Worker's Anger in Chicago Strike

As the economy worsens, American workers begin find their voice.

CHICAGO — The scene inside a long, low-slung factory on this city’s North Side this weekend offered a glimpse at how the nation’s loss of more than 600,000 manufacturing jobs in a year of recession is boiling over.

Workers laid off Friday from Republic Windows and Doors, who for years assembled vinyl windows and sliding doors here, said they would not leave, even after company officials announced that the factory was closing.

Some of the plant’s 250 workers stayed all night, all weekend, in what they were calling an occupation of the factory. Their sharpest criticisms were aimed at their former bosses, who they said gave them only three days’ notice of the closing, and the company’s creditors. But their anger stretched broadly to the government’s costly corporate bailout plans, which, they argued, had forgotten about regular workers.

“They want the poor person to stay down,” said Silvia Mazon, 47, a mother of two who worked as an assembler here for 13 years and said she had never before been the sort to march in protests or make a fuss. “We’re here, and we’re not going anywhere until we get what’s fair and what’s ours. They thought they would get rid of us easily, but if we have to be here for Christmas, it doesn’t matter.”

The workers, members of Local 1110 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, said they were owed vacation and severance pay and were not given the 60 days of notice generally required by federal law when companies make layoffs. Lisa Madigan, the attorney general of Illinois, said her office was investigating, and representatives from her office interviewed workers at the plant on Sunday.

08-Dec-2008. Davey, Monica. In Factory Sit-In, an Anger Spread Wide. New York Times.

Disney makes health care unaffordable

From CNN:

ANAHEIM, California (AP) -- Cinderella, Snow White, Tinkerbell and other fictional fixtures of modern-day childhood were handcuffed, frisked and loaded into police vans Thursday at the culmination of a labor protest that brought a touch of reality to the Happiest Place on Earth.
"Tinkerbell" and other Disney characters were handcuffed Thursday in a protest outside the gates of Disneyland.

"Tinkerbell" and other Disney characters were handcuffed Thursday in a protest outside the gates of Disneyland.

The arrest of the 32 protesters, many of whom wore costumes representing famous Disney characters, came at the end of an hour-long march to Disneyland's gates from one of three Disney-owned hotels at the center of a labor dispute.

Those who were arrested sat in a circle on a busy intersection outside the park holding hands until they were placed in plastic handcuffs and led to two police vans while hundreds of hotel workers cheered and chanted.

The protesters were arrested on a misdemeanor count of failure to obey a police officer and two traffic infractions, said Sgt. Rick Martinez of the Anaheim police. They were cited and released, Sgt. Chris Schneider said.

Bewildered tourists in Disney T-shirts and caps, some pushing strollers, filed past the commotion and gawked at the costumed picketers getting hauled away. The protest shut down a major thoroughfare outside Disneyland and California Adventure for nearly an hour.

"It's changing my opinion of Disneyland," said tourist Amanda Kosato, who was visiting from north of Melbourne, Australia. "Taking away entitlements stinks."

The dispute involves about 2,300 maids, bell hops, cooks and dishwashers at three Disney-owned hotels: the Paradise Pier, the Grand Californian and the Disneyland Hotel.

The workers' contract expired in February and their union says Disney's latest proposal makes health care unaffordable for hundreds of employees and creates an unfair two-tier wage system. The union also says Disney wants to create a new category of part-time employees who would receive greatly reduced benefits.

"The other hotels around the area all have health care that is provided by the boss and have been able to get wage increases," said Ada Briceno, president of Unite Here Local 681, which represents the workers.

"At the other hotels in the same classification, for the same work, the workers get paid $2 to $3 an hour more."

Disney spokeswoman Lisa Haines said Disney and the union are in negotiations and nothing has been finalized. She said workers have protested 14 times but sat down to negotiate only 11 times in the past six months.

"Clearly we're disappointed that Unite Here Local 681 has spent more time protesting," she said. "Publicity stunts are not productive and are extremely disruptive to the resort district."

Before the arrests, the picketers marched and chanted outside Paradise Pier, holding signs that read, "Disney is unfaithful," and "Mickey, shame on you." They were joined by community activists and religious leaders from local churches.

