On Thursday, Elizabeth Warren released her long-awaited labor platform, titled “Empowering American Workers and Raising Wages.” The plan provides unions with a long wish list of badly needed reforms and new powers. It also makes a solid case that, like Bernie Sanders, she would be the labor movement’s biggest booster in the White House in …
The Powerful New Idea in Elizabeth Warren’s Labor Platform Read More »
At universities across the country, graduate student workers perform essential labor. We teach classes, grade exams and assignments, tutor and mentor undergraduates, maintain labs, and perform clerical duties. Some 66,000 graduate employees at over 30 universities in the United States are currently represented by unions and protected through collective bargaining agreements, because public-sector labor laws in many …
Graduate Workers Are Going to Fight Like Hell to Stop the Trump NLRB’s New Rule Read More »
Two months after Amazon warehouse workers across the globe staged a one-day strike, the great “disruptor” is facing another workplace disruption—this time by tech workers at its Seattle headquarters. The group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice announced this week that it would join the September 20 Global Climate Strike led by 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg. The employees …
Amazon Worker: Why We’re Bringing the Climate Strike to Jeff Bezos Read More »
On August 24, members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555 overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike for 20,000 grocery employees at Safeway, Albertsons, QFC and Fred Meyer locations in the Pacific Northwest. That move came roughly two months after members of the union voted to authorize a strike for about 46,000 grocery employees in southern and central …
The Next Wave of Labor Unrest Could Be in Grocery Stores Read More »
We were just handed a wake-up call. Newly released numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics project that six of the ten occupations expected to have the most total job growth over the next decade pay less than $27,000 a year. Three of those six are low-paying jobs in the restaurant industry. Even more striking …
The Future of U.S. Jobs Looks Bleak. Unions Are the Answer. Read More »
Will America finally grant its workers First Amendment rights? The Constitution guarantees “freedom of speech,” the right to “peaceably assemble,” and the right to petition for “a redress of grievances.” Yet these civil rights are commonly denied to workers. Sure, we can say what we want, but we pay a high price to speak — …
Giant balloons apparently terrify Peter Robb, who is Donald Trump’s hand-picked general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Big balloons shaped like rats, cats, pigs and cockroaches so frighten Robb that he has used his office to take extraordinary steps to outlaw them. He won’t criminalize the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. The …
There’s a lot to talk about on Labor Day, but we should take at least a moment to really acknowledge the difference unions make in the lives of working people in this country. Even after decades under assault from the bosses and the Republicans, even representing too few workers, unions boost their members—and not only …
Labor Day often gets short shrift as a worker’s holiday. Marked primarily by sales on patio furniture and mattresses, the day also has a more muddled history than May Day, which stands for internationalism and solidarity among the working class. Labor Day, by contrast, was declared a federal holiday in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland, …
From Victories to Union Militancy, 5 Reasons for Workers to Celebrate This Labor Day Read More »
Not many museums have mounted a collection of photographs and ephemera that chronicle the history of worker organizing and the labor movement. That’s not surprising. Museums and their special exhibits are underwritten by foundations, corporations and the very rich—funders that, by and large, are not known for their concern for those who toil for a …
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.
