A lot of good labor stories today: 1. Michael Powell has a pretty pointed article for the Times, making fun of wealthy outrage at the idea that New York could possibly have a city-wide living wage of $10. “I think,” Michael R. Bloomberg said a few weeks back, “that when the government tries to too […]
Tag: labor
If you ever wanted to see how companies work to defeat union votes, check out this Virgin Atlantic unionbusting site. It’s pretty gross. They vote tomorrow so the site will probably be taken dow
Fantastic Vanessa Veselka piece about her attempt to organize an Amazon warehouse. Inspired by the WTO protests in Seattle, Veselka took it in her hands to get a job in an Amazon warehouse, contact la
Union-hating companies and the unionbusters they hire to consult with them are aghast at the new NLRB rules allowing for quick union elections, which undermine corporate ability to spent a year undermining and fixing the election. Josh Eidelson managed to get on a conference call of a unionbusting firm talking about how to get around […]
Today, the Occupy movement chose to shut down ports in Oakland, Portland, and Longview. But did they do it with the consent of workers? Mike Elk and Andrew Leonard are skeptical and I tend to agree. E
I’m fascinated enough by David Stern blocking a trade to engage in some rare NBA-related blogging. A few points: I don’t really know enough to make this judgment, so correct me if I’
Steven Greenhouse has a thought-provoking piece in the Times detailing how and why Boeing came to a labor agreement with its workers and wondering whether this is not the beginning a new “Grand Bargain.” The original Grand Bargain was the deal postwar workers made with companies (specifically General Motors workers but it grew far beyond […]
On this day in 1955, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged into the AFL-CIO. During the 1930s, dissatisfaction over the AFL’s conservatism and its
Today we celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Oakland General Strike. The Oakland general strike came out of the massive changes to the Bay Area during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of American
Newt clarifies his comments from last week that poor students should replace janitors in schools. They shouldn’t do all the work. Just jobs like cleaning the bathrooms. And doesn’t this make sense? In the new Gilded Age, the poor need to learn to serve their masters, including cleaning up their feces.
Scott Walker using prison labor to decorate the Christmas tree (and in this administration, it ain’t no holiday tree like here in Rhode Island) in the Wisconsin state capitol building. The use o
This story has received very little coverage, but today was nearly the day the National Labor Relations Board, for all intents and purposes, died. The NLRB is supposed to have 5 members, but presently