Rank and File | Portside

September 22, 2022

Tidbits – Sept. 22, 2022 – Reader Comments: Kidnapping Immigrants; Railroad Workers, Railroad Profits; Religion; Ukraine War; Sweden; My Revolutionary Inspiration, Barbara Ehrenreich; Frank Emspak, Troublemaker; the Worker-Led Upsurge; More..

Portside

Reader Comments: Kidnapping Immigrants; Railroad Workers and Railroad Profits; Religion; Ukraine War; Sweden; My Revolutionary Inspiration, Barbara Ehrenreich; New Book: Frank Emspak, Troublemaker; The Worker-Led Upsurge: Amazon and Starbucks; more

September 15, 2022

Railroad Companies Almost Inflicted an Economic Disaster on the U.S.

Terri Gerstein and Jenny Hunter Slate

All because they chose profits over humane working policies. What this fight is really about: the persistent difficulty some large corporations have in understanding that their workers are human beings, and not just one more piece of machinery.

labor

June 5, 2022

Now Is the Time for Unions To Go on the Offensive

Chris Bohner Jacobin

Despite years of employer attacks, unions still have vast resources at their disposal. This moment of worker upsurge is the time to use those assets to fund aggressive organizing.

books

June 2, 2022

The American Organizer – A Review of Jon Melrod’s Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War

Jonah Raskin Portside

Fighting Times provides a vivid group portrait of the men and women who joined with him in the day-to-day struggles to better their own lives and to better the lives of their family members and communities.

labor

May 9, 2022

A Life in Transit: ‘What You Can Get Is Set by How Far You Are Prepared To Go’

Tim Schermerhorn Labor Notes

Tim Schermerhorn, a Black socialist and retired New York City transit worker. In these excerpts from a forthcoming memoir, he describes what shaped his activism & lessons for a new generation.

labor

April 8, 2022

The Rank-and-File Organizers Who Took On Amazon

Luis Feliz Leon The American Prospect

Organizer, Chris Smalls facing people whose backs are in the foreground.

“If we can unionize Amazon…, then workers anywhere can unionize their workplaces. That means you.” - Angelika Maldonado

January 6, 2022

Mobilization Director of Actors’ Equity, Stefanie Frey, Talks Organizing Theater

Annie Levin Observer

Rank-and-file unionism, nationally, is taking center stage in many strikes and union actions across the country. “The labor movement was becoming hot, members were really getting activated and needed a way to organize and funnel that energy.”

labor

November 21, 2021

Workplace Organizing Is Still Crucial for the Socialist Movement

Jeremy Gong Jacobin

Recent socialist electoral campaigns have been essential to the rebirth of the US left. Now the Left needs to commit to rebuilding the labor movement from the bottom up.

labor

September 5, 2021

Amazonians United Is the Other Face of the Amazon Labor Movement

Ted Miin and Jonathan Bailey Jacobin

At Amazon, big organizing campaigns by established unions are only the most visible face of labor organizing. The other is Amazonians United, a militant shop-floor group with a presence around the country.

April 29, 2021

Building Communities of Solidarity

Fernando E. Gapasin, Bill Fletcher Jr. and Bill Gallegos Monthly Review

Veteran labor organizer Fernando Gapasin is interviewed by Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Bill Gallegos. "I dedicated myself to ending racism and building worker power by building democratic working-class organizations from the bottom up."

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