Luz Vasquez, who works in the bakery at Disneyland Hotel, said she can't afford to lose many of her benefits. She said it's already hard to care for her three grandchildren and aging mother while earning $14.32 an hour.

"Disneyland is being unfair with us because we're fighting for our health care and they're trying to take it away," said Vasquez, 45. "They're trying to cut our hours and take away our seniority."

Co-worker Diane Dominguez, 50, said she was worried about losing health care because of the heavy labor involved in lifting mattresses, moving furniture and making dozens of beds a day. She also said rising prices and the cost of gas were eating into her salary of $11.11 an hour.

"The most important is health care. We need that and they want to take it away," she said.

At the heart of the issue is a free health care plan that has been provided to Disney hotel workers through a trust fund that Disney and other unionized hotels in the area pay into.

Briceno said that in exchange for the free medical plan, union members agreed in previous contracts to a lower wage for hotel workers in the first three years of their employment.

But Disney now wants to eliminate the free health plan for new hires and wants to create a new class of workers who put in less than 30 hours a week, said Briceno. Those part-time workers would receive no sick or vacation pay and not be given holidays, she said.

The company also wants to increase the number of hours full-time employees must work before qualifying for the health plan, she said.

"At the end of the day what it means is that workers are going to be priced out of health care," she said.

Haines said the majority of other employees at Disneyland pay for a share of their health plan, even though the resort shoulders about 75 percent of the overall cost. She said it's important to negotiate a contract that's fair to those other unions, too.

"We do remain hopeful that we can reach an agreement that's both fair and equitable, providing that union leadership is reasonable and realistic in its approach," Haines said.

South Korea Attacks Union Leaders

South Korean president Lee Myung-bak's Grand National Party (GNP) has consistently shown its fascist tendencies, but this time it has crossed the line unambiguously for all to see. The GNP, much like the us GOP (interestingly similar name in this time of globalization), has implemented a brutal anti-working class agenda for the past two decades. The majority of the leaders of the GNP had been leaders in previous reactionary parties including those which ran the country during the dictatorships of the 60's and 70's.

Now they are trying to destroy the labor movement in that country.

From LabourStart:

About ten days ago, the South Korean government issued arrest warrants for the leaders of the country's trade union movement. Among those named were the President, Vice President and General Secretary of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), as well as leaders of affiliated unions. The KCTU Vice President was arrested by police and she's now being held at the Youngdeungpo Police Station.

The others are still at large. Police have encircled the union headquarters in Seoul.

The “crime” these trade union leaders are accused of committing is this: in early July, they called for a general strike. The South Korean government, in defiance of universally recognized human rights standards (including ILO conventions) has decided that this strike was illegal.

The KCTU has asked us all to take a moment and send off a strong message of protest to the South Korean government. LabourStart has launched a major new online campaign to do precisely that. Please go here now to send off your message:

http://www.labourstart.org/kctu

Union Membership Rises in 2007!

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the largest rise in the number of U.S. workers belonging to labor unions in the last quarter-century. In 2007 the rolls increased by 311,000 for a total of 15.7 million workers, despite a decline in manufacturing jobs, particularly in auto.

The overall percentage of organized workers rose to 12.1 percent of the workforce, including 7.5 percent of private-sector workers and 35.9 percent of public-sector workers. Membership grew most in construction and health services, with a higher rate of 14.7 percent in Western states compared to 13.8 percent in Midwestern states.

Labor leaders hailed the turnaround. Stewart Acuff, AFL-CIO organizing director, cited organizing drives of 40,000 child care workers in Michigan and New York. (New York Times, Jan. 26)

IWW On The Picket Line. 6-Feb-08.

Edwards on Hardball - Wal-Mart and unions

What Have the Unions Ever Done for Us?

Crisis of the transient workforce deepens

Corporations have been on the offensive against workers rights for years now. One key example is in the United States the incredible shift over the past 25 years from full-time, union jobs being dominant, to the current scenario of a transient workforce, whereby most workers are contractors with transient status.

