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unions



  • Howard Schultz Gets Roasted More than Starbucks Beans by Senators

    by Kim Kelly

    The CEO's reluctance to appear before a Senate Committee was made clear when Senator Bernie Sanders, labor law experts, and Starbucks workers confronted him with allegations that he violated labor laws in seeking to keep the coffee chain union-free. 



  • Why are Universities so Disrespectful of their Organized Workers?

    by Maximillian Alvarez

    From teaching assistants to cafeteria workers, labor exploitation and union busting are the shady underside of the modern university, according to three scholars active in the academic labor movement. 



  • It's Time for Labor Spring

    by Cindy Hahamovich, William P. Jones and Joseph A. McCartin

    In 1996, labor unions connected with campus activists to support anti-sweatshop movements, living wage campaigns for campus workers, and graduate student union organization. Now, labor must expand that effort for "wall-to-wall" organizing to make campuses better and more democratic workplaces. 



  • Temple Revives Old-Time Union Busting against Grad Students

    by Heather Ann Thompson

    Temple's decision to revoke the tuition remission of striking grad students (and threaten their ability to complete degrees) is the kind of hardball tactic that bodes ill for workers in every workplace in America, and a reminder of the need to understand the country's labor history. 



  • "Amtrak Joe" Leaves Rail Workers in the Dust

    by Kim Kelly

    Why did the "most pro-union president" in modern times push through a negotiated settlement rejected by the majority of railroad union members, and what would Eugene Debs think? 



  • Is this Labor Surge a New CIO Moment?

    Do militant worker actions signal a wave of mass organizing like occurred in the 1930s, when workers established unions regarded as unorganizable took matters into their own hands? Labor historian Erik Loomis and scholar Marilyn Sneiderman discuss how to turn anger into strategy and strategy into organization.



  • Is Biden Really the Most Pro-Union President?

    Labor historian Erik Loomis says Biden is spending limited political capital to support workers and strikers, and that the bar for pro-labor presidencies is set extremely low. 



  • Centuries-Old Union Busting Playbook is Alive and Well

    by Henry Snow

    Since the days of labor agitation in the Royal Dockyards in the 18th century, employers have fought collective action by workers by keeping them separate and isolated. Modern unionization drives need to recognize and overcome this tactic. 


  • "Pour Myself a Cup of Ambition": The 1970s Echo in Today's Union Revival

    by Ellen Cassedy and Lane Windham

    This Labor Day, we’re hopeful about the renewed energy and excitement for workplace organizing—especially by women workers—and cautiously optimistic that today’s workers may overcome the sorts of corporate tactics that blocked organizing in the 1970s.



  • Women Have Always Been at the Center of the Labor Movement

    by Amy Mackin

    The 1860 strike of male shoe workers in Lynn, Massachusetts floundered until the strikers allied with their female compatriots, but the movement largely failed to maintain gender unity. This lesson is critical for the service industry unions organizing today. 



  • America is Violating its Bargain for Labor Peace

    By starving the NLRB and other agencies that enforce the terms of union contracts and labor laws, the right wing is daring workers to take more militant action outside the system, says labor writer Hamilton Nolan. 



  • The Labor Upsurge Calls Us to Rethink Organizing Rules

    by Chris Brooks

    Do the successes of organizers at Amazon and Starbucks mean the age of slow, methodical and gradual organizing is over? Can workers use a union vote itself as an organizing tool to move quickly and defeat union-busting?