Majority of Workers at Chattanooga VW Plant have Signed Union Cards, UAW Says

Associated Press Chattanooga Times Free Press
Huge victory for organizing workers. A Majority of workers at the Volkswagen assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee have signed cards with the United Auto Workers (UAW) declaring that they want a union. Union representation at Volkswagen would signal a sea change in labor relations among foreign automakers who have resisted unions at their plants in the South.

Tidbits - September 12, 2013

Portside
Reader Comments - Syria, chemical weapons, Israel; American Jews Speakout Against AIPAC; Organized Labor's Decline; Pensions; Mexican unions; Announcements - Sept. 16 in New York - Iraqi Workers in Turbulent Middle East - Pres of Iraqi Oil Workers Union speaks; Protest Alexandria Center for Life Science; FAIR celebrates release of new book Dollarocracy; Demand a Robin Hood Tax - New York - Sept. 17 - Restore and Expand Vital Public Services for the 99%

Friday Nite Videos -- September 6, 2013

Portside
Sir Archibald Mapsalot III. OUR Walmart Theme Song. Defined Lines (Feminist Parody). Just Another Cog in the Machine. NASCAR Fans: Marijuana Is Safer. Our Generation in Two Minutes.

Walmart Workers Protest over Minimum Wage in 15 US Cities

Karen McVeigh The Guardian
In 15 cities today, Walmart workers and their supporters are staging their biggest day of action since the groundbreaking "Black Friday" strike in November. They are demanding that Walmart reinstate 20 workers they say were fired for taking part in a June strike, and they are calling on Walmart to end its poverty-level wage scale and pay a living wage. (Mike Hall, AFL-CIO Now)

GOP Dreads Prospects of Autoworkers Union Driving South

Erik Schelzig, The Associated Press Seattle Times
Discussions between the United Auto Workers union and a Tennessee Volkswagen plant have raised fears among Southern politicians that union representation would deter businesses - and badly needed jobs - from coming to their respective states.

labor

Black Workers, the Public Sector and the Future of Labor Unions

Bill Fletcher, Jr. Law at the Margins
The current crisis facing the public sector, a major location of African American workers, along with the crisis facing organized labor, should present a moment to reconsider old assumptions. A multi-union effort to organize Southern public sector workers could be something close to a game-changer on several levels, not the least being the potential impact on Southern politics and Southern unionization. And, as the saying goes, as goes the South, so goes the USA.

Strike: Fast Food Workers Speak Out

These are the names, the faces, the lives and the demands of fast food workers, who are striking for the right to organize and a decent wage.

The AFL-CIO Is Exploring New Investments in Alt-Labor and Texas Organizing

Josh Eidelson The Nation
The AFL-CIO is discussing “the next stage” in alternate formations and there “will be some limited, thoughtful experiments in different places through various affiliates.” The AFL-CIO also plans to support an ambitious multi-union effort to organize in Texas. “The AFT has come to us and said, ‘We want you to convene other unions to make a long-term investment in Texas and we’re going to do it.”
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