During a national union hall meeting, CWA President Larry Cohen urged members to join the fight to make the National Relations Board functional again. Cohen told the 10,000 CWAers participating in the union’s monthly teleconference that Republican Senators are blocking the nominations of NLRB board members, which in effect, has caused the work of the […]
Read moreAmazon.com workers go on strike in Germany
May 17, 2013 
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Amazon.com workers in Germany staged a one-day strike on Wednesday, May 15 to demand that the company increase wages and improve benefits. The workers are members of the Germany service union Ver. di. The union had negotiated an industry-wide agreement with representatives of Germany’s retail and mail order businesses. The agreement sets standard wages, benefits, and […]
Read moreUnions, community unite to keep Chicago schools open
May 15, 2013 0 Comments
Parents, teachers, clergy, and community members in Chicago announced that they plan to hold Civil Rights era style marches on three days beginning May 18 to protest the proposed closure of 54 neighborhood schools by Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. During the three days, simultaneous marches beginning from the city’s South and West […]
Read moreFast food strikes roll across US
May 13, 2013 0 Comments
The largest walkout yet of fast food workers took place on Friday in Detroit when about 400 workers at restaurants like McDonald’s, Long John Silver’s, Burger King, and others joined the wave of fast food strikes that began in New York and has spread westward. “The growth of this entire thing has been quite organic,” said […]
Read moreTexas pension bill improved after union mobilizations; more work to be done
May 10, 2013 0 Comments
Late Thursday night, the Texas House of representatives postponed action on a bill that would have cut pension benefits for future state employees and raised employee and state contributions to the Texas Employees Retirement System (ERS) pension fund. The original version of the bill, CSHB 1882, would have cut pension benefits that had already been […]
Read moreLongshore worker lockout escalates
May 8, 2013 0 Comments
The lockout of longshore workers in the Pacific Northwest expanded on Saturday when Columbia Grain joined another multinational grain trader in locking out members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union at the company’s grain terminal in Portland. The company said that a slow down conducted by ILWU Local 8 members prompted the lockout. A local union leader […]
Read moreTexas workers join UAW
May 6, 2013 0 Comments
Workers at the Flex-N-Gate plant in Arlington, Texas on May Day voted overwhelmingly to join the UAW. Nearly 70 percent of the 73 workers eligible to vote in the union representation election voted for the union. The UAW represents 40 percent Flex-N-Gate workers in the US and is currently conducting organizing campaigns at several of […]
Read moreAustin taxi drivers join AFL-CIO
May 3, 2013 0 Comments
The Taxi Drivers Association of Austin (TDAA) announced recently that it has received a charter from the National Taxi Worker Alliance, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. The Austin taxi drivers are classified as independent contractors and thus are barred from engaging in collective bargaining, but they think that joining organized labor will give them added […]
Read moreRace to the bottom making work less safe
May 1, 2013 0 Comments
The race to the bottom turned to tragedy last week when an eight-story building housing garment factories near Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed and killed hundreds of workers. The deadly collapse occurred on the week prior to April 28, Workers Memorial Day, the day that workers around the world commemorate comrades killed on the job. From the garment factories of Bangladesh […]
Read moreUnion: Proposed Texas pension changes break promise to public employees
April 29, 2013 0 Comments
Members of the Texas State Employees Union CWA Local 6186 staged a mass call-in to protest the lowering of their pension and health care benefit proposed by two bills that were recently passed out of the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee and House Pension Committee. The two bills–CSHB 1882 and CSHB 1884–increase the age at […]
Read moreHong Kong dockers seek international support for their strike
April 24, 2013 0 Comments
Dock workers in Hong Kong called for international support for their strike against Asia’s richest billionaire. The Union of Hong Kong Dockers (UHKD) and the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions on April 22 urged working-class organizations and individuals to show their solidarity with the dock workers by organizing protests at businesses owned by Hutchinson […]
Read moreTeachers union report exposes pension double dealing by hedge funds
April 23, 2013 0 Comments
The American Federation of Teachers on April 19 released a report identifying hedge fund and private equity firms and their managers who appear to be working both sides of the divide between those who want to maintain and strengthen traditional public pension plans and those who want to destroy them. These asset managers solicit business […]
Read moreLabor, other activists rally for Robin Hood Tax
April 22, 2013 0 Comments
About 2,000 labor, social justice, and other activists on April 20 rallied in Washington DC urging Congress to pass HR 1579, the Inclusive Prosperity Act by Rep. Keith Ellison. The Inclusive Prosperity Act would establish a small tax on financial transactions that would generate billions of dollars in new revenue that could be invested in public projects that rebuild America […]
Read moreMetropolitan organizing strategy seeks to build union power for adjunct faculty
April 19, 2013 2 Comments
Higher education institutions across the US are relying more on a contingent workforce of instructors; these adjunct instructors work for low pay, have few benefits, and even less job security. Organizing adjunct instructors to win better pay and working conditions was the topic of a recent symposium in Boston sponsored by SEIU. The symposium, attended by about […]
Read moreWalmart, other US retailers decide not compensate victims of Bangladesh garment factory fire
April 17, 2013 0 Comments
European retailers on April 15 met with Bangladesh union leaders, staff from the Clean Clothes Campaign, and representatives of IndustriALL Global Union in Geneva Switzerland to discuss details of how much the retailers will pay into a compensation fund for the victims of last November’s fire at the Tazreen Designs garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh that killed 112 workers […]
Read moreTeamster unfair labor practices strike spreads
April 15, 2013 0 Comments
An ufair labor practices strike by Republic/Allied Waste landfill workers in Youngstown, Ohio spread to five other Republic facilities in Ohio cities on April 15. Meanwhile in McDonough, Georgia another group of Republic workers began their own unfair labor practices strike. “I’m on strike because I’m sick of this $8 billion company breaking the law to intimidate and […]
Read moreTexas State Employees Union fights for the public good in higher education
April 9, 2013 0 Comments
Members of the Texas State Employees Union CWA Local 6186 University Caucus are urging the public to join their Fund Our Future campaign by signing their online petition at Change.org. The campaign is aimed at making the public good rather than private interest the primary goal of higher education in the state. “For decades now private […]
Read moreMiners march for fairness at Patriot Coal
April 5, 2013 0 Comments
More than 7,000 people marched through the streets of Charlestown, West Virginia to protest Patriot Coal’s attempt to eliminate health care benefits for retirees and to reduce wages, benefits, and working conditions for Patriot’s union miners. Sixteen people including seven rank and file United Mine Workers of America members and UMWA President Cecil Roberts were arrested after […]
Read moreTexas State Employees Union mobilizes members for a pension increase
April 3, 2013 0 Comments
Members of the Texas State Employees Union CWA Local 6186 staged a mass call-in to members to the Texas House Appropriations Committee to urge them to support HB 2395, which would fully fund the pension fund for state employees and give state retirees a much needed cost-of-living pension increase, something they haven’t had since 2001. “Unfortunately, […]
Read moreChicago school closings met with civil disobedience
March 31, 2013 0 Comments
Thousands of people filled Daley Plaza outside of Chicago’s City Hall to protest the proposed closing of 53 elementary schools. About 120 members of SEIU Local 1, UNITE HERE Local 1, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), the Grassroots Education Movement, and other community organizations sat down in front of City Hall to protest the closings and were arrested. “When […]
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