labor

Labor's New Reality -- it's Easier to Raise Wages for 100,000 than to Unionize 4,000

Harold Meyerson Los Angeles Times
Unions historically have supported minimum wage and occupational safety laws that benefited all workers, not just their members. But they also have recently begun investing major resources in organizing drives more likely to yield new laws than new members. Some of these campaigns seek to organize workers who, rightly or wrongly, aren't even designated as employees or lack a common employer, such as domestic workers and cab drivers.

labor

Organizing The Organized Is Now Key To Union Survival

Steve Early CounterPunch
Virtually all labor organizations face the expanded challenge of recruiting and maintaining members in already unionized workplaces where the decision to provide financial support for the union has, for better or worse, become voluntary.

'Moral Week Of Action' Takes Off

Terrance Heath Campaign for America's Future
A “Moral Week of Action” demands that Republicans “repent and repeal” their public policy attacks on the human and civil rights of North Carolinians

Minority Union at Volkswagen, For Now

Alexandra Bradbury Labor Notes
The brand new Local 42 has already begun signing up and swearing in members who work at the VW plant looking toward winning a majority.

A Bill to Get the Labor Movement Back on Offense

George Zornick The Nation
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.

The Cooperative Economy

Gar Alperovitz/Scott Gast Orion Magazine
Developing a democratically oriented alternative to capitalism can’t be done overnight. This work requires a different sense of time and a deep sense of commitment—the bargaining chips are decades of our lives. But the shifts are already happening in places like Cleveland and Boulder. What we’re seeing is the prehistory, possibly, of the next great change, in which a movement is built from the grassroots that becomes the foundation of a new era.
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