“The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress.” The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said that in 1965, and African Americans still hear his quote ring. A new report, Blacks in Unions: 2012, by the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Labor Research and Education, finds that black workers are 19% more …
On February 19, 2006, an explosion in a coal mine in northern Mexico known as Pasta de Conchos trapped 65 miners. The accident became a milestone in the career of Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, general secretary of the National Mining and Metal Workers Union (known as Los Mineros), who accused Grupo México—the mine’s owner—and the government of having ignored complaints about safety conditions at the …
The National Farm Workers’ Confederation (CNC) and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada signed a historic agreement to ensure the rights of migrant agriculture workers are protected and defended in Mexico, Canada and the United States, reports UFCW Canada. The agreement, which was signed last week, will result in better conditions for migrant Mexican agriculture …
UFCW Canada and Mexico’s Farm Workers Sign Historic Agreement Read More »
Locked-out workers at American Crystal Sugar plants in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa will soon be returning to work after they ratified a contract late last week. The company locked out 1,300 workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM), in August 2011. John Riskey, BCTGM Local 167G, said: This means …
Last June, Cablevision workers in the Bronx voted against joining the Communications Workers of America by a landslide, with 43 workers voting in favor of unionization and 121 workers voting against it. Now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) says that it plans to file a complaint against Cablevision, accusing the company of engaging in illegal conduct …
President Obama announced three nominations to the National Labor Relations Board Tuesday: His new nominees include two Republicans, lawyers Harry I. Johnson, III and Philip A. Miscimarra, and he also renominated Democrat Mark Gaston Pearce, who is currently serving on the board.“With these nominations there will be five nominees to the NLRB, both Republicans and Democrats, awaiting …
I was honored to be in New York City yesterday supporting Wendy’s workers take to the streets for a living wage. They joined hundreds of workers in other fast-food joints across New York City for the largest strike the fast-food industry had ever seen. Their argument is simple: every worker deserves a living wage. And they understood the best way …
New York City Fast-Food Workers: Everyone Deserves a Living Wage Read More »
Real-life nannies have never had much in common with Fran Drescher’s “flashy girl from Flushing.” The domestic workforce is overwhelmingly composed of women of color, many of them immigrants. Care workers often labor for long hours under grueling conditions. In many states, they lack even basic workplace protections, a result of their exclusion from collective …
If you think you don’t see much coverage of unions on national television news, you’re not wrong. A new study finds that, over a three-year period, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN aired just 141 stories in which unions and the labor movement were either the primary or secondary topic. That’s out of an estimated 16,000 news stories …
No surprise: TV news coverage omits union stories and union voices Read More »
Harry Kelber, a union activist for nearly 80 years who was never shy about criticizing the union movement’s leadership—constructively, he maintained—died Sunday in New York. He was 98. On his 98th birthday in June, Kelber had announced he planned to run for the AFL-CIO presidency at the federation’s upcoming September convention. During the Depression, Kelber …
Harry Kelber, Labor Activist and Critic, Dies at 98 Read More »
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.
