Could the #Red4Ed strike wave spill over to higher education and graduate student organizing? Participant Cameron .A. writes on the announced strike hours after the vote was taken. By Cameron A. Graduate student workers at the Santa Cruz campus of the leviathan University of California have voted to launch a wildcat grading strike in the […]
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As General Motors reaped $8.1 billion in profit and paid its CEO $22 million, nearly 50,000 GM workers have been on strike since Monday. While workers gave major concessions during the previous recession the company is digging in it’s heels over wages and has even cut off healthcare plans for workers. Marianne Garneau of Organizing […]
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This piece from the Organizing Work blog explores an important but often little discussed question of the historical origins of labor contracts in the U.S. The current dominant model of formal collective bargaining agreements which include provisions against striking and job actions, also known as “workplace contractualism,” has not always been the dominant model. The […]
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As working class and left movements the world over celebrate May 1st, International Workers Day, we offer our reflection on the current state of the U.S. labor movement – both our optimism around recent strikes and stressing the need to transform the labor movement towards its revolutionary potential. This document was produced by the Labor […]
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The following interview with Joe Burns, author of the important labor text Reviving The Strike, takes up the evergreen questions of the role of strikes and building a base within our workplaces. With the recent wave of teacher strikes these questions are back on the radar of the U.S. left but this interview from 2012 […]
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A #55Strong Update on the Omnibus Bill Walkouts From a West Virginia Teacher By Michael Mochaidean On Monday, February 17th, Presidents of the three major education unions in West Virginia announced a statewide walkout by union members in opposition to the Senate’s Omnibus Education bill – SB451. As mentioned previously, SB451’s key sponsor, Patricia Rucker, […]
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Editorial note: This article was written by a rank-and file West Virginia teacher the week prior to teachers striking on February 19, 2019. The headline has been adjusted to reflect the current strike. By Michael Mochaidean One year ago, teachers and school service personnel in West Virginia rocked the nation with their historic nine-day statewide […]
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Municipal trash workers protest in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the face of fiercely expanding inequality and anti-unionism in the US there is a great deal of discussion across the left of how to revitalize unions. While we see glimmers of hope in the recent strike wave of teachers and innovative forms of unionism such as with […]
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What can US revolutionaries learn from factory take-overs and worker cooperatives in Argentina? Two South African writers with Zabalaza (ZACF) look at the example of Argentina’s recuperated factory movement whereby workplaces facing closure during the economic crisis were seized and then operated as cooperatives. The authors looks at their relationship to social movements, their anti-capitalist […]
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This past month thousands of AT&T workers across the country have gone out on short, locally-organized Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strikes in protest of company intimidation during contract bargaining and other issues. Two separate contracts for the workers organized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA) at AT&T expired on April 15 but negotiations continued […]
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