Gandhi and Martin Luther King: Jobs with Justice National Conference

Here is one ongoing story of struggle by workers against exploitative corporate globalization. It is part of the rich tapestry presented at the Jobs with Justice National Conference in Providence, which assembled several hundred activists from forty local coalitions that campaign for workers’ rights. These delegates, diverse in age, race and culture, shared [...]

May Day!

ITUC May Day Manifesto
Brussels, 29 April 2008 (ITUC OnLine): On this day, the 1st of May, millions of working people across the world join together to celebrate the achievements of more than a century of trade unionism. The high principles of equality, justice, human dignity and peace which have found expression through the trade union [...]

Workers Memorial Day–not just American anymore

Many of our readers no doubt participated in local Workers Memorial Day events. The AFL-CIO produces an excellent report each year entitled Death on the Job, which should be read and studied by every union activist, and not just members of the safety committee. But few realize that, like another labor holiday [...]

SEIU California Cleaners Show Solidarity with Nestlé Russia Workers’ Struggle

In the midst of a difficult contract campaign for the janitors servicing commercial buildings in California (including Nestlé USA headquarters in Glendale), members of SEIU Local 1877 showed their solidarity with the union struggle at the Nestlé factory in Perm, Russia by distributing leaflets and displaying banners on April 16.

Security and Prosperity Partnership: Open Letter to Congress

On April 21 Democratic Socialists of America is joining with some thirty other U.S.-based organizations and networks to call upon the U.S. Congress to exercise its authority to reign in the opaque and undemocratic process called the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP has been organized by top business CEOs and the chief executives of [...]

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 [...]

Workers In a Global Economy: Must They be Left Behind?

Demos has organized a interesting program on the global economy.
Thurs., April 17, 2008
Program from 12:00-2:00 pm
at Demos 220 Fifth Ave., 5th Floor
New York, NY [ directions]
NAFTA, CAFTA, the Columbia Free Trade Agreement, climate change and issues of the global economy are front and center in our Presidential debate. The laissez faire vision of the global [...]

Congressional Sign-on Letter on Labor Rights in Iraq

Representatives Jan Schakowsky (Dem-IL) and Linda Sanchez (Dem-CA), according to an email from US Labor Against the War, are circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter to their fellow members of the House of Representatives asking them to sign on to a letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki calling on the his government to recognize [...]

Today’s global capitalism in one release

Stuart Elliott

Today, looking at my email in box, a news release from the International Trade Union Confederation caught my attention. It read “Violent repression of Vietnamese workers strike.” But, I overlooked something. Before that phrase that caught my attention, the release named where the strike took place–Jordan!

Turns out these were Vietnamese [...]