This tactic has been very common throughout the history of capitalism (e.g. Bracero Program), but the current period is unique insofar as the practice cuts across all categories of workers including high-paying jobs such as computer programmers, and it is wide spread, being the dominant form of wage labor.

HR gurus and others have catchy phrases attached to the theory of the transient workforce, such as "right to work", "free agency" and "continuous rightsizing."

Workers, on the other hand, know its wrong, and they call it like they see it:

Scores of workers from MTV Networks walked off the job yesterday afternoon, filling the sidewalk outside the headquarters of its corporate parent, Viacom, to protest recent changes in benefits.

Freelance workers from MTV Networks outside the headquarters of the company’s corporate parent, Viacom, on Monday.

The walkout highlighted the concerns of a category of workers who are sometimes called permalancers: permanent freelancers who work like full-time employees but do not receive the same benefits.

Waving signs that read “Shame on Viacom,” the workers, most of them in their 20s, demanded that MTV Networks reverse a plan to reduce health and dental benefits for freelancers beginning Jan. 1.

In a statement, MTV Networks noted that its benefits program for full-time employees had also undergone changes, and it emphasized that the plan for freelancers was still highly competitive within the industry. Many freelancers receive no corporate benefits.

But some of the protesters asserted that corporations were competing to see which could provide the most mediocre health care coverage. Matthew Yonda, who works at Nickelodeon, held a sign that labeled the network “Sick-elodeon.”

“I’ve worked here every day for three years — I’m not a freelancer,” Mr. Yonda said. “They just call us freelancers in order to bar us from getting the same benefits as employees.”

Stetler, Brian. Freelancers walk out at MTV Networks. 11-Dec-2007.

Primative accumulation in contemporary China

Pictured right is Chinese labor activist, Huang Qingnan. He lies injured after he was attacked with a machete for helping workers fight for their rights. These types of attacks were very common in the US well into the 20th century. Workers were beaten and lynched on a regular basis by paid thugs and police. One of the most famous incidents was the Ludlow Massacre, perpetrated in the name of John D Rockerfeller.

Chinese activists have been concentrating on publicising the contents of the new Labour Contract Law that will come into force on 1 January next year. One of its positive features is that it will make it more difficult for employers to dismiss workers.

The law was passed despite fierce and sustained opposition from multinationals led by the American Chamber of Commerce, who threatened capital flight.

A compromise draft was eventually approved by the National People’s Congress – China’s non-elected parliament – with the bosses reassured by the certainty that implementation will be lax, not least because China’s only legal trade union is constitutionally and legally bound to uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China.

While this link gives the organisation considerable leverage in law drafting, the union has barely any influence on the shop floor. Local government officials frequently find common interest with capitalists and ensure that enterprise-level trade unions are run by management or their stooges.

The rare instances of union officials speaking out on behalf of workers usually leads to their being sacked or transferred. Workers who organise outside the traditional union structures face arrest and imprisonment.

Although there is no protection of the right to strike in China and freedom of association is banned, there has been a marked increase in strike activity, as workers have made good use of recent labour shortages and a growing awareness of workers’ rights to demand a living wage paid on time.

Independent unions are banned, but workers often form hometown associations that are sometimes capable of organising strikes. Occasions where these associations unite in strike action are increasing.

The fight for labour rights in China’s cities. Socialist Worker. 11-Dec-2007.

Greek strike brings country to a halt

A general strike in Greece has shut down the country's public services, hospitals and public transport system. The labour action has hit Athens International Airport, where all flights into and out of the city have been cancelled. Ferries and boats also remain in docks across the country, paralysing transport to and from Greece's hundreds of islands. Only a handful of trains and trams in Athens ran for five hours on Wednesday morning, mainly so that strikers could travel to the capital for a rally. Greek labour unions have called the 24-hour strike in opposition to government pension reform plans.

Greek strike brings country to a halt. Deutche Welle. 12-Dec-2007.

Work Choice Howard's achilles heel

The working people of Australia, spearheaded by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), have been fighting a bitter battle with the John Howard's hard-line neo-liberal government for years. Howard, cut from the same cloth as George Bush in the US, has been anti-labor, pro-war, pro-deregulation and pro-tax-cut.

