Subjects Archives: Labor

  Montevideo From his usual table at Café Brasilero downtown, leaving the cold weather of southern winter outside its large window, Eduardo Galeano insists that “the grandeur of humanity lies in small things, quotidian things, done every day, what’s done by the nameless without knowing that they are doing it.” So, his answers mingle with […]

  Oklahoma public-sector workers and activists speak out on the attacks on workers’ civil rights. Produced by the Labor Policy Institute of Oklahoma. | Print  

In Libya after Muammar Gaddafi, the situation of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa is worsening. Most of them had come to this rich African country looking for jobs. Now, thousands of them are arrested and taken to detention centers, where they are targeted for abuse by their captors, most of whom are illegal armed groups.

A trend is taking hold across Canada of working class resistance to the capitalist crisis and attacks by governments and corporations on workers’ rights and the social wage.  Library workers in the city of Toronto and transit and university workers in Halifax recently went on strike, as did daycare workers in Quebec.  Workers at Air […]

  Bucking the trend, Mahshahr petrochemical workers have shown that it is possible to win a major labor battle even in these times of lockouts, plant closures, and mass layoffs.  Other unionists and labor activists are taking note. On January 9, several thousand contracting workers at Bandar Imam Petrochemical Complex and other nearby facilities in […]

  The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is waging a battle against union-busting.  ILWU Local 21 in Longview, Washington is under attack by a giant consortium, EGT, which has built a $200 million grain terminal and is running it as a scab operation.  This directly violates the port agreement with ILWU which has had jurisdiction […]

When Steve Miller, the vulture capitalist who drove Delphi into the ditch of America’s dreams, declared, “Bankruptcy is a growth industry,” he was smiling, but he wasn’t joking. Bankruptcy in the US isn’t a sign of economic distress or mismanagement.  It’s a business plan — calculated, cunning, and void of redeeming social value.  American Airlines […]

Thirty years before the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, President Reagan fired enough striking air traffic controllers to fill a protest march across the Brooklyn Bridge (11, 345 PATCO members, to be exact).  And in the three decades since Reagan famously said “if they do not report for work within 48 hours, they […]

The Occupy Wall Street uprising has taken the nation by storm, beginning in the Financial District in Manhattan and then spreading to cities and towns in every part of the country and around the world.  The anger over growing inequality and the political power of the rich that has been bubbling under the surface for […]

  Demonstrators in downtown Oakland protesting the bank-driven economic crisis were brutally attacked by police from 18 Bay Area agencies on Tuesday Oct. 25.  Mayor Quan, who was supported by ILWU Local 10 in the recent elections, ordered this bloody assault.  Cops used potentially lethal weapons to break up the occupation of Frank Ogawa (now […]

“I’m just a soccer mom.  Well, a swimming mom, if you want to be exact.”  This is how the middle-aged women holding up the “Worked 1973-2003” sign at Saturday’s Occupy Wall Street rally at Times Square described herself to me.  She stood next to a young boy leaning against his dad, the son holding up […]

  Nou dwe sèl mèt bout tè sa a: We should be the only owners of this land. From an anti-MINUSTAH protest last month.  Photo by Ansel Herz. This was Haitian protesters’ message at a demonstration last month against the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known by its French acronym, MINUSTAH.  October marks an upswing […]

If you go to Zuccotti Park looking for the U.S. labor movement, you might be disappointed.  Other than a presence in the October 5 march and a series of public endorsements, you will find no purple SEIU banners, no occupiers in red & black UNITE-HERE t-shirts, no AFL-CIO booth at Liberty Plaza, and no permanent […]

  The Transport Workers Union Local 100 applauds the courage of the young people on Wall Street who are dramatically demonstrating for what our position has been for some time: the shared sacrifice preached by government officials looks awfully like a one-way street.  Workers and ordinary citizens are putting up all the sacrifice, and the […]

On March 9, 2011 Republicans at the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin approved Governor Scott Walker’s bill ending most collective bargaining rights for union-organized state employees.  The capitol had been occupied for over a month by unionists, students, and their supporters who were opposed to the bill.  This was the first mass labor upsurge of […]

Since Saturday night (August 6), 45,000 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have been on strike from Massachusetts to Virginia — in the largest private sector work stoppage in the last seven years. Health care cost shifting is high on the list of givebacks demanded […]

  After it was too late to make a difference, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry denounced the debt-ceiling agreement as “a raw deal for working people and the 30 million Americans who are still looking for work.”  In fact, neither SEIU, the AFL-CIO, nor AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka aggressively mobilized union members against the deal […]

  Workers of the Suez Canal Authority are continuing their three-week strike for better wages and working conditions.  Improvements have already been negotiated, but with implementation now twice delayed, the workers are calling for the resignation of Suez Canal Authority Chairman Ahmed Fadel. This video was released by Ahram Online on 6 July 2011.  Cf. […]

  “Making Memories!” 80 percent of domestic workers are not allowed to leave the house. “Shopping Paradise!” 85 percent of domestic workers are not allowed a regular day off. “Sea & Sun!” 56 percent of private beaches limit access for migrant workers. Directed by Jowe Harfouche.  Actresses: Rahel Abebe, Priya Subedi, Michelle Cafarelle, Lioba Hirsch, […]

  We are living one of those historic moments that cry out for rallying the working class to build new capacities, new solidarities, and concrete hope.  The crucial question is not how far the attacks on the public sector will go.  The real question is how far we will let them go.  How will working-class […]