An Open Letter from America’s Port Truck Drivers on Occupy the Ports

by Paul Garver As part of our ongoing series on Labor and Occupy, we are cross-posting items we found important in discussing the relationship between the Occupy and Labor movements.  Although the letter from the port truck drivers speaks for itself, we note that tens of millions of exploited American workers like the port truck [...]

22K NYC Office Cleaners Prepare for Strike

 

Pacifica misappropriates KPFA workers’ pension money, hires new law firm

KPFA Worker Two months after KPFA’s union discovered that the station’s parent corporation Pacifica was illegally raiding the 403b pension funds of its union members for as long as 18 months, the network has finally admitted to workers that “during the past few years employee contributions . . . were not deposited into your accounts on [...]

Occupy Wall Streets Next Steps – How to Win a Fight with the 1%

Editors’ Note: We have added a new “Labor and Occupy” page with links to Talking Union blog posts on the occupy movement, its relationships with labor unions, and related matters. Click on the above tab. We invite your comments and suggestions for other articles. There is no more important topic to discuss as we work [...]

The Diversity of the White Working Class

by Jack Metzgar The recent firestorm of debate stirred by Thomas Edsall’s New York Times report of a behind-the-scenes plan by “Democratic operatives” to “explicitly abandon the white working class”reveals more about the degraded state of political journalism than it does about either Democratic operatives or the working class. Edsall is a highly respected member [...]

And the Farmworkers are still poor

by Michael Yates Review of Frank Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers (New York: Verso), 742pp, hardcover, $54.95.* Frank Bardacke labored over this book for fifteen years. We can be grateful that he didn’t give up. This is the best history ever written of the [...]

Trampling Out The Vintage?

Trampling Out the Vintage ? by Duane Campbell A  dissident’s view of the rise and the fall of the United Farm Workers union. Frank Bardacke’s Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. (2011, Verso). is the view of a well- informed observer  who  worked in the lettuce [...]

Working for Scrooge

As families around the world prepare to celebrate the true meaning of the holiday season, the International Labor Rights Forum has released this year’s Working for Scrooge, a report profiling the worst multinational corporations for union organizing. The companies that made our Scrooge list this year are Dole, Hershey’s, Philippine Airlines, and Wal-Mart.

Legislation Offers Antidote for Stupidity of Shipping Tax-Dollar-Financed Jobs Overseas

by Leo Gerard Amid prolonged, painfully high unemployment, ABC News Anchor Diane Sawyer for the past year tirelessly advocated a simple solution– buy American-made products.  She clearly explained the reasoning: every American dollar spent on an American-made product helps create an American job. Defying Sawyer’s admonition to search for “Made in America” tags, California set [...]

Throw the bankers in jail !

I have a a problem with the Country Wide and  the WaMU settlements. We have to consider the externalities of the fraud.  While a $337 million dollar fine may be sufficient for the individuals defrauded by Country Wide, the cost to the nation and the state was much greater.  These could be called externalities or [...]