Subjects Archives: Labor

  José Martí and Simón Bolívar, two of Latin America’s most respected independence fighters, recognized nearly a century ago that their homelands would never be free of imperial domination, until Latin America came together in solidarity as a united force. Martí and Bolívar’s insights remain relevant in the age of neo-liberal globalization.  The colonizers of […]

  [This essay is a winner of an essay contest held by Left Hook and sponsored by Monthly Review. — Ed.] During the last two summers, I did not spend my days relaxing on a beach reading great novels and poems.  I did not write the grand story I promised myself I would write.  Instead, […]

Unless political elites change strategy and tactics in 2006, North-South relations will continue to degenerate.  By the end of last year, opportunities ranging from rock concerts to summits and trade negotiations were lost. South Africa’s role in this failure of global nerve was substantial.  Three leading politicians of South Africa — Thabo Mbeki, Alec Erwin, […]

Clinton Jencks, from Salt of the Earth Legendary labor organizer Clinton Jencks, who led mineworkers in New Mexico in a strike depicted in the classic movie Salt of the Earth, died Dec. 15 in San Diego of natural causes.  He was 87. An international representative of the Amalgamated Bayard District Union of Mine, Mill, and […]

Only last year, Honda’s humanoid robot, Asimo, was learning how to walk. Now, the five-year-old droid is ready to take on simple office work, greet visitors and fetch refreshments. Japan’s third-biggest auto manufacturer introduced Tuesday a second-generation Asimo that can also push a cart weighing up to 22 pounds, and walk straight, sideways or backwards […]

  A young man by the name of Erik Hartmann graduated from Evergreen Park Community High School in Evergreen Park, Illinois in June of 1976 without having a clue of what to do beyond that. He had played sports in all four of his high school years and was quite the physical specimen. He was […]

  We do not have coffee break at my work. No one yells, “Break time!” to remind you to stop for a minute. We do not sit together on flipped, five-gallon paint buckets. And no one shares homemade cookies, made by someone back home who makes working worth something. We do not have lunch break, […]

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 […]

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and UE Local 150, which represents thousands of public employees who work for state agencies and municipal governments in North Carolina, filed a complaint with the International Labor Organization (ILO) on December 9, 2005, charging the U.S. government and the State of North Carolina with […]

Thirty-eight thousand public school teachers in British Columbia voted on October 23 by seventy-seven percent to end a sixteen-day strike that had brought the province to the brink of a general strike. The teachers, members of the BC Teachers Federation, walked off the job on October 6. Bargaining for a new collective agreement was going […]

  Michael D. Yates, “Let’s Put the Nature of Work on Labor’s Agenda,” Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6 The reason why work is so unsatisfying is simple.  Work cannot be fulfilling; it cannot allow us to fully use our uniquely human capacities; it cannot be anything but […]

  “You will never solve the problem until you let in the women.” “Women win all strikes!” — Mother Jones Mary Harris (Mother) Jones predicted over 100 years ago that, if organized labor didn’t embrace gender equality within the unions and in society in general, the problems faced by labor would not be resolved. But […]

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 […]

Two URPE Insights First, I should start by assuring you that I have not gone round the bend. I am not about to suggest that we dust off our volumes of Capital, corner some poor unsuspecting soul, and then launch into some long-winded exegesis of the concept of commodity fetishism. That sounds more like a […]

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 […]

  [The UAW New Directions Movement (NDM), founded in the 1980s to challenge the auto union’s policy of “jointness” and lack of internal democracy, is experiencing a new burst of support from the union’s rank-and-file membership. The movement’s revitalization comes as workers in the auto industry are facing unprecedented health care concession demands by General […]

Brothers and Sisters, The crisis for the working class (whether employed or not, waged or not) continues to grow. Even as the nation, and especially the poor and Black working class of the Gulf states and New Orleans in particular, tries to pick up the pieces after Katrina’s (and Rita’s) devastation, the assault by capital […]

  [What follows is an essay written in response to Michael D. Yates’ call for essays on work. — Ed.] My name is Jeremy Evanchesky. I’m originally from Central City, Pennsylvania and now live in Lakeland, Florida. I work as a teacher at the Homer K. Addair Career Academy. When I first came to the […]

  In the last four parts of this series, I gave many examples of the alienating and degrading nature of work in capitalist societies. Even “good” jobs, such as college teaching and nursing, have lost whatever luster they once had. Part-time teachers teach an increasing fraction of all course while struggling to make ends meet. […]

Jerry Tucker The founding convention of the Change-to-Win labor federation held in St. Louis on September 27, 2005 was, if nothing else, filled with enthusiasm and efficiently managed.  The founding unions’ top leaders put forward a lean and specifically organizing-focused agenda, and it was adopted without even a hint of dissent.  The longer-term question is […]