These policies have created the same conditions in Australia as they have everywhere else, namely increased wealth polarization, reduced workers rights and a destruction of civil society.

But now it looks like people are finally waking up to the truth. The ACTU and many others have been campaigning to stop Howard and remove him from office. Their Your Rights at Work campaign (YRAW or YR@W) has, through a massive grassroots effort, put the Howard administration on its heels.

[...]

The Howard government won a legal bid yesterday to suppress secret Work Choices documents, saying the release of the papers would lead to speculation that the coalition planned a new wave of workplace changes.

A spokesman for the prime minister told News Ltd last night that the documents could not be released because "the majority of them were cabinet documents".

[...]

Rudd can't fathom why Work Choices documents suppressed. Sydney Morning Herald. 20-Nov-2007.

And more on the ACTU campaign:

Grassroots activism has sullied the Work Choices brand; now it stands to topple the Government.

[...]

In marginal seats around Australia, the Your Rights At Work logo, YR@W, is more conspicuous than the Labor Party banner. It appears on so many T-shirts and placards that it threatens to depose Che Guevara as the new emblem of activism and resistance. There are 46 groups around NSW and John Robertson, the secretary of Unions NSW who devised the blueprint for the grassroots campaign, believes they will revive the labour movement.

"They're the future of unions," Robertson says. "Over the past 20 years we got very complacent and lost members. But these groups are made up of locals, not blow-ins. They're the same people you see running chocolate wheels at school fetes.

"Even if Rudd gets in and overturns Work Choices, these groups won't disappear. I don't know, or even care, if they get involved in party politics, but we will have trained future community leaders, who will be able to fight on issues like transport, infrastructure, schools and housing."

[...]

West, Andrew. Peoples front is in full swing. Sydney Morning Herald. 17-Nov-2007.

Historic strikes in France, Korea

From LabourStart on Friday:

The last few days have seen extraordinary struggles taking place in Korea and in France.

Those struggles have also illustrated the need for the trade union movement to have its own independent media. Let me explain what I mean.

France saw a huge wave of strikes this week. This gigantic struggle is the long-awaited counter-attack by unions to a right-wing government with an explicitly anti-union agenda.

I've been able to follow the coverage a bit in the British media, and was not surprised to hear a discussion yesterday on the radio about whether French President Nicolas Sarkozy would be "tough enough" to resist the unions. As one reporter put it, would he be as strong a leader as Margaret Thatcher was back in the 1980s?

That's an extreme example, but the more common coverage has focussed entirely on the difficulties faced by commuters, with photos illustrating empty Metro stations in Paris to make the point.

In other words, the news story for most mainstream media has been about Sarkozy's toughness and the suffering of commuters -- and not about the actual workers on strike and what they are calling for.

Korea this week provided us with what I think was an even more extraordinary example of how mainstream media covers labour disputes.

Every November, tens of thousands of trade unionists rally in the capital, Seoul. I know because I was there ten years ago. This year's national workers' rally was used by Korean unions to focus attention on the free trade agreement between Korea and the USA, and thousands of farmers and students joined in the protest.

According to one eyewitness account, their protest was blocked by some 25,000 baton-wielding riot police, who proceeded to attack them with water cannon in an attempt to disperse the demonstration.

The main foreign news agencies such as Reuters and AFP reported this as an "anti-FTA" protest, without mentioning that it was actually an annual trade union event. Normally reliable news sources like the BBC didn't even bother to report the event at all. As a friend of mine in Paris put it, local coverage in France of the Korean rally described it as "a bunch of rebellious farmers going wild about a trade agreement with the USA which they mistakenly believe will deprive them of income."

What we have here are gigantic protests by national trade unions in two of the world's most important industrialized countries, which are either being under-reported or mis-reported.

[...]

Lee, Eric. LabourStart. 16-Nov-2007.

Unions on the offensive

This election cycle is the most positive for unions in the US in recent memory. Candidates for president, notably John Edwards, are actively courting unions:

An effort to unionize dealers at Foxwoods Resort Casino got a boost Monday from members of Connecticut's congressional delegation and top elected officials.

