The results of the strike won’t be known for days or weeks, said Azzurra Crispino, the media co-chair for the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. “By withdrawing from participation in their work, they believe it’s the best way to have an impact on the prison industrial complex,” she said. “This is not a one-day strike. the solutions to this problem are going to require at the very least a constitutional amendment change to be effective.”
Tens of millions of public sector workers have gone on a day-long strike across India, protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's economic policies, particularly his plans to push for greater privatization. Thousands of state-run banks, government offices and factories were closed on Friday, and public transport disrupted, in the strike called by 10 trade unions.
The strike and union campaign at Klein Management are part of a larger movement among indigenous Mexican farm workers, which is sweeping through the whole Pacific coast. Work stoppages by Triqui and Mixteco blueberry pickers have hit Sakuma Farms in Burlington, Washington, for the past three years. Workers there organized an independent union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, and launched a boycott of Driscoll's, the world's largest berry distributor.
The actions by the Verizon workers show that it is possible to fight back against the power of employers to dictate the terms of the employment relationship. They remind us that the supremacy of big corporations, like technological changes and market forces, are not inevitable but reflect political and managerial choices. It appears workers are finally finding a way to counter the corporate strategies that have defined—and held back—the U.S. economy in recent decades.
If well organized and militant union members at Verizon—who have gone on strike against the company and its predecessors in 1983, 1986, 1989, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2011 and now—can’t stop the outsourcing and destruction of decent jobs, unorganized workers spread across the planet in industries like telecommunications will find the task insurmountable.
Just in time for the 2016 Labor Notes Conference, the Chicago Teachers Union is planning a one-day strike and citywide day of action April 1. The union’s governing body, the House of Delegates, gave its stamp of approval to the action last night.
German workers continue their fight against Amazon, over low pay and poor working conditions in the warehouses. The union Verdi is trying to push the retailer to raise pay in accordance with collective bargaining agreements in the industry. They have been striking at warehouses on and off since May 2013.
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The results of the strike won’t be known for days or weeks, said Azzurra Crispino, the media co-chair for the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. “By withdrawing from participation in their work, they believe it’s the best way to have an impact on the prison industrial complex,” she said. “This is not a one-day strike. the solutions to this problem are going to require at the very least a constitutional amendment change to be effective.”
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