Difficult Christmas for Striking Workers at Stella D’Oro

by Micah Landau
It is Christmas time, but there is little holiday cheer at the Stella D’Oro cookie factory in the Bronx. The 136 workers at the famous Italian biscuit company, members of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers (BCTGM) International Union Local 50, have now been on strike [...]

Conference on American Right and US Labor

Nelson Lichtenstein, University of California Santa Barbara, and Chris Tilly, UCLA, have just circulated a call for the conference “The American Right and U.S. Labor: Politics, Ideology, and Imagination,” to be held January 16-17, 2009 at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The conference will be hosted by the UCSB Center for the Study [...]

The Chicago Sit-in: Has Obama’s Election Spurred a New Mood of Union Activism?

Peter Dreier has a very interesting analysis of the Republic Windows sit-in and Smithfield victory over at Dissent.  Drier, professor of politics at Occidental College, writes
TWO RECENT union victories may be harbingers of renewed worker activism.   One came quickly in the wake of the ever-increasing economic meltdown.  The other arrived after [...]

How the Union Won at Smithfield

by David Bacon
When immigration agents raided Smithfield Food’s huge North Carolina slaughterhouse two years ago, union organizer Eduardo Peña compared the impact to a “nuclear bomb.” The day after, people were so scared that most of the plant’s 5,000 employees didn’t show up for work. The lines where they kill and cut apart 32,000 hogs [...]

December 22: Call Congress on National Health Care

by Frank Llewellyn
DSA National Director
The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care is a nationwide effort to support HR 676, legislation introduced by Rep. John Conyers, which is essentially a Medicare-for-All/Single-Payer Health-Care bill. DSA supports HR 676 and the Leadership Conference. We urge members and friends to participate.
The goal of this call-in day is to [...]

2008 Books on Labor

by Paul Garver
I’ve recently rediscovered the joys and pains of reading books, and have a few to recommend. My criteria for this list is that the book was published in 2008, that it had something to do with working people, and that I actually read it.
Two books high on my recommended list have already been [...]

The United Auto Workers Must Fight Back!

By Bill Fletcher

This article first appeared at The Black Commentator.
When I awoke on Friday morning, December 12th, I turned on my computer. The first thing [...]

Hilda Solis nominated as Labor Secretary

Solis speaks on the importance of unions.

A Teamster Apart: Ron Carey Remembered

By Steve Early & Rand Wilson

The rise and fall of Teamster reformer Ron Carey, who died December 11, is still a much contested tale. His political demise, a decade ago, was a tragedy for some and a case of hypocrisy punished to others. In the demonology of current Teamster leaders, Carey left the union in [...]

Memo to President Obama

For their January-February issue Tikkun Magazine asked a number of liberal and leftist academics and activists to draft a Memo to President Obama. Talking Union is proud to present this memo drafted by Democratic Socialists of America Vice-Chair Joseph Schwartz.
Joseph Schwartz
The impressive depth and breadth of your electoral victory, combined with Democratic gains [...]