Sanders supporters couldn't win without the unions. To get a stronger left candidate in the future, or build a real mass base if Biden (or Trump) wins, we need the unions. But they are stuck in their old ways. We need a new strategy.
As schools prepare to open, in addition to safety measures, some unions are pressing for police-free schools, canceling rents and mortgages, and bans on new charter programs and standardized testing.
Aleksandr Lukashenko built his dictatorship by destroying trade unions but workers are fighting back, striking and protesting along with the growing democracy movement. The new Belarus is resisting, and is asking for international support.
Some labor historians say this new militancy resembles the 1930s, when a huge strike wave helped lead to landmark pro-labor legislation and one of the biggest bursts of unionization in American history.
Despite the outpouring of praise for essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, their own interests continue to come second to the broader public’s need for cheap and reliable labor.
Organized labor must adopt a different framework that starts with the difficult discussion about U.S. history . . . to lay the foundation for a different domestic and international strategy for workers’ rights and justice.
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Chance Zombor, a grievance representative at Briggs & Stratton in Wisconsin, challenges the resistance to recognizing Black worker activity as class struggle.
The barriers to reform police unions erected over the years will pose an enormous obstacle to establishing a new, more accountable kind of policing in the United States.
A REPORT FROM PSC CUNY’S RANK-AND-FILE ON COPS ON CAMPUS AND IN UNIONS
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