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RWDSU-UFCW Leads Organizing Drive at Amazon Fulfillment Center in Alabama

Leave a Comment / union mobilizing, unions / By max cyril

The strongest effort to create a union at Amazon in many years is underway in Bessemer, Alabama. Organizers with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union-UFCW (RWDSU-UFCW) have been working with employees at the Amazon fulfillment center. By December, more than 2,000 workers had signed union cards, leading to an election set to begin in February. …

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Union Density Went Up Last Year! Don’t Get Too Excited.

Leave a Comment / Pandemic, unions / By max cyril

Last week, labor unions got some uncommonly good news: The government’s annual survey showed that union density in America actually rose by a full half point in 2020, a rare reversal of a long-term trend of decline. Should unions be celebrating their work? Actually, no! Union density?—?the percentage of working people who are union members?—?has been broadly declining for decades. At its …

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Chicago Teachers Are Showing the Country How to Fight an Unsafe Reopening

Leave a Comment / Strike, Teachers / By max cyril

As Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot presses ahead with a controversialplan to reopen elementary schools next Monday, the 25,000-member Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) may be headed into its third strike since 2012. Closed since March because of the coronavirus crisis, K?8 schools are set to resume in-person classes on February 1, with parents having the option of sending their children back …

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How the Deep Roots of Farm Labor Solidarity Helped Wisconsin Survive the Pandemic

Leave a Comment / Farm Workers, unions / By max cyril

When Covid-19 forced Wisconsin to shut down in late March last year, supply shocks to the agricultural industry delivered a staggering blow to family farmers, many of whom have long teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. Decades of consolidation and monopolization have made the industry inflexible to changes in demand brought about by school, restaurant and commercial closures. Processing …

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In a Six-Day Strike, Bronx Produce Workers Doubled Their Raise and Inspired New York

Leave a Comment / Strike, unions / By max cyril

Drivers and warehouse workers who feed New York City have won their strike. After six days off the job, the strikers at Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx ratified a contract that doubled management’s wage offer and defeated a health care cost increase. The 1,400 workers at the world’s largest wholesale produce market, members …

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The Two Things Unions Traded Away That Handed Workers to Trump

Leave a Comment / President Trump, unions / By max cyril

This is a response to the cover story of In These Times’ January issue, ?“Are Trump Voters a Lost Cause?” Thank you for printing ?“Are Trump Voters a Lost Cause?” and thanks to Mindy Isser for writing it. I offer a different perspective. It is intended to continue a discussion, not to end one. Youngstown, Ohio used to be one of the major steelmaking communities in …

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Biden continues using executive power to help working people

Leave a Comment / Buy American Act, economy / By max cyril

President Joe Biden will sign an executive order strengthening Buy American policies on Monday. While such provisions, which encourage federal agencies to buy U.S.-made products, already exist, they’re filled with loopholes and haven’t always been followed. “Existing Buy American rules establish a domestic content threshold—the amount of a product that must be made in the U.S. for …

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With Minimum Wage Victory in Reach, The Fight for $15 Vows Bigger Things to Come

Leave a Comment / MinimumWage, unions / By max cyril

After nearly a decade of activism, the Fight for $15 stands closer than ever to achieving its most visible goal: a $15 federal minimum wage. Leaders of the campaign, however, say that their work is only beginning. “The next two years is the biggest window [of opportunity] we’ve had in my 40 years in the labor movement,” says Mary Kay Henry, …

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Biden signs executive orders aimed at combating hunger, protecting workers

Leave a Comment / Pandemic, President Biden / By max cyril

President Joe Biden signed two executive orders on Friday aimed at fighting hunger, protecting American workers and providing economic relief to families whose jobs and livelihoods have been destroyed by the coronavirus pandemic. The measures ask agencies across the government to expand, extend and at times re-examine guidelines to find ways to provide further aid …

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Essential food workers strike over $1 in New York City, this week in the war on workers

Leave a Comment / Strike, unions / By max cyril

Remember back in April when everyone suddenly realized that food chain workers are essential workers? A group of workers in the Bronx is trying to make good on that realization as they negotiate their next contract—and it’s led to a strike, as the bosses at the Hunts Point Produce Market refuse the workers’ call for …

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Author name: max cyril