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Yes Men and Egoists
On August 8, 2007 a German labor court in Nuremberg issued a temporary restraining order preventing a strike called by the GDL train drivers’ union, to the delight of the business press. The strike had been approved by a great majority of the train drivers, and was due to start on August 9th. The state-owned […]
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Paraguay: A Laboratory for Latin America’s New Militarism
Two soldiers in Paraguay stand in front of a camera. One of them holds an automatic weapon. John Lennon’s “Imagine” plays in the background. This Orwellian juxtaposition of war and peace is from a new video posted online by US soldiers stationed in Paraguay. The video footage and other military activity in this heart of […]
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LaborFest 2007: A Moveable Feast
LaborFest, held each July to honor the aspirations and struggles of working people, is a moveable feast that ranges across the San Francisco area and back and forth in time. Why San Francisco? San Francisco is union country and it is working people who established LaborFest and have hosted it for the past 14 years. […]
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The Fight of Our Lives: The War of Attrition against U.S. Labor
1. Introduction: The War We are in the fight of our lives. The hostile onslaught against U.S. labor that was launched after the Second World War and redoubled in the 1980s is entering a new phase that will profoundly influence the future of all working people in North America. How we respond to this latest […]
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The Delphi/UAW Agreement: US Labor Takes Another Hit
The June 29 announcement of the approval of a wage-cutting agreement between Delphi Corporation, an auto parts manufacturing giant, and the United Auto Workers (UAW) means that U.S. labor has suffered yet another defeat in the ongoing war of attrition that is being waged against working people around the world. Details of the pact have […]
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Stop the Raids! Street Protest Is the Source of Our Power
On Wednesday, June 6, federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted a sweep of homes in New Haven, Connecticut. They arrested 33 immigrant workers and set off a series of mass protests calling for the release of detainees and an immediate halt to federal raids. On Saturday, June 16, a mass mobilization […]
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Center for Labor Renewal Statement on Worker Migration
The Center for Labor Renewal was conceived in 2005 when the national U.S. labor union leadership was engaging in a ‘debate’ which largely ignored the fundamental crisis of our nation’s working class. It was launched in the Spring of 2006 following a meeting of activists from unions, worker centers, educators, and working class organizations […]
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The Music of Industrial Relations and the Reality of the Australian Labor Party
Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd and his deputy Julia Gillard are performing three different and sometimes discordant tunes as they ride high in the polls and promote their industrial relations policy. This is not just a matter of vote maximising; it tells us a lot about the nature and transformation of the Australian Labor […]
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The Swedish Welfare State: A Model for Canadian Labor?
When I ask Canadian trade unionists and activists fighting against lower labor and social standards about their political vision, they often refer to European welfare states, notably Sweden. The Swedish social system, their reference implies, proves that there is an alternative to the neo-liberal politics of boosting profits at the expense of working people. It […]
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Help Direct the Rudderless Labor Media
In the 1980s, the right wing began its media blitz and has kept it up since then, but the labor movement has failed to match it or even develop a minimal communications network to reach union and non-union workers with information crucial to their wellbeing. The movement has no national newspaper or magazine and no […]
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Prison Nation: Locking Up Surplus Labor in America
Annual Fundraising Appeal Friends of MRZine and Monthly Review! The continuing existence of MRZine and Monthly Review depends on the support of our readers. Unlike many other publications, we make all new Monthly Review articles, as well as MRZine articles, available online, free of charge. We do so without drawing any advertising money at all […]
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Labor Media, Neoliberalism, and the Crisis in the Labor Movement
This is Sid Shniad’s presentation to the LaborTech 2006 panel on “The Corporate Media Assault and Developing a Labor Media Strategy” (18 November 2006). — Ed. This panel is called Corporate Media Assault and Developing a Labor Media Strategy. In my view, the issue should be framed as a discussion of the overall corporate […]
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Labor Educator as Labor Radical
Harry Kelber, My 70 Years in the Labor Movement. 379pp, $20 pbk. Labor Educator Press, 25 Washington St., Suite 302, Brooklyn NY 11201. This is a revised edition of an underappreciated 1996 self-published classic by one of the most remarkable figures in the last half-century of American labor. What makes Harry Kelber still tick, at […]
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A New World of Work
Cornell Global Labor Institute Honors Oscar Olivera On October 5, 2006, the Cornell Global Labor Institute held a reception to celebrate its second anniversary. The guest of honor was Oscar Olivera, the Executive Secretary of the Federation of Factory Workers from Cochabamba , Bolivia. The Federation was key in the formation of the Coordinator […]
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Election Eve 2006: Democrats Stir, Labor Takes Two More Torpedoes
The instant messaging antics that claimed the career of Florida Republican Representative Mark Foley have also served to remind the national Democratic Party that we are but a few weeks away from our national elections. Declining Republican electoral fortunes were hobbled further by the Foley fiasco, adding to the growing list of reasons why voters […]
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General Transportation Strike Looming in 2008?Expiring Master Contracts Give Unions Enormous Leverage . . . If They Seize the Moment
Millions of dollars worth of goods sat unmoved on the docks of the United States’ largest port, Los Angeles/Long Beach, as port truckers, mostly Latino immigrants, struck on May 1. Despite being organized only informally in small networks, the truckers were able to use their position at a vital point in the economy to […]
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The Minimum Wage, Labor, and Politics
The minimum wage tragedy goes beyond the 15 million US workers now earning $5.15 per hour or $206 per forty-hour week before tax and other deductions. It goes beyond the facts that $5.15 was already low when Congress set it in September, 1997, and that Congress has since kept it frozen at $ 5.15. Meanwhile, […]
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Sacramento County Workers on Strike: Largest Labor Action in Decades
Thousands of Sacramento County workers in a coalition of labor unions went on strike on September 5. The union coalition includes the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Service Employees International Union Local 535, Stationary Engineers Local 39 AFL-CIO, and the United Public Employees Local 1. Labor leaders and […]
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Last Words [Ultimas palabras]
Seguramente, ésta será la última oportunidad en que pueda dirigirme a ustedes. La Fuerza Aérea ha bombardeado las antenas de Radio Magallanes. Mis palabras no tienen amargura sino decepción. Que sean ellas un castigo moral para quienes han traicionado su juramento: soldados de Chile, comandantes en jefe titulares, el almirante Merino, que se ha autodesignado […]
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Labor Day 2006, St. Paul, Minnesota
Click on the photo for a larger view. Stephen Philion, Assistant Professor of Sociology at St. Cloud State University, contributed the photographs. | | Print