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Tidbits - May 21, 2020 - Reader Comments: Reader Comments: Biden- Sanders Joint Policy Task Forces; Voter Suppression; COVID-19 Victims; Prison Labor as Scabs; Somalia; Cuba; Support Postal Workers, Retail and Food Workers in UNITE HERE; more...

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Reader Comments: Biden-Sanders Joint Policy Task Forces; Voter Suppression; COVID-19 Victims; Prison Labor as Scabs; Somalia; Cuba; Radical Books Sale; How to Absentee Vote NY Primary; Support Postal Workers, Retail and Food Workers in UNITE HERE

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Cloud 9 Attempts to Unionize in 'Superstore'

Eryn Murphy CheatSheet
Superstore illustrates the precarious nature of unions in a retail environment with an episode that takes on the vagaries of organizing and negotiations.

Retail Jobs Don’t Need to Be Bad. Here’s Proof.

Eduardo Porter New York Times
Retail work does not have to pay poverty wages. New study compares work in Europe and the U.S. For all the power of market forces, from automation taking over routine tasks to globalization squeezing retailers’ margins, there is nothing inevitable about low-quality retail jobs. Social norms and political institutions can make them better, or worse.

labor

Target to raise its minimum hourly wage to $15 by the end of 2020

Associated Press Associated Press
The changes come at a time when there's growing concern for hourly workers. Thousands of workers have staged protests to call attention to their financial struggles and to fight for hourly pay of $15. The November election of a Republican-controlled Congress dampened hopes of an increase in the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage. But advocates have continued to press for boosts on the state and local level.

labor

How D.C. Grocery Workers Got Their Groove Back

Alan Hanson Labor Notes
To regain lost wages and benefits, UFCW Local 400 used political power, working with union, community, and faith allies to win minimum wage increases and paid sick days in much of the area the union represents. The local also mobilized its membership. Conferences that brought together nearly 300 Safeway and Giant stewards were followed by mass meetings and in-store action teams. The result was a victory and a commitment to keep up the pressure.

labor

Whole Foods Market, Amazon and Inhospitable Hospitality

Gary Herman Union Solidarity International
With Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods, everything about the company is changing. But there remains one constant: Whole Foods still intends to be “100 percent union-free”. The hostility to worker rights that the two companies share is the future they envision for the entire hospitality industry.

labor

Workers Need a Better Deal on Thanksgiving Weekend

Jenny Wittner The Progressive
Thanksgiving Day sales, Black Friday, Cyber Monday prevent retail workers from enjoying family time. Employers aren’t just giving workers unstable, unpredictable shifts during the hectic holiday season — they’re doing it all year round. Nearly 40 percent of retail workers are given irregular schedules that wreak havoc on their lives.

Tidbits - April 23, 2015 - Fast Food Strike; TPP, Hillary; Eduardo Galeano; CIA Infiltration at Home; Sundown Towns; and more...

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Reader Comments - Fast Food Strike, Low-Wage Workers Struggle for More than Wages; TPP - LAtest Leak; Hillary Clinton, Fracking and 2016; Eduardo Galeano; CIA Infiltration at Home; Anne Braden; Sundown Towns; 'Driving While White'; Cuba Coops; NYT and Russian Wages; Charter Schools; Walton Wealth; Announcements: Walden Bello in New York; Vietnam - The Power of Protest and In Defense of the Public Square - Washington

Tidbits - December 11, 2014

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Reader Comments - CIA Lied About Torture; A New Civil Rights Movement?; Grand Jury Injustice - Justice Demanded; Members of Congress (and staffers) join protest; Illegal Cop Murders; Police Reform? - Bolder Steps Needed; Low Wage Workers: 'We Can't Breathe'; Slavery, Founding Fathers and Torture; Congress Plots against Pensions; Pardon Snowden, Manning and Leonard Peltier; Israel Lobby and Ukraine; War on Terror; Israel, U.S. and space weapons; New Republic; Correction

Tidbits - December 4, 2014

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Reader Comments- Race inequality...by the Numbers; Darren Wilson Acquittal; Workers and Students Leave Jobs, Classes in Nationwide Walkout for Ferguson; Thanksgiving; Univ of Virginia Finally Confronts Its Rape Problem; Madison Teachers Recertify Union; Walmart Black Friday Protests; Price of 13-Year War on Terror; Chile; Israel's Jewish State Bill; 2014 and Future Elections; ALEC Blueprint for 2015; Wanted: A Challenge to Clinton; Chicago's Mayoral Race (correction)
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