Giving one person power over others is like a giving a 3-year-old a hose: not everyone will get soaked, but the chances of coming out dry are slender.
By Barbara Ehrenreich
The AFL-CIO’s Working America project has launched a "bad boss" contest. Unfortunately, the prize is only a free vacation, rather than the opportunity to see your nominee drawn and quartered after a lengthy and humiliating public trial.
I’ve heard so many bad boss stories that I’d hate to be one of the judges. The (...)
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Oh, Those Bad Bosses
8 August 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
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THE TRAGIC FATE OF THE DELPHI STRUGGLE
15 July 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
1 commentby Dave Stratman
Delphi, General Motors’ largest parts supplier, is in bankruptcy court seeking permission to break labor contracts which run through 2007 with its 33,000 hourly employees. Delphi is demanding a 40% wage cut and reductions in the benefits and pensions of current and retired auto workers. It plans to close 25 plants and fire 23,000 employees. Delphi claims it needs these cuts to become competitive in the global marketplace, the same argument that Ford and GM and countless (...) -
Nurses protest move to narrow union roles
15 July 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
By Sandy Kleffman
More than 400 nurses rallied Tuesday in downtown Oakland, hoping to prevent a legal decision they said could sharply restrict union membership and limit the power of the influential California Nurses Association and other labor groups.
This is a fight we’re going to win — they’re not going to bust our union,’’ Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the nurse’s union, told the crowd.
The noon event mirrored a rally in downtown Los Angeles that also drew several (...) -
HOW THE UNIONS KILLED THE WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT
25 June 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
By Dave Stratman
The US working class has been betrayed by organizations that it thought were its own and by contractual arrangements that it thought were to its benefit. The working class is trapped in a web of organizations and ways of thinking about itself which have stripped it of its power and left it fatally vulnerable to its enemies.
Beneath the ringing words of the 1908 Preamble to the Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) lay a vision of the working class (...) -
The "Down" Syndrome...Where is hope?
9 June 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
9 commentsWe on the Left are constantly accused of negativism and of seeing the glass as half empty. But what else can one do at this point in human development?
The DOW is down, with expectations for further drops due to various institutions switching to Euros as a hedge, rising fears of inflation coupled with false unemployment numbers and outsourcing,a housing sales slump and higher gas prices.
Hopes are down for the future of the Palestine state due to actions being taken by Israel to expand (...) -
Focused only on building workers’ rights
8 June 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
By Han Dongfang
On April 25, 1989, Deng Xiaoping made a speech to Communist Party leaders urging an immediate government crackdown on any sign of an upsurge in the democratic movement. Party leaders "should learn from the experience of Poland’s Solidarity trade union", and "must not be soft-handed" in dealing with the democratic movement in China, he said. Then on June 4, 1989, the government launched its bloody crackdown on the movement by students and workers. The latter was (...) -
Teamsters: Changing to Win?
4 June 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
by WILLIAM JOHNSON
Chances are you haven’t heard of Silver Capital, a small, now-defunct Chicago-based company that used to manufacture mirrors, frames and glass-cutting boards.
Silver Capital’s workers were mostly Mexican immigrants, working for substandard wages and zero benefits—no healthcare, no pensions, no sick days. And no matter what the auto companies tell you, manufacturing work is not fun. Silver Capital workers suffered severe injuries (fingers chopped off, limbs gouged) (...) -
800 Ford retirees formally object to deal that requires paying health premiums, deductibles
4 June 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
2 commentsFord, UAW retirees spar in court over health insurance cuts
by Bryce G. Hoffman
DETROIT — Dozens of Ford Motor Co. union retirees were in federal court Wednesday to ask a judge to reject an agreement between the automaker and the United Auto Workers that would cut their health benefits to help ease Ford’s financial troubles.
The retirees argued that they were denied a say in the deal, which could cost them hundreds of dollars a year in higher health care costs.
Larry Bronson, a (...) -
Black Labor fights "Disorder" of Globalization
4 June 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
By Glen ford and Peter Gamble
’Wal-Mart is buying Negro leaders.’ - Rev. Al Sharpton
’We will not be passive bystanders to our own demise.’ - CBTU President William Lucy
’Economic justice is a part of freedom. We must fight for a people’s economy.’ - Dr. Julianne Malveaux
Black labor is carefully writing a new page in the book of African American struggle. Despite the loss of 400,000 Black union jobs during the first four years of the Bush administration, and in the face of the (...) -
Tesco job ads follow non-union line
28 May 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
1 commentBy Jonathan Birchall
Tesco, the world’s third largest grocer, has listed "maintaining union-free status" and "union avoidance activities" among the responsibilities of senior managers of its planned new network of stores on the US west coast.
Language in two job descriptions indicates that Tesco - which has a close partnership with its UK union - is set to follow the non-union example of Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and others in the US, adding to the pressure on the United Food (...)