Splits in the Labor Movement, Then and Now: C.I.O. - Change to Win

Rough economic times, changing demographics, the reinvention of work and workplaces, conflicting models for moving forward - both in the 1930s and the 2000s one result has been to split the labor movement.
AFL vs. CIO — AFL-CIO vs. Change to Win, how far do the parallels hold up?

Change in Plans for Chicago DSA Dinner

Chicago’s 50th Annual Debs - Thomas - Harrington Dinner is coming up this weekend. This year’s dinner will honor Les Orear , founder and President Emeritus of the Illinois Labor History Society; Laurie Burgess, labor attorney with Jacobs, Burns, Orlove, Stanton, and Hernandez; and Dr. Mardge Cohen, Medical Director of Women’s Equity in Access to [...]

A Personal Reflection on the Labor Notes Conference

by Paul Garver
Elsewhere on this page you will find a collective statement by the editors of TalkingUnion on the disruption at the recent Labor Notes Conference. But as a conference participant and contributor to that statement, I want to put it in perspective. For me, as for most of the thousand activists who were at [...]

Debates, Yes! Assaults, No!- The Labor Notes Conference

 As labor movement  activists who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America, we are deeply disturbed by the attempt of some Service Employees International Union staff members to forcibly disrupt the Labor Notes Conference dinner meeting in Dearborn, Mich. on April 12. 
We recognize that the demonstrators had every right to vigorously express their views on [...]

JIMMY HIGGINS: A new play about life in the Labor Movement

Harlan Baker will appear as Jimmy Higgins in a one man show he has written,”Jimmy Higgins: A Life in the Labor Movement”, April 28th at the St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center in Portland, Maine. Baker is a teacher, an actor, a former member of the Maine [...]

Universal Health Care: Theme of Chicago’s Debs Thomas Harrington Dinner

Chicago’s 50th Annual Debs - Thomas - Harrington Dinner features Rose Ann DeMoro, Executive Director of the California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee and AFL-CIO Executive Committee member. With Rose Ann DeMoro, the April 25th dinner will have someone well qualified to speak, and speak [...]

New Labor Forum Fundraising Luncheon: March 13

If you’re in the New York City area, you’ll want to attend the 10th anniversary fund raising luncheon for the New Labor Forum, on Friday March 14 at 12:30 at the Murphy Institute, CUNY 25 West 43rd St NY NY 10036.
There’s a great forum at the luncheon. Tickets are very reasonable-$25 [...]

Imagining International Solidarity (with Chinese Unions)

 by Paul Garver
The UC Santa Cruz Center for Labor Studies hosted a public conference titled “Imagining International Solidarity: Models for U.S. Labor Solidarity with Workers in Latin America and China,” on Saturday, February 2. As one of the conference participants who had much to learn about China, I have since been imagining how we can [...]

The Decline of Tenure: Contingency and the Right to Organize

Joe Berry , professor of Labor Education and History at the University of Illinois and the Roosevelt University will speak at in Columbus, Ohio at the Thursday, February 21st , meeting of Democratic Socialists of Central Ohio (DSCO). Berry is author of Reclaiming the Ivory Tower.
The program for this meeting, [...]

YDS Conference

During the weekend of February 15-17th, 2008 in New York City, the Young Democratic Socialists shall host their annual national winter conference: “Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible: Reviving Democratic, Socialist, and Youth Activism.” The weekend-long event is a unique opportunity to hear great speakers, attend informative workshops on a broad range of critical issues, [...]