They attended a rally at the state Capitol to back the United Auto Workers, which has petitioned the National Labor Relations Board seeking an election to form a union for about 3,000 dealers at Foxwoods Resort Casino.

[...]

"Isn't it great to be on the offense again?" Rep. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., asked participants at the rally.

Elected officials endorse UAW organizing drive at casino. The Advocate. 23-Oct-2007.

Union Busting USA

As union membership in the United States declines, support for unions continues to rise. A recent Gallup Poll shows that although union membership has declined to 12% of the working population in the US, 60% of Americans support unions and would join one given the chance (Unions garner public approval, Randolf Heaster, Kansas City Star).

Although a paradox to the capitalist press, it seems quite obvious why this is so. More people than at any time in the past 35 years need unions, but aggressively anti-union tactics in the private sector have taken away or suppressed worker's rights to organize. This process has been greatly assisted by a mass media which is extremely hostile to organized labor across the board (newspapers, magazines, television, radio and movies). Finally, the linking of liberal and Democratic Party causes to organized labor has made labor's political agenda subservient to these other forces.

The private sector has a low 7.4% of workers organized (compared with 36.2% in the public sector). This is a direct result of the private sector routinely breaking labor laws, using intimidation tactics and firings, and all with a blind eye from the so-called Department of Labor - more of a joke than ever under the Bush administration.

From an article by Cosmo Garvin in Union Review:

As a rule, they don't shoot workers in the fields and at the loading docks anymore [as long as they are white Americans, workers in the US and throughout Latin America are frequently beaten, forced to live in labor camps, held in slave-like conditions, and even murdered - RiR]. This Labor Day, we can all be thankful for that. But trying to form a union can make your life miserable still.

Just ask Gene Esparza, a forklift driver who’s been with Blue Diamond, the international almond exporter headquartered here in downtown Sacramento, since 1969. That’s 38 years. Esparza makes $15.45 an hour, and he pays $500 a month for health insurance for himself, his wife and his two kids.

Esparza is among the workers trying to organize a union at Blue Diamond. “We’re not trying to hurt the company,” he says, “but I’ve got a family to raise. My kids want milk in their cereal. I need to put gas in the car.” He said he hadn’t gotten a raise for 15 years, until the International Longshore and Warehouse Union started helping workers organize a union in 2004. For Esparza and other plant workers, unionization is a no-brainer. But the campaign has been bitter.

The company sends out regular anti-union memos and makes attendance to meetings with supervisors about the union mandatory. Bosses constantly dog workers to make sure they aren’t talking about union business, Esparza claims. “I’ve had bosses come up to me and ask me who I was talking to, how many minutes I was talking to them for. Every time that happens I whip out my little notebook and I say 'I feel you are harassing me right now.’

“There are a lot of people who aren’t very happy. The morale is low. And some people won’t talk to me anymore because they are afraid they are being watched,” Esparza said.

Union Review: Holding All the Cards

With the structural crisis in capital coming to a head over the housing crisis, it is only a matter of time before workers will turn to themselves and form unions to protect their interests.

Its time to fight for union rights now and to break the stranglehold capital has on our work and our lives.

Its time to force the government to enforce its own good labor laws and repeal the bad ones (such as the egregious Taylor Law in New York State, a favorite of Democratic governor Elliot Spitzer).

Its time for a socialist alternative, a true friend of labor, instead of the two-headed capitalist duopoly of the Democrats and Republicans, which has worked tirelessly and brutally to deny the rights of working people for over 150 years.

IWW Organizing NYC Warehouses

IWW steps up while "big labor" languishes:

Members of the Industrial Workers of the World, organizers at New York warehouses were sacked over the festive period, in retaliation for their successful unionizing drive...

This week owners from four different warehouses illegally threatened to call immigration or terminate union workers due to their immigration status in clear retaliation for the workers' union activities. Tuesday's march and picket will target Amersino Marketing Group, 161 Gardner Ave, Brooklyn, NY.

