Until yesterday, U.S. steelworkers hadn’t experienced an attack as sweeping as that of 1892.
Questions linger about unions' united front in the wake of Teamsters President Sean O'Brien's appearance at the Republican National Convention last week.
“Virtually everything we do is determined by politics. It’s just so important, from the smallest thing in your life to the biggest. Union people need to understand how powerful their vote is—how important their vote is.”
Protest goes international
Electric vehicle manufacturing in the US is overwhelming nonunion, but 1,400 workers for an electric bus manufacturer in Georgia have just unionized. It’s one of the labor movement’s biggest victories in the South this century.
If the effort to organize the Buffalo facility succeeds, it would become Tesla’s first unionized workplace. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has expressed opposition to unions in the past.
“When they do well, we do well, because our work is less likely to be outsourced to a country paying its workers a decent wage"
A task force is exploring how to boost union organizing and clout. Talks have included leveraging federal purchasing to steer agency contracts to companies with unionized labor or that otherwise promote workers’ rights.
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