Labor Needs a Makeover: "The Organizing Model - As American as Apple Pie"

Mark Zimmerman Portside
Most US union members belong to very large, highly bureaucratized organizations - the 3 million member NEA, the 2 million member SEIU, the 1.3 million member AFSCME and Teamsters, and so on. Change - whether it be to elect a new slate of officers or to change organizational culture - is a daunting challenge: There are often complex hoops that member-activists and local leaders have to jump through to get dissenting or diverging voices heard.

Update on Labor Fightback Conference

Exciting plans are under way for the Labor Fightback Conference, to be held at the Rutgers University Student Center in New Brunswick, NJ, May 10–12, 2013.

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Fast Food Walkout in Chicago

Josh Eidelson Salon
Breaking: 500 low-wage workers expected to stop working from a dozen chains on Wednesday morning

Judicial Amendments and the Attack on Worker Rights

Ellen Dannin and Ann Hodges, Truthout Op-Ed Truthout
NLRB passed by Congress and later amended by Congress - weakened by the courts - judges who are not elected. The answer is that the strong protections in the law Congress passed have been weakened by "judicial amendments" - that is, by court decisions that weaken or even eliminate worker rights and protections created by Congress.

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Construction Booming In Texas, But Many Workers Pay Dearly

Wade Goodwyn NPR
One in thirteen workers in the Lone Star State - nearly one million - are employed in the booming construction industry. But large numbers of these workers are undocumented and unorganized, and employers are taking advantage.

The Big Do-Over at Kaiser

Steve Early In These Times
Which way will 45,000 California healthcare workers swing? The answer has major implications for labor.

Labor Party Time? Not Yet.

Mark Dudzic and Katherine Isaac Labor Party
The US working class has not succeeded in developing a class-based political party to contend for political power, making working people particularly vulnerable. Wealth and power are concentrated increasingly in the hands of a globalized elite. It's hard to identify a period of US history where the need for a labor-based political party was greater than now. Yet the short-term prospects of an independent, pro-worker political movement emerging are virtually nonexistent.

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Can Worker-Owners Make a Big Factory Run?

Jane Slaughter Labor Notes
How does a worker cooperative with 1,050 members function? It’s hard enough for worker ownership to succeed at any size, because any company that competes in a market is subject to the same cost-cutting rat race as a capitalist firm. Yet the TRADOC co-op—translation: Democratic Workers of the West—is thriving.

Tidbits - April 4, 2013 - 45 Years Ago Today Martin Luther King Murdered in Memphis

Portside
Fast Food Workers Stand Up on 45th Anniversary of Assassination of MLK; Readers Comments on: 1963 March on Washington; BRICS; NCAA; Labor Law Loses Its Watchdog; Media Bits and Bytes; Reader Apprciation. Rally for Immigration Reform - Jersey City - Apr 6; The Safety Net, Sequestration and Austerity Politics - NYC - Apr 8; US Prison Industrial Complex: A Labor Issue? - NYC - Apr 18; Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. In Memoriam: Leo Robinson; Stephen Coats; Harry Kelber
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