I hope you’re all doing something to commemorate Workers Memorial Day — even if your own personal moment of silence and commitment to do more this coming year to ensure that workers come home safe and healthy at the end of the workday. Last night I was interviewed on Houston’s KPFT “Voices at Work” radio …
My Workers Memorial Day: Fight for Your Union, Fight for Your Lives Read More »
More than a year after graduate students at Columbia University voted to unionize with the United Automobile Workers, hundreds of students participated in a walkout Tuesday to protest the university’s refusal to bargain with them. The students plan to stage a week-long strike during what is the university’s most hectic time, when students and professors are …
Nine political campaigns have unionized ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, and one major political firm, Revolution Messaging, joined them this week, according to a BuzzFeed report Tuesday. Revolution Messaging workers join a number of unionized campaign staffs, all of whom work for progressive Democratic candidates whose campaigns run the gamut from local county council races …
All signs point to a messy battle in the 2020 Democratic primaries, pitting establishment types against democratic socialists. Thanks to an effort spearheaded largely by Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaigners, the staffers for a few 2018 Congressional candidates could be pioneering a new litmus test for determining candidates’ progressive credentials: Do they recognize their employees’ union? …
3 Democratic Campaigns Now Have Staff Unions. Why Not More? Read More »
Today’s “Workers’ Day of Action,” organized by AFL-CIO affiliates and labor groups, aimed to show the labor movement’s opposition to a verdict for the plaintiffs in Janus v. AFSCME, which begins oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Monday. Unions fear their power will be diminished if the Court rules against AFSCME, as it is expected to do, and …
West Virginia Teachers Are Showing How Unions Can Win Power Even If They Lose Janus Read More »
Unionized workers and their allies held rallies across the country Saturday to support unions in advance of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that could significantly weaken the power of organized labor. Workers are attending rallies as part of a “working people’s day of action.” There’s a rally in Foley Square in New York City, a street party …
Union workers rally ahead of major Supreme Court case Read More »
Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. joined the sanitation strikers in Memphis, Tennessee, who carried signs that boldly proclaimed “I Am a Man,” at a time when many employers rejected that very notion. King and the working people of Memphis fought for the freedom to join together in unions and to be treated with …
In Janus Case, Working People Continue Fight Championed by Martin Luther King Jr. Read More »
Disney got some positive press for saying it would give its workers a $1,000 tax cut bonus—but it’s using the bonus to try to force some of its lower-paid workers to accept a bad deal at the bargaining table. The entertainment giant carefully specified that the bonuses would go to union workers “currently working under existing union …
Disney is using ‘tax cut bonus’ to try to force union workers to accept low pay Read More »
Janus v. AFSCME, which begins oral arguments on February 26, is the culmination of a years-long right-wing plot to financially devastate public-sector unions. And a Supreme Court ruling against AFSCME would indeed have that effect, by banning public-sector unions from collecting mandatory fees from the workers they are compelled to represent. But if the Court …
This is somewhat unexpected: overall union membership rose by 262,000 workers in 2017, while union density stayed at 10.7 percent. The Economic Policy Institute’s Lawrence Mishel warns against reading too much into the numbers, but pulls out the following interesting data points: Union membership became more common among men: some 32 percent of the net increase in …
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
