The worker center movement definitely considers itself a part of the bigger-picture labor movement. Worker centers have to be a center of experimentation on how to improve working standards.
Teen Vogue runs an op-ed column, No Class, dedicated to worker struggles and the American labor movement. This week's column focuses on the troubling working conditions at nail salons and the organizing efforts to change them.
Outside of traditional labor structures, a new labor activism is surging, often supported by traditional unions. This new activism ranges from the “Fight for $15” movement to the statewide teacher strikes that broke out last spring.
Warren Mar has written a provocative piece on the role of Community Based Organizations and Worker Centers in the working class movement. He explores controversial issues of the funding and democratic control of these organizations which have filled a vacuum in organizing particularly among immigrant workers.
Victor Narro, Saba Waheed, Jassmin Poyaoan
UCLA Labor Center
June 22 kicked off AFL-CIO Worker Center Advisory Council. There, UCLA Labor Center’s Victor Narro presented the center’s most recent analysis of labor-worker center partnerships, Building a Movement Together: Worker Centers and Labor Union Affiliations.
Through workers associations, work centers, and “alt-labor” groups, millions of workers — along with part-time workers, temporary workers, and those who work for employers that have no union — are using new tactics to fight against that inequality of bargaining power. The groups are not competing with traditional unions, but rather working alongside them and in tandem.
Through workers associations, work centers, and “alt-labor” groups, millions of workers — along with part-time workers, temporary workers, and those who work for employers that have no union — are using new tactics to fight against that inequality of bargaining power. The groups are not competing with traditional unions, but rather working alongside them and in tandem.
This is a precedent setting agreement for the Twin City region, Minnesota and even the nation. Many of the workers affected by this new deal with Target represent a segment of the work force that has often been considered “unorganizable.” Language barriers and use of immigration status to threaten workers have all been contributing factors in explaining the difficulty in organizing vast segments of low-wage workers in the United States.
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