The Bay Area IWW is doing some impressive work doing contract oriented organizing transparently and democratically.

I always hated him, I think, even before I was a communist.

We need more communists in AFL-CIO unions and to not over-focus on independent unions and IWW.

IMHO.

As the first-ever democratically elected leader of the UAW, Fain, a long-time union member himself, has taken a more confrontational approach to negotiations than his predecessors — including filming himself throwing Big Three automaker proposals in the trash.

He has repeatedly doubled down on the union's key economic demands – including 40% pay raises he says would be in line with CEO wage increases, the restoration of pension and retiree healthcare and cost of living adjustments.

That's the spirit!

The UAW walkout is the 17th strike in the U.S. involving more than 2,000 workers so far this year, according to data from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

This kinda confirms a bit for me what I thought was just some confirmation bias, that the US is getting really strike-happy. Good for them!

On this day in 1978, United Steelworkers union workers in Sudbury, Ontario voted to go on strike to fight proposed layoffs and pay cuts. The strike was the longest in Canadian history until the record was broken by Sudbury workers in 2009.

The layoffs and cuts to pay and benefits were at the multi-national company Inco, which cited low nickel prices as a justification.

According to filmmaker Martin Duckworth, workers voted to strike against the advice of the United Steelworkers hierarchy, and the strike enjoyed national support because Inco was a known polluter and one of the biggest multi-nationals in Canada.

Around 11,600 workers were involved in the strike, which affected the wages sustaining 43,000 people, or about 26% of the population of metropolitan Sudbury. By the end of the strike, nine months later, the company had been deprived of over twenty-two million hours of labor.

The workers won small wage increase and a pension package, however thousands of workers lost their homes and cars because of the length of the strike. According to journalist Amy Miller, since 1979, INCO has fired 20,000 employees from their staff and now have more people receiving payments from the pension roll than pay roll.

The role of women in the community during the strike was profiled in the 1980 documentary film A Wives' Tale (Une histoire de femmes).

All Out to Support Striking Vale Inco Workers!

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In the 130 days since the WGA strike began, the AMPTP has only offered one proposal to the WGA, on August 11th . Since then, the companies have not moved off that proposal even though the WGA in turn presented our own counterproposal to the AMPTP on August 15th . The current standstill is not a sign of the companies’ power, but of AMPTP paralysis.

One executive said they had reviewed our proposals, and though they did not commit to a specific deal, said our proposals would not affect their company’s bottom line and that they recognized they must give more than usual to settle this negotiation. Another said they needed a deal badly. Those same executives—and others—have said they are willing to negotiate on proposals that the AMPTP has presented to the public as deal breakers. On every single issue we are asking for we have had at least one legacy studio executive tell us they could accommodate us.

When the companies send messages through surrogates or the press about the unreasonableness of your guild leadership, take those messages as part of a bad-faith effort to influence negotiations and not as the objective truth.

Every day Christmas is getting closer and I definitely didn't expect this strike to last until then. These media conglomerates really do have infinite greed.

On this day in 1897, the Lattimer Massacre occurred near Hazelton, Pennsylvania when a Sheriff's posse fired into a crowd of unarmed, striking miners, killing 19. Miners, mostly Eastern European immigrants, had been protesting for better pay and union recognition.

A week prior, over 3,000 miners had gone on strike, demanding better pay and an end to the forced use of the company store. On the morning of September 10th, approximately 400 miners peacefully marched to a newly opened coal mine in Lattimer to support a new United Mine Workers (UMW) union there.

After refusing an order to disperse by a Luzerne County sheriff's posse, the posse fired into the crowd. Nineteen miners were killed and several dozen were wounded.

Despite the fact that sheriffs had been overhead joking about how many strikers they would kill that morning, as well as medical evidence that demonstrated miners were mostly shot in the back, the sheriff and seventy-three deputies were acquitted at trial, insisting that they were charged by the crowd.

The massacre was a turning point in the history of the United Mine Workers (UMW), who received more than 10,000 new members in the aftermath of the massacre.

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DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA – In late June, I attended a meeting of public works employees in Durham, who were planning the first strike of public works employees in the rapidly gentrifying city, where many city workers can’t afford to live.

“We aren’t getting paid what we are worth at all and are being asked to do work that’s beyond our job description,” shouted sewage truck operator Willie Brown to 24 fellow co-workers at UE Local 150 Hall in Durham.

“I am making $21.35 at age 52 – that’s nothing at age 50, hell that’s nothing at age 40,” said Brown, who was making $ 75,000 a year as an interstate truck driver before he decided to take a job with the city that wouldn’t require him to travel. “I left the truck driver world making great money then lured into this world and now I can never get a 5% raise”.

Over the past four years, wages for public works employees in Durham, who are overwhelmingly African-American, have increased by 15% while inflation has risen by 23%, so that many workers essentially received an 8% pay cut.

Not only is Brown supposed to work as a sewage truck operator, but also occasionally as a snow plow driver, a dump truck driver, and even a chainsaw operator. Many other public works employees, who make on average $18-$22-an hour, shared Brown’s frustration that they were not being appropriately paid for jobs despite being asked to perform many different jobs.

The motion to prepare to strike passed overwhelmingly last June. The workers began drafting a petition to Durham to raise their wages, but the city didn’t listen.

Now, public works employees are on strike for the first time in the city’s history. The workers are demanding a $5,000 bonus. Additionally, they demand that workers be paid at a higher rate for work outside their job description and that all temporary employees be made permanent.

“We go out and we make sure that things are taken care of. We aren’t gonna beg for something that we earned,” said striking Durham city employee Keisha Barnette, who has worked for city for 24 years. “For the city to grow, the workforce can’t be depleted. We can’t sustain this on our backs”.