Over the last year and half, food distribution warehouse workers in northern Brooklyn and Queens have organized a union with the IWW. The campaign has met with resounding success: workers have organized in five different warehouses, several of which have been certified in National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections, they have forced their bosses towards full compliance with wage and hour laws, and they have won several major wage and hour violation cases while still other complaints totaling more than $100,000 have been filed with the Department of Labor.

Thanks to the efforts of the Food Industry and Allied Workers Union, workers have witnessed an increasing number of bosses abide by minimum wage and overtime laws across the food distribution industry. As a result of their successes, workers have met escalating employer opposition. While this week's coordinated threats by warehouse owners regarding workers' immigration status may be their trump card, it represents only the latest in a series of unsavory maneuvers designed to hamper the union drive.

Last year, Amersino owner Yu Q "Henry" Wang, who has robbed workers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages, responded to workers exercising their lawful right to organize by threatening workers, deceitfully rigging an NLRB union election, and firing union leaders.

Lester Wen, owner of the restaurant wholesaler EZ-Supply, refused to bargain in good faith after workers won an NLRB union election almost a year ago. In response, the union has put pressure on EZ-Supply by targeting its customers ­ restaurants in park slope, the upper west side and the village ­ and convincing them to switch to other companies. At the end of November, the union and Mr. Wen's lawyer reached a tentative agreement on a landmark contract, with workers winning wage increases, a grievance procedure, paid time off and much more ( http://www.iww.org/en/node/3052). On December 26, 2006, in a shockingly crass maneuver, Lester "the Grinch" Wen and his lackeys reneged on the agreement reached in negotiations and illegally threatened workers regarding their immigration status. In response, workers walked off the job in a wildcat strike and only returned after the union assured them that legal action would be taken.

The IWW Food Industry and allied Workers Union calls on the owners of EZ-Supply, Amersino, Handyfat, and Top City Produce to cease its anti-union activities, reinstate fired workers, and to negotiate contract with the union in good faith. The legal institutions in NYC must act immediately to secure the rights of workers to organize and protect workers from the unlawful retaliatory activities of employers in the food industry.

http://www.iww.org/en/node/3120

First Labour Union Formed at Chinese Wal-Mart Store

Illustration from DesignWorks

From the AP, via KFSM:

BEIJING -- An official Chinese news agency says the first labor union at a Wal-Mart store in China has been formed following a lobbying campaign by the country's official union group. The official Xinhua News Agency reported today that 30 employees at a Wal-Mart store in the southeastern city of Quanzhou, in Fujian province, voted Saturday to form a union.

The news agency said a 29-year-old employee named Ke Yunlong was elected chairman of its seven-member committee.

The official All-China Federation of Trade Unions has been lobbying Wal-Mart tores Inc. for two years to organize employees of its 60 stores in China. The federation had accused the company of obstructing its efforts.

Wal-Mart opened its first Chinese outlet in 1996 and says it has 28,000 employees in China. It says it plans to add 18 to 20 stores on the mainland this year. Phone calls today to Wal-Mart's China headquarters in the southern city of Shenzhen weren't answered.

Mexico: Striking Teachers Victorious Versus Anti-Labor Crackdown

I've been totally out of it for a while when it comes to news about mass movements, so this is a little late, but this is an amazing example of recent mass action:

OAXACA, MEXICO, June 17 — The strike of 70,000 teachers in Oaxaca State, which began May 22, erupted into an all-out battle with the fascist police at 4:00 AM on June 14 when the state’s governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz ordered 1,500 Federal cops, waiting on the city’s outskirts, to attack a massive encampment in the city’s center. The workers fought back with stones, clubs and whatever they could lay their hands on in confronting the helmeted cops armed with clubs and using shields, aided by a helicopter spraying tear gas at the encamped strikers and their supporters. Despite all that force, the cops were defeated, sent running like whipped dogs.

However, this criminal government action killed two women teachers and two children. One pregnant teacher lost her baby, another teacher lost an eye, many were wounded and other arrested. Although the encampment was destroyed, many police were beaten and several taken hostage. Then the workers, armed with clubs and using school buses as battering rams against the cops, retook the plaza and reconstructed their encampment. Two days later a "mega-march" brought out 300,000 teachers and their supporters, demanding the Governor’s resignation.

