I haven’t done one in a while, really not much labor news out there. With all the other things happening.
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The labor movement’s pundits and prognosticators ring in the New Year like commentators anywhere. They make pronouncements about what “will” happen and what “should” happen to revitalize the shrinking U.S. trade union movement.
At 6.2 percent density in the private sector, U.S. unions aren’t even treading water; we are drowning. That makes it more imperative than ever to engage members to strengthen connections between our union struggles and build broader public support.
The best opportunity to involve union members in 2021 will be through the large-scale collective bargaining agreements that are due to expire this year. Economic struggles remain the center of gravity for the U.S. working class and its organized members in particular. An analysis of the collective bargaining calendar points us in the direction of where those struggles are most likely to occur.
This year, 450 collective bargaining agreements covering more than 200 union members apiece will expire, according to Bloomberg, which maintains the most comprehensive database of expiring agreements outside of the AFL-CIO. Of these, 160 agreements cover more than 1,000 workers.
These 450 contracts, involving more than a million and a half workers, are an ideal opportunity for the labor movement to showcase our power and the advantages of collective bargaining.
This is such an important issue that got shoved a bit to the side under health care and covid. and i fear that we will not rebuild our own manufacturing and all kinds of things, and thus unions, under Joe. Or we will grasp at a few feel good things so Joe can love unions, but the larger buildup of the country, which really gives life to unions, may not happen.
The situation has recently gotten even worse in Colombia—already the world’s most dangerous place to be a union member.
Right now social movement leaders, union members, and participants in the peace process are being killed at a rate of more than one victim per day. With the restrictions and curfews related to the coronavirus, death squads can more easily find their targets at their homes, and have even massacred entire families.
One of the labor organizations that has suffered the highest levels of violence and forced displacement in Colombia is FENSUAGRO, the National Federation of Agricultural Unions, which was created to unite the labor movement and the farmworkers movement.
FENSUAGRO advocates for the rights of farmworkers, laborers, and rural indigenous and Afro-Colombian people. It fights for comprehensive redistribution of farmland and for the basic right to live and work on rural land, which has been kept from these communities for far too long.
The Colombian government has never fulfilled its commitment to honor the land rights of peasant farmers, the indigenous, and Afro-Colombians. Today it prioritizes the privatization of land for the benefit of agribusinesses, large-scale landowners, transnational extraction (such as mining and oil), and narco-traffickers. Using land for small-scale farming is not of any interest to the state.
The union’s efforts have been fruitful, but have been met with unrelenting violence. Since its inception in the early ’80s, FENSUAGRO has been brutally targeted by military and paramilitary forces. Rural families have been forcibly displaced by threats and violence with little protection from the government.
Traditionally, rural, Afro-Colombian, and indigenous families have worked plots for generations, more often than not without land titles. Big agribusinesses, cattle ranchers, transnational corporations, and wealthy landowners have been able to claim land that is not theirs by acquiring titles through a legal system farming families have no access to. FENSUAGRO has long fought for reforms that would correct this situation.
The union also represents workers in agricultural industries. Roughly half its members are family farmers, and the other half are farm workers. Between 2016 and 2020, 38 FENSUAGRO members were murdered.
Maya Hernández of the Alliance for Global Justice spoke last month with Elsa Nury Martínez Silva, a longtime farmworker activist and the current president of FENSUAGRO, about the union’s efforts to gain autonomy and help people live on the land that is rightfully theirs.
One multinational company is using Martin Luther King Day to issue a slap in the face to its union, undermining the very legacy of the civil rights leader.
Louisiana-based telecommunications giant Lumen Technologies (formerly CenturyLink) announced to its staff October 23 that it would be newly establishing a company holiday on MLK Day—but for non-union workers only.
The hypocrisy of leaving out 10,000 union workers on MLK Day was not well received by Anna Robbs, an African-American employee and union steward.
“How dare they?” she recalled thinking. “I just couldn’t wrap my head around how they could feel that there was diversity and inclusion and belonging when they were excluding the very people that Martin Luther King stood up for in terms of labor rights and worker rights.”
Robbs is also an executive board member of Communications Workers (CWA) Local 7777. With the help of her union, she decided to commemorate King’s legacy the right way—by fighting back against an unscrupulous corporation.
“Let’s go and get into some more good trouble,” she said.
Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death
Does capitalism come with racism or does racism come with capitalism?
The Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) is a major nonprofit that boasts of its more than 40 years of “tireless pursuit of justice for animals.” When it comes to the pursuit of justice for working humans, however, its own employees say that it is badly failing the test. In mid-December, ALDF’s employees told the organization’s management that they intended to unionize with the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, a division of the IFPTE. They presented signed union cards representing a “super majority” of the 54-person staff, and asked for the ALDF to voluntarily recognize their union. Such voluntary recognition has become standard in the nonprofit world — the NPEU says that of the 35 nonprofits it’s organized, only two have refused to recognize their unions. One of those two is the ALDF. According to employees and the NPEU, the ALDF responded to the news of the union drive by hiring the anti-union law firm Ogletree Deakins and embarking on a union-busting campaign that is now in full swing. That campaign has centered on an ongoing series of “captive audience meetings” in which managers gather employees in small groups to try to persuade them not to unionize, a tactic common among corporations intent on intimidating and misleading workers who seek to organize.
yeah, sadly, legal nonprofits doing a lot of probono, grant supported, etc. work are very high on burnouts. lawyers are not the most empathic people, on the whole, and those who do care about people as a whole are willing to work their staff to the bone to, in their minds, serve the larger cause.
I wouldn’t go that far. His favorite toy has feathers on it (one of those you can tease the pootie with) and he loves chasing it. However, he is getting into ornithological studies via the big windows in the house. 🙂
Today at 2pm ET! Join us for a special discussion on repealing the "Right to Work" Act with Our Revolution Virginia!
Featuring: Del. Lee Carter Del. @JoshuaCole Del. Sally Hudson, Joshua Armstead, Michelle Wooley, Virginia Diamond, Don Slaiman & MORE! https://t.co/QT9YYHsKDx
This was the scene inside and out side Madison when Walker busted the union 2011. I might add that the Protestors used painters tape to hang signs and the worst damaged caused was to the grass outside as it has to be replaced in some areas. their was no comparison in damage in the state capital compared to what the terrorists did in DC. On the outside pix you’d think Bernie was holding a rally
In 1934, San Francisco longshoremen – who were non-union since employers had crushed their union in 1919 – reorganized and led a coast-wide “Big Strike.”
In the throes of the Great Depression, these increasingly militant and radicalized dockworkers walked off the job. After 83 days on strike, they won a huge victory: wage increases, a coast-wide contract and union-controlled hiring halls.
Soon, these “wharf rats,” among the region’s poorest and most exploited workers, became “lords of the docks,” commanding the highest wages and best conditions of any blue-collar worker in the region.
At its inception, Local 10’s membership was 99 percent white. But Harry Bridges, the union’s charismatic leader, joined with fellow union radicals to commit to racial equality in its ranks.
Originally from Australia, Bridges started working on the San Francisco waterfront in the early 1920s. It was during the Big Strike that he emerged as a leader.
Bridges coordinated during the strike with C.L. Dellums, the leading black unionist in the Bay Area, and made sure the handful of black dockworkers would not cross picket lines as replacement workers. Bridges promised they would get a fair deal in the new union. One of the union’s first moves after the strike was integrating work gangs that previously had been segregated.
Local 10 overcame pervasive discrimination Cleophas Williams, a black man originally from Arkansas, was among those who got into Local 10 in 1944. He belonged to a wave of African-Americans who, due to the massive labor shortage caused by World War II, fled the racism and discriminatory laws of the Jim Crow South for better lives – and better jobs – outside of it. Hundreds of thousands of blacks moved to the Bay Area, and tens of thousands found jobs in the booming shipbuilding industry.
Black workers in shipbuilding experienced pervasive discrimination. Employers shunted them off into less attractive jobs and paid them less. Similarly, the main shipbuilders’ union proved hostile to black workers who, when allowed in, were placed in segregated locals.
A few thousand black men, including Williams, were hired as longshoremen during the war. He later recalled to historian Harvey Schwartz: “When I first came on the waterfront, many black workers felt that Local 10 was a utopia.”
During the war, when white foremen and military officers hurled racist epithets at black longshoremen, this union defended them. Black members received equal pay and were dispatched the same as all others.
