Joe Burns. Strike Back: Using the Militant Tactics of Labor’s Past to Reignite Public Sector Unionism Today. Brooklyn, NY: IG Publishing, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-935439-89-9 (paperback). Many conservative whites today lament — and you can see this exploited by the Tea Party — that nobody cares about them: people care about Blacks, about Latinos, about women, […]
Author Archive | Kim Scipes
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Venezuela
As protests have been taking place in Venezuela for the last couple of weeks, it is good to check on the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US Empire’s “stealth” destabilizer. What has the NED been up to in Venezuela? Before going into details, it is important to note what the NED is and is […]
Gene Bruskin of USLAW, Live Radio Interview on Tuesday, September 6, 2011, 6-8 PM Central Time
Folks, As many of you know, I’m a veteran of the US Marine Corps, who turned around while on active duty (1969-73). I work with some Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at our university, Purdue University North Central in Westville, IN, in the northwest part of Indiana, just below Lake Michigan. One of the young vets […]
Rethinking Venezuelan Politics
Steve Ellner. Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chavez Phenomenon. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2008. Since the arrival of Hugo Chavez on the Venezuelan scene — and later, for the left and the right, on the world scene — he’s been the source of considerable interest. Is he a new caudillo in […]
Is Cosatu Playing with the Devil?Investigating the AFL-CIO and Its Solidarity Center
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Venezuela and South Africa: Redistributive Policies vs. Neo-liberal Economic Policies
Traveling to both Venezuela and South Africa this past summer, through my work as an academic sociologist, I was able to observe firsthand two radically different approaches to “third world” development: a “redistributive approach” in Venezuela, and a set of basically neo-liberal economic policies in South Africa. Although this was not a consciously designed research […]
When Will the AFL-CIO Leadership Quit Blaming the Chinese Government for Multinational Corporate Decisions, US Government Policies, and US Labor Leaders’ Inept Reponses?
The AFL-CIO has just formally petitioned the Bush Administration to “take immediate action to stop exploitation by the Chinese government and multinational corporations of workers in China, who are paid as little as 15 cents per hour” (AFL-CIO, “AFL-CIO Files Workers’ Rights Case Against China ,” Press Release, June 8, 2006). It appears that the […]
A Specter Is Haunting the AFL-CIO’s Foreign Policy Program: The Worker to Worker Solidarity Committee
The room had been arranged, the speakers ready — with a last minute, unannounced substitution of Wilfredo Berrios of El Salvador’s SUTTEL (telecom) union replacing Miguel Gonzalez Vargas from the Oil Workers Union of Venezuela who had not been able to come due to problems back home — and the only remaining question was, “Would […]
Worker-to-Worker Solidarity Committee to AFL-CIO: Cut All Ties with NED
On March 6, over 50 union members from several unions and activist allies picketed the headquarters of the AFL-CIO in Washington, DC., to demand that the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center immediately break off all ties with the misnamed National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED is a leading component of the US Government’s efforts to maintain […]
Workers’ Rights ARE Human Rights — Not Just in the USA, but around the World
Click on the image for a larger view. Chicago, 2005 In the middle of a blizzard in Chicago on December 8, 2005, I stood with about 250-300 union members and supporters at the Haymarket Memorial, chanting, “Workers’ Rights Are Human Rights.” This was one of a number of rallies around the country that the AFL-CIO […]
Labor Rights: If Unions Won’t Fight for Them, Then What Good Are Unions?
On December 10th, International Human Rights Day, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney pointed out that “[f]or all practical purposes, Americans have lost the freedom to form unions.” Accordingly, the AFL-CIO and its allies engaged in a series of protests and rallies in over 100 cities across the country (as well as in eight countries around the […]
Labor: Engaging the Community and Building Grassroots Legitimacy — a Report from Northwest Indiana
While I have been critical of developments in the labor movement at the national level for quite a while, there are stirrings at the local levels in some places that are encouraging. I want to report on a recent effort by the Northwest Indiana Federation of Labor. Indiana, as many know, strongly supported President Bush […]
Labor: Eyeless in America
Whoopee! The Change to Win Coalition has established itself in the labor movement! Happy Days are here again! Andy Stern’s going to lead us to the promised land! And the overwhelming response by American workers: yawn. At the time when American workers — indeed, US society as a whole — so much need a new […]
US Labor Leaders:
As one considers developments in and around the main currents of the US labor movement — the recent split in the AFL-CIO, and the reaction of both sides of the split to the ongoing strike by AMFA against Northwest Airlines, most particularly — it is difficult not to get discouraged by lack of leadership. Let […]
Distilling the 2005 AFL-CIO Convention: Disaster Ahoy!
The Convention is over, delegates have returned home, and it’s time to make sense of the mess. First of all, the “Change to Win” Coalition’s boycott of the convention and split from the AFL-CIO was stupid. Workers are going to suffer for this stupidity for a while, at least. And they are going to suffer […]
Free Labor from the Empire: Breaking the NED-Solidarity Center Connection
In the increasing “heat” of labor reform issues — which is not always the same as “light” — it has been discouraging to see how little attention has been paid to labor’s foreign policy issues. This is, in my opinion, the 500-pound gorilla that no one wants to touch. Yet, I argue it is absolutely […]