Technically, strikes by public employees in North Carolina are illegal, but only if the city takes legal action with the union. With the city currently listing 120 of the 177 public works positions as vacant, the city can’t afford to lose more workers by taking legal action against the union.

“We are essential workers and now the city is going to see just how essential we are,” said Willie Brown.

The strike today by public works employees in Durham is part of a growing trend of public employees, primarily workers of color, seeking union representation across the South.

Despite workers not having collective bargaining rights in North Carolina, UE Local 150, the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union, has persuaded approximately 6,000 workers to agree to have dues deducted from their paychecks voluntarily. Through protests and occasionally illegal strikes, the union has been able to win some changes and has grown tremendously during the pandemic.

During the pandemic, UE local 150 gained over 1,000 new members. Now, the union is going on the offensive in places like Durham as essential workers demand more.

While much of the media focuses mainly on the organizing efforts of white workers in coffee shops, universities jobs, and media outlets, BLS statistics released earlier this year showed that it’s actually black and brown workers in state and local government in the South that are driving union membership gains.

“The entire increase in unionization in 2022 was among workers of color—workers of color saw an increase of 231,000, while white workers saw a decrease of 31,000,” wrote the Economic Policy Institute in a report released in February. “Of all major racial and ethnic groups, Black workers continue to have the highest unionization rates, at 12.8%. This compares with 11.2% for white workers, 10.0% for Latinx workers, and 9.2% for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) workers”.

The biggest areas of growth this year for the labor movement were state government and local governments. Following the pandemic, when many public employees were told they were “essential employees,” there has been a massive upsurge in organizing, particularly among low-wage black and brown workers in the public sector.

Despite significant gains in union membership among workers in the public sector, many public employees, particularly in the South, still need collective bargaining agreements. North Carolina outlawed strikes by public employees.

However, in Durham, public works employees say that the city can’t afford not to meet the strikers’ demands.

“The city of Durham is smelling trash and it is gonna smell like dead bodies in two days if they don’t get it off the street,” says Willie Brown.

Michael Athokhamien Omnibus Imoudu, generally known as Pa Imoudu, was a labour union leader and activist. He encouraged workers in both the private and public sectors to form unions. During the colonial era, he used strike actions to seek better working conditions for Nigerian workers, as well as make the British change obnoxious laws that affected workers.

He later joined the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) and was one of the party’s delegates to London in protest of the 1946 Richards Constitution.

Born September 7, 1902, in Ukpafikan Quarters, Oke Ora near Sabongida Ora in Edo State, Imoudu attended Government School, Ora. At the death of his father, he accompanied his uncle to Sapele, later to Onitsha and finally to Agbor, where he completed his primary school education.

After his primary education, Imoudu moved to Lagos and worked with the Posts and Telegraphs Department as a linesman before moving to the Nigeria Railways.

While with the Railways, Imoudu became actively involved in the Railway Workers Union (RWU) and in 1939; he became president of the union. In the same year, the union was registered under the Trade Union Ordinance, which allowed it to seek collective bargaining with their employers. With Imoudu as head, the union renewed its demand for higher wages, de-casualization and improved working conditions.

Imoudu had constant clashes with European managers because of the preferential treatment given to European officials. Between 1941 and 1943, Imoudu was queried many times and dismissed in January 1943.

With the formation of the African Civil Servants Technical Workers Union in 1941 and Imoudu being the Vice President, he used the organisation to agitate for war bonus — Cost Of Living Allowance (COLA) — to cushion the effects of inflation caused by World War II (WW II). The government listened and made some COLA concession in 1942 under the leadership of Bernard Bourdillon.

In 1943, Imoudu was dismissed and detained, but his detention was later changed to restriction of movement. He was released on May 20, 1945, after the end of WW II.

Imoudu was released from prison by the government in 1945, presumably as a means to de-escalate labor tensions. A large rally was held to welcome him back to Lagos, however, and, on the 21st and 22nd of June 1945, Imoudu led a radical wing of the RWU to organize a general strike that became a historically important in Nigeria.

In 1946, Imoudu identified with NCNC and was nominated to its executive council.

From 1947 to 1958, he led different trade unions, including the All Nigeria Trade Union Federation, which enjoyed initial success, incorporating 45 out of the 57 registered unions at the time.

Pa Imoudu did all this with no intention of enriching himself, but to improve the nation and create a better working environment for workers. He could not even build a house or buy a car for himself, despite his dealings with the government and captains of industry. He was focused on making Nigeria a better country than milking the people.

During the Second Republic, he joined the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) as its deputy National President.

In pursuit of his welfare ideologies, he awarded scholarships to youths from different backgrounds to study in the USSR, China, and East Germany.

In 1982, however, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo built a house and bought a car for him as gifts for his 80th birthday, while a labour institute, Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS), was established and named after him in 1986. He died on June 22, 2005.

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Except I don't think it's true. : ( They probably mean compared with any given year in the last 3 decades.

This was funny: from https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-issues-third-annual-labor-day-report

California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued the third annual Labor Day Report highlighting the California Department of Justice’s (DOJ) ongoing efforts to empower workers in California and across the country. (Italics mine)

This from the state that enacted one of the biggest anti-worker and anti-democratic laws (that would permanently classified Uber/Lyft drivers as contractors and required a SEVEN-EIGHTHS (!!!) majority to over-ride). The measure (called prop 22) has been deemed unconstitional (at least in parts) by appelate courts and is currently in review by Calif Supreme Court.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/512448

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/512446

credit to the creator