Labor Notes
By The big labor news today is obviously the Supreme Court decision that Scott discussed. But there is a lot of other important stuff happening that you should be aware of.
1. Mark Ames has an excellent article at The Daily Banter about how labor rights became so disconnected from human rights. He notes that none of the 3 biggest human rights groups–Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, or the ACLU consider labor rights even a minor part of their mission. Human Rights Watch comes in for specific assault:
Aryeh Neier, founder of Human Rights Watch and its executive director for 12 years, doesn’t hide his contempt for the idea of economic equality as one of the key human rights. Neier is so opposed to the idea of economic equality that he even equates the very idea of economic equality and justice with oppression—economic rights to him are a violation of human rights, rather than essential human rights, thereby completely inverting traditional left thinking. Here’s what Neier wrote in his memoir, Taking Liberties: “The concept of economic and social rights is profoundly undemocratic… Authoritarian power is probably a prerequisite for giving meaning to economic and social rights.”
Ames points out that this was not always the case–the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights included labor rights, but he also shows that corporations have convinced the big human rights groups to push labor rights to the side. The ACLU claims to consider labor rights a subsection of some of its other rights groups it follows, but it’s pretty weak sauce, as Ames shows.
Very interesting stuff.
2. Mike Elk has a good article on how Cablevision workers are seeing recent organizing successes after going on a number of wildcat strikes that are forcing the company to back off its long anti-union position. From a strategic perspective, this asks some hard questions about whether more radical workplace actions are in order across the nation.
3. LGBT workers at Bloomingdale’s won major victories in their union’s new contract, including protections from discrimination based on gender identity and expression, as well as paternity benefits for gay men having families, which the union believes may be the first contract of its kind in the retail industry. Real victory here.
4. Unions are already mad at the Democratic National Committee for holding the Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, a right-to-work state and a city with no unionized hotels. Now Charlotte is rubbing salt in the wound by forcing labor to give up its traditional Labor Day parade route, supposedly for security reasons.
5. Although begrudgingly, Change.org dropped two anti-union education groups, including Michelle Rhee’s Students First after progressives protested their inclusion under the progressive umbrella. The other group, Stand for Children, recently had an anti-teachers union petition on the website, which set the process into motion. Change.org has a standing policy against hosting petitions from groups known to have an anti-LGBT or anti-immigrant stance, but not anti-labor. It admitted that it only let the two groups go because under heavy pressure from organized labor.