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Egyptian Workers Strike against Fertilizer Export to Israel
In an unprecedented action, the first following the recent Israeli war on Gaza, workers of the Egyptian Fertilizers Company in Suez protested on Saturday, 7 February against the export of fertilizers to Israel. The Egyptian Fertilizers Company is owned by Onsi and Nassef Sawiris under the umbrella of Orascom Construction Industries. The Egyptian Fertilizers […]
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Let’s Do It, like the Workers of Guadeloupe and Martinique!
The general strike in Guadeloupe began almost a month ago, and the strike movement has spread to Martinique over the last two weeks, and yet the government and the management are still maneuvering, stalling and buying time, refusing to meet the demands. Backed by the entire population holding the largest demonstrations ever seen in […]
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Venezuelan Government and Jewish Community Desire Dialogue and Collaboration
The Jewish Association of Venezuela expressed its appreciation to the Chávez government and its organs of security for their investigations of the attack against the Tiferet Synagogue. Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro expressed the government’s desire to cooperate with the Jewish community and made it clear that the national government maintains “absolute respect for religious freedom.” […]
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Victory for Worker Solidarity:South African Dock Workers Refuse to Offload Israeli Goods
6 February 2009 The Congress of South African Trade Union is pleased to announce that its members, dock workers belonging to the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), achieved a victory last night when they stood firm by their decision not to offload the Johanna Russ, a ship that was carrying Israeli […]
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Obama Visit Suggests No Big Changes in Relations to Mexico; Promise to “Upgrade” NAFTA’s Labor, Environmental Clauses
With only a few days left until his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama met with President Felipe Calderón in the second week of January, the first meeting with a foreign leader since his election last November, indicating the importance of the U.S. relationship with its southern neighbor. Calderón’s National Action Party (PAN), Mexico’s most conservative major […]
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Labor Unions Vow Stepped-up Pressure on Congress to Support “Medicare for All” Approach to Healthcare Reform
Over 150 labor leaders from across U.S. kick off coordinated grassroots campaign for single payer healthcare St. Louis – More than 150 union leaders from 31 states gathered in St. Louis last weekend to step up a grassroots campaign to enact comprehensive national healthcare reform. The group is promoting a single-payer plan, which would work […]
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“Labor Boycott of Israel” Urged at Rally for Palestinians
On January 10, 2009, thousands of people in the Bay Area protested the US-supported attack by Israel on the people of Gaza at a rally and march in San Francisco. Trade unionists including leaders of the Oakland Education Association and ILWU Local 10 and a leader of the California Peace and Freedom party condemned the […]
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Justice and Support for Poor and Working Families in Gaza
Sisters and Brothers: The PGFTU has been working at all levels in Palestine and in its international relations to mobilize international support for peace in the region. This is the ultimate goal for our working families in Palestine, who have labored in every way possible to bring about an end to the Israeli occupation […]
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Labor for Palestine: Stop Israel’s Massacre in Gaza and End the Siege Now!
December 31, 2008 New York City Labor Against the War joins millions around the world in condemning Israel’s ongoing murder and maiming of hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza. WHO ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS? Israel claims that it is fighting “terrorism” — the same hollow excuse with which the U.S. tries to justify wars in Afghanistan […]
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Why Pay-to-Play Is Bad for Labor
“Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English. We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history. Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we put […]
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San Francisco Protest against the Banks and in Support of the Chicago Worker
“Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English. We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history. Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we […]
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Is Obama Backing Off a Crucial Pledge to Labor? Bait and Switch on the Employee Free Choice Act
“Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English. We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history. Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we put […]
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A Big Caravan to Washington? The Auto Crisis: Management, Labor, and the Struggle for the Future
The crisis in the auto industry is about many things: the possible collapse of GM, Detroit gas guzzlers, auto emission standards, the environment, and the need for mass transportation, among others. But as became clear this last week, at the center of it all is the struggle between management and the workers, that is, between […]
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“Special” New York Times Blankets Cities with Message of Hope and Change: Thousands of Volunteers behind Elaborate Operation
PDF: www.nytimes-se.com/pdf Ongoing video releases: www.nytimes-se.com/video The New York Times responds: cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/pranksters-spoof-the-times/ Hundreds of independent writers, artists, and activists are claiming credit for an elaborate project, 6 months in the making, in which 1.2 million copies of a “special edition” of the New York Times were distributed in cities across the U.S. by thousands of […]
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World’s Labor Federations React to Financial Crisis with Proposals from Re-regulation to Socialism
Labor unions around the world have reacted to the financial crisis and the economic recession with words and actions reflecting their national experience, their political ideology, and their leaderships. Unions and workers have already seen the financial crisis and the growing recession result in the closing of plants and offices, in shorter workweeks, pay cuts, […]
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The Life and Times of Genora Dollinger
Child of the Sit-Downs: The Revolutionary Life of Genora Dollinger, by Carlton Jackson, WKU Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2008. 256 pages, $39.00 (cloth). This wonderful book is a most welcome biography of Genora Dollinger, labor reformer and feminist. Genora (her husband told Dr. Jackson that she […]
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Israel’s Dark Arts of Ensnaring Collaborators
Israel’s enduring use of Palestinian collaborators to entrench the occupation and destroy Palestinian resistance was once the great unmentionable of the Middle East conflict. When the subject was dealt with by the international and local media, it was solely in the context of the failings of the Palestinian legal system, which allowed the summary execution […]
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Are Industrial Unions Better than Craft? Not Always.
Which is better — craft unions or industrial unions? The debate is as old as the labor movement itself, and one that resists simple answers. Craft unions organize workers along occupational lines. Industrial unions join everyone who works for one employer, or one industry, into one union. The argument surfaces in the dispute between […]
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Immigrant Rights Are Labor Rights
Today’s critical labor struggles revolve around immigrants’ rights, while today’s struggles over immigrants’ rights are grounded in workplace and labor organizing. Global, national, and local histories have woven these issues tightly together. In the U.S. we are seeing the beginnings of a multifaceted movement which engages these dynamically linked histories. Twenty-five years ago, U.S. labor […]
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Crisis of Social Partnership: Collapse of National Pay Talks in Ireland
The 21 year old social partnership pact between unions, employers and the Government in Ireland is entering one of its periodic crises as one national pay agreement Towards 2016 begins to run out and talks on a successor have collapsed. The Government is expected to attempt resuscitation in late August or early September, writes Padraig […]