As contract negotiations between Verizon Communication on the East Coast and its unions entered the last week before the contract expires on August 6, the Communication Workers of America announced that 91 percent of its voting members authorized CWA leaders to call a strike if an agreement between the two sides can’t be reached. The […]
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Archive | July, 2011
IKEA workers in Virginia win union election
July 28, 2011 
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Workers at the Swedwood furniture plant in Danville, Virginia yesterday voted overwhelmingly in favor of union representation. Of the 290 workers who voted in the representation election, 221, or 76 percent, voted for the International Association of Machinists (IAM). Swedwood is a wholly owned subsidiary of IKEA, the multinational retail furniture chain, and the Swedwood factory […]
Read moreUNITE HERE’s day of action shines light on hotel chain’s abuses
July 27, 2011 0 Comments
Vowing not to suffer in silence, Hyatt housekeepers, other Hyatt workers, and their supporters on July 21 staged a day of action in nine cities in the US to call attention to the lack of job safety at Hyatt hotels and to protest the company’s cost-cutting business strategy that eliminates jobs of veteran Hyatt employees and replaces them with temporary, minimum wage staff. “Hyatt […]
Read moreHistoric strike by Palestinian workers enters second month
July 26, 2011 0 Comments
It has been over a month now that Palestinian workers at the Salit Quarries in the Israeli occupied West Bank voted to go on strike after management balked at signing a collective bargaining agreement negotiated in April. The strike is the culmination of an historic organizing campaign: It’s the first attempt ever by Palestinian workers to organize […]
Read moreVerizon tells workers and investors two different stories about business prospects
July 22, 2011 0 Comments
Bargaining resumed this week between Verizon and the two union that represent Verizon workers on the East Coast from Virginia to New England, CWA and IBEW. CWA reports that Verizon continues to demand health care and other major concessions because the company ”tell us that they are in a death spiral as a company, and we need to accept […]
Read moreUnions resist retaliation; Repbulican lawmakers seek to facilitate it
July 20, 2011 0 Comments
Republicans in the US House have drafted a bill that would undermine the National Labor Relations Board’s ability to enforce laws that prevent companies from retaliating against union members who participate in legal job actions. The bill was drafted as the NLRB pursues in court a complaint against Boeing for moving work to a non-union shop in retaliation […]
Read moreBrooklyn theater reprises working class musical with a twist
July 19, 2011 0 Comments
Nearly seventy-four years ago, a troupe of Jewish-American and Italian-American mostly women garment workers took to the stage in New York City to perform Pins and Needles, a musical revue that features songs and comedy sketches that satirize the economic, social, and political institutions that created and perpetuated the Great Depression and celebrate the everyday lives and loves of […]
Read moreRail unions try to stop tentative agreement from becoming industry pattern
July 18, 2011 0 Comments
United Transportation Union (UTU) members this week will begin hearing the details of a new five-year contract that the union negotiated with the nation’s railroad companies represented by the National Carriers Conference Committee. Local meetings, which began on July 17 and will run through August 2, will take place all across the country. Voting on the contract […]
Read moreChile’s miners walk out to demand respect and stop privatization
July 13, 2011 0 Comments
Miners in Chile returned to work on Tuesday after a 24-hour strike that shut down production at mines owned by Codelco, the government-owned mining company. Workers were protesting the arrogance of the current management that workers say has not honored collective bargaining agreements and has not listened to workers as it forges ahead with its plan […]
Read moreStrike balloting begins among Verizon workers
July 12, 2011 7 Comments
As Verizon and the two unions representing its East Coast workers from Virginia to Maine recessed their contract negotiations, the unions began holding strike authorization elections by their locals. CWA Local 1104, which represents Verizon’s Long Island, New York workers in Nassau voted by 85 percent to authorize CWA to call a strike when the current […]
Read moreTX union members stop attempts to cut state employee pay
July 11, 2011 1 Comment
As Texas legislators looked for ways to close the state’s $20+ billion budget deficit, cutting the pay of state workers moved to the top of the priority list for some legislators. One of the proposals, HB 3168 authored by Rep. Bill Callegari, a Republican from Katy near Houston, would have eliminated longevity pay, extra pay that rewards length […]
Read moreUnions say Korea US trade pact means job losses in both countries
July 8, 2011 0 Comments
The White House and House Republican leaders reached a deal last week that will allow Congress to begin deliberations on the South Korea/US trade agreement, also known as KORUS FTA. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a research organization with ties to organized labor, says that KORUS FTA will increase “the U.S. trade deficit with Korea […]
Read moreFive sentenced in Egypt for violating anti-strike decree
July 6, 2011 0 Comments
An Egyptian military court on June 29 sentenced five workers who participated in a sit-in against Petrojet, the Egyptian oil company, to one-year suspended sentences for violating a decree issued last March by the Egyptian government outlawing strikes, sit-ins, or any other activity that disrupts production or services provided by government agencies or businesses. The five […]
Read moreJuly 5 commemorated as Bloody Thursday
July 5, 2011 0 Comments
July 5 is the 77th anniversary of Bloody Thursday. Back then, the maritime companies controlled the waterfront on the West Coast. They enjoyed what today would be called a flexible workforce. For those working on the docks, there was no job security, steady work was scarce unless you knew the right people or paid kickbacks […]
Read moreHoneywell cited for safety violations; lock out continues
July 5, 2011 0 Comments
The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration on June 21 cited Honeywell for 17 serious safety violations at its uranium processing plant in Metropolis, Illinois. Members of the United Steelworkers Local 7-669 have been locked out of the jobs at the plant for over a year now because they wanted to protect their health care […]
Read morePreparations for Verizon strike vote are underway
July 1, 2011 16 Comments
As the first week of bargaining between unions representing Verizon Communications’ East Coast workers from Virginia to New England and the company ended, the Communication Workers of America, which represents about 65,000 Verizon workers on the East Coast, told its members that preparations for a strike vote are underway and that all locals will have an opportunity to vote […]
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