Iran: Union leaders sentenced to prison – call for global campaign of solidarity

by Eric Lee/LabourStart In a drive to destroy the independent union at the giant Haft Tapeh plantation/refining sugar complex in southern Iran, a court on October 12 sentenced six union leaders to prison on charges of “endangering national security.” Their only crime was to lead a strike. Haft Tapeh workers have repeatedly had to resort [...]

What a “Jobless” Recovery Means for Young Workers

by Alexandra Early I’m glad to hear on the news that the economy is doing better. But, frankly, my own household doesn’t feel it. My under-30 partner and I don’t own any stocks, so we’re not benefiting from Wall Street’s recovery. We’re both still jobless and searching for full-time work—in my case for four months [...]

American Prospect Special Report

The October issue of The American Prospect has a special report on “Decent Work, Living Wages…and Government’s Hidden Leverage.” They introduce it this way: Today the country’s primary labor market–regular jobs with reliable wages, benefits, and terms of employment is being drained by a rise in temporary and contract work with no security. By using [...]

Steelworkers Form Collaboration with MONDRAGON, the World’s Largest Worker-Owned Cooperative

Image via Wikipedia Pittsburgh (Oct. 27, 2009)—The United Steelworkers (USW) and MONDRAGON Internacional, S.A. today announced a framework agreement for collaboration in establishing MONDRAGON cooperatives in the manufacturing sector within the United States and Canada. The USW and MONDRAGON will work to establish manufacturing cooperatives that adapt collective bargaining principles to the MONDRAGON worker ownership [...]

San Francisco Readies for a Major Labor Dispute

By Carl Finamore The Law of Momentum, one of the most powerful postulates of physics, describes a collision “where the momentum gained by one object is equal to the momentum lost by the other object.” Physics is of course one of the “hard” sciences, but the same formula can perhaps be aptly applied to the [...]

Lessons of 1989 NYNEX strike for today’s health care debates

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Steve Early and Rand Wilson give us a valuable history lesson with lots of lessons for today in a Nation article marking the 1989 strike of 60,000 workers against NYNEX, the forerunner of Veriz0n. Early and Wilson were both involved in NYNEX strike support work in New England in [...]

National Jobs Conference

If you are not participating in the DSA Conference in Evanston 13-15 November, you might want to attend the National Jobs Conference in New York City on 13-14 November. The two-day conference (Friday 13 November at the Interchurch Center, 475 Riverside Drive, NYC; Sat. 14 November at AFSCME Dist. Council 37, 125 Barclay St, NYC) [...]

HBO Documentary–Outsourcing and Destruction of the U.S. Garment Industry

The HBO Documentary “Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags,” directed and produced by award-winning filmmakers Marc Levin and Daphne Pinkerson, premieres on Monday, October 19, at 9:00 p.m. (Eastern). Brian Lowry writes in Variety: “Opening to the lively strains of ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, ‘Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags’ is a loving and sobering look [...]

Landmark Global Conference to Tackle Impact of Jobs Crisis on Women

450 women trade union delegates from 100 countries will gather in Brussels this week to analyse the impacts of the global jobs crisis on women and map out international trade union action to improve women’s job security, pay and conditions. The first ITUC World Women’s Conference, entitled “Decent Work, Decent Life for Women” will examine [...]

Why David Sometimes Wins: Marshall Ganz Looks at the UFW

Why David Sometimes Wins; Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement. Marshall Ganz. 2009. Oxford University Press. reviewed by Duane Campbell To most people, even to union activists, the struggle to create the United Farmworkers Union (now part of the Change to Win Federation) is a tale from long ago and far [...]