A gang of welders at the Marinship yard, Sausalito, California, in around 1943. National Park Service For Williams, this union was a revelation. Literally the first white people he ever met who opposed white supremacy belonged to Local 10. These longshoremen were not simply anti-racists, they were communists and socialists.
Leftist unions like the ILWU embraced black workers because, reflecting their ideology, they contended workers were stronger when united. They also knew that, countless times, employers had broken strikes and destroyed unions by playing workers of different ethnicities, genders, nationalities and races against each other. For instance, when 350,000 workers went out during the mammoth Steel Strike of 1919, employers brought in tens of thousands of African-Americans to work as replacements.
Some black dockworkers also were socialists. Paul Robeson, the globally famous singer, actor and left-wing activist had several friends, fellow socialists, in Local 10. Robeson was made an honorary ILWU member during WWII.
more at the link.
Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death
Very interesting. The name Dellums (“Bridges coordinated during the strike with C.L. Dellums, the leading black unionist in the Bay Area”) reminded me that we had a black congressman named Ron Dellums so I googled him. He was from the Bay Area also. I wonder if he’s related to this early black union organizer.
New Krystal Kyle & Friends with the amazing THOMAS FRANK! He’s one of my all time favorite writers. We talk populism, the future of the left & much more. Watch here (this is the last of the free videos — Audio podcast will always be free, subscribe here) https://t.co/3QSInGHjBt
https://labornotes.org/2021/01/swarming-solidarity-how-contract-negotiations-2021-could-be-flashpoints-us-class-struggle
This is such an important issue that got shoved a bit to the side under health care and covid. and i fear that we will not rebuild our own manufacturing and all kinds of things, and thus unions, under Joe. Or we will grasp at a few feel good things so Joe can love unions, but the larger buildup of the country, which really gives life to unions, may not happen.
the corpses love the China model too much.
https://labornotes.org/2021/01/interview-despite-escalating-assassinations-colombian-farmworker-union-fights-right-land
https://labornotes.org/blogs/2021/01/communications-workers-fight-telecom-giant-mlk-day
Does capitalism come with racism or does racism come with capitalism?
What came first – the chicken or the egg?
What an incredibly super-shitty thing to do.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/animal-legal-defense-fund-busting-union-labor
yeah, sadly, legal nonprofits doing a lot of probono, grant supported, etc. work are very high on burnouts. lawyers are not the most empathic people, on the whole, and those who do care about people as a whole are willing to work their staff to the bone to, in their minds, serve the larger cause.
The floor/ soap box is open.
Tip jar for @la58
I discovered this from a rose Tweeter:
lol. Makes me wonder how many other Ninos are out there with Nina as their namesake?
TPW’s el Nino!
must be a birdie loving kitty.
I wouldn’t go that far. His favorite toy has feathers on it (one of those you can tease the pootie with) and he loves chasing it. However, he is getting into ornithological studies via the big windows in the house. 🙂
i was just thinking that as the birdie nest kitty here…. :O)
and both fiery little things. :O)
When Michigan was about to pass RTW for less Law. I was in Lansing protesting against it.
Bravo la58!
✊✊✊✊👍😊
This was the scene inside and out side Madison when Walker busted the union 2011. I might add that the Protestors used painters tape to hang signs and the worst damaged caused was to the grass outside as it has to be replaced in some areas. their was no comparison in damage in the state capital compared to what the terrorists did in DC. On the outside pix you’d think Bernie was holding a rally
cool.
https://theconversation.com/martin-luther-king-jr-union-man-110004
more at the link.
Very interesting. The name Dellums (“Bridges coordinated during the strike with C.L. Dellums, the leading black unionist in the Bay Area”) reminded me that we had a black congressman named Ron Dellums so I googled him. He was from the Bay Area also. I wonder if he’s related to this early black union organizer.
good chance, i’d say. cool.
https://youtu.be/8L3MVSmEVE4
AOC was a guest on TRMS last night. Her appearance starts at about the 12 min mark in this video.
He should stick to X’s and O’s where he’s somewhat competent’ He’ll be the atypical R yes turtle i’ll vote yes on what ever you tell me to…
@liepardestin
Trumpism = Fascism so yes its an on going battle to keep it at bay. The scary part is when people wrap the flag around it and elect people to office
deleted. for some reason, the actual video didn’t show until i refreshed. ty
AOC TH