The strikers have also blockaded the city’s airport, destroyed political campaign posters, and delivered the "remains" of the city’s new parking meters to the doorstep of the state capitol building.

Complete story at Challenge, organ of the Revolutionary Communist Peoples Labor Party.

Anti-Unionism is the Date Rape of Corporate Crime

This was posted some time ago at the TPM House of Labor blog, but I just reread it and thought it clever and on target, so am reposting it:

Even most liberals deny anti-union crime is widespread or deny that it's even a serious crime at all and anyways the folks doing it are such swell people, we can't expect us to like treat them like criminals, do you? If unions have been decimated in American workplaces, it's must really be their fault-- they must have been asking for it. You know, when you wear such pretty medical care and pension funds, employers are just being normal, red-blooded capitalists when they wipe out unions to get at them.

Anti-Unionism is the Date Rape of Corporate Crime
7-Dec-2005, Nathan Newman

Union Plus!

I just ran across this cool resource. Union Plus is a program of the AFL-CIO offering great discounts to union members on a variety of products. Their site states:

Our organization designs programs that help union members enjoy life at a great price. By using the collective buying power of unions, we are able to offer a variety of high quality, discounted products and services exclusively to working families.

The AFL-CIO created Union Privilege in 1986 to provide AFL-CIO union members and their families with valuable consumer benefits. With Union Plus benefits, your union membership "pays" at work and at home.

I think this is pretty cool and a great resource to find companies that are union friendly, even if you are not able to take advantage of the discounts.

Check it out: www.unionplus.org

IWW Organizes 10 Starbucks

A bit late, but I wanted to post on the IWW victory versus Starbucks. On March 8, 2006, the IWW reports that:

The IWW Starbucks Workers Union won a watershed victory yesterday in the first National Labor Relations Board conflict over unfair labor practices between the world's largest coffee chain and the baristas who work there. Faced with the prospect of having its widespread union-busting campaign exposed in a public hearing, Starbucks agreed to remedy all of the myriad violations committed against workers who have organized a union.

[...]

The NLRB complaint against Starbucks which resulted in this settlement outlined a widespread anti-union effort that extended to upper level management, including a Starbucks Senior Vice President. Fifteen Starbucks employees were named in the complaint.

Thanks to Puritan City for their post on this story. I'm kicking myself for not buying some IWW Starbucks Union T-shirts when I was in The City.

Links:

• IWW Press Release: http://www.starbucksunion.org
  
• Full Text of U.S. Gov't Settlement with Starbucks: http://www.starbucksunion.org
• Workers Independent News: Audio on Settlement: http://www.laborradio.org (second segment)

Cingular Wireless Union

Johnathan Tasini over at Working Life made this inspiring post about Cingluar which I felt compelled to repost here. Thanks John! Keep up the good work.

Check out today's front-page story in the biz section of The New York Times on the Communications Workers of America's success at organizing Cingular Wireless. The main reason for the success is obvious: Cingular has agreed to be neutral in organizing drives. Indeed, that's even more obvious when you consider that of the 225,000 workers in the wireless industry--according to the Times--just 39,000 are union, virtually all of them at Cingular.

Here are the grafs we should all keep in mind to spread far and wide:

Cingular's wireless competitors have fought, at times fiercely, against unionization, arguing that an organized labor force would hobble their ability to move workers, cut costs and make changes necessary to compete in a high-tech industry. They often assert that unions ultimately hurt the workers they claim to protect.

But the growth of Cingular into the nation's largest wireless carrier — with a nearly fully unionized labor force — has challenged those assumptions and given a new spark to organized labor, said Harry C. Katz, dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.

"The fact Cingular does well even in the face of unionization helps rebut the argument that unions aren't viable in a technologically sophisticated and dynamic industry," Mr. Katz said.

The rest of the story is here.

So, if you're not a Cingular customer yet (yours truly is), switch today and tell the company you are leaving you're doing so because Cingular is union--and tell Cingular why you're signing up.