pathway out of poverty. Limiting the ability of a state to collaborate directly with home care workers on common sense solutions to meet their own growing workforce needs--which could be the outcome of a right-wing lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court-- sets a terrible precedent for both workers and consumers.
The Fair Food Program is unique in that it creates a legal framework linking laborers, tomato farm owners, and final purchasers of tomatoes. The purchasers have agreed to pay an additional penny per pound for the tomatoes they buy. In turn, the producers pass that penny directly along to the workers. A penny-a-pound might sound like a pittance, but it represents a 50 percent raise, the difference between making $50 and $80 a day.
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