unions

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/12/2021
  

  America Needs to Empower Workers Again (Opinion)

  by Paul Krugman

  Times columnist Paul Krugman argues that the decline of labor was a political outcome; reviving unions requires changing the rules governing management during a union drive, but is a key to alleviating inequality.

• 
• SOURCE: WNYC
  3/31/2021
  

  What a Unionization Effort in Alabama Could Mean for the Labor Movement

  Historian Keri Leigh Merritt discusses the Amazon unionization vote in the context of southern labor history.

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• 3/30/2021
  

  The Bessemer, Alabama Amazon Union Election Campaign

  Historians look at the just-concluded union election campaign at Amazon's Alabama facilty and await the results. 

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• SOURCE: Financial Times
  3/29/2021
  

  The Ultimate David and Goliath Fight in Alabama

  The effort to organize Amazon Workers in Bessemer, Alabama may succeed if it connects the cause of labor to broader civil rights issues that resonate with the local Black community and echo the involvement of Martin Luther King in struggles for workers and economic justice, say historians Keri Leigh Merritt and Michael Innis-Jiménez. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/25/2021
  

  Can a Grand Bargain Empower Amazon’s Workers and Limit Corporate Power?

  by Nelson Lichtenstein

  "Unions are weaker today than they were in the 1930s, but the idea that wages have to rise and democracy has to be revitalized, in the workplace and beyond, is returning in an echo of that era."

• 
• SOURCE: Talking Points Memo
  2/1/2021
  

  Why Biden’s Forceful Endorsement Of Labor Is The Strongest From A POTUS In Decades

  Labor historians Karen Sawislak and Erik Loomis discuss how Joe Biden's endorsement of freedom of workers to form a union (without mentioning Amazon in particular) goes against decades-long trends in the political power and cultural esteem of labor unions. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  2/23/2021
  

  'We Deserve More': An Amazon Warehouse’s High-Stakes Union Drive

  Historians Joseph McCartin, Michael Innis Jiménez, and Kerri Leigh Merritt discuss the historic union drive at Amazon's Bessemer, Alabama center and where it fits in the history of labor and civil rights in the south. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  2/8/2021
  

  The Alabama Town That Could Defeat Jeff Bezos

  The industrial suburb of Bessemer has a long history as a rare center of union activity in the South and now is the focal point of an effort to organize Amazon's warehouse workers. Historian Robin D.G. Kelley, who has written about interracial labor militancy in Alabama, gives context. 

• 
• SOURCE: Labor and Working Class History Association
  12/14/2020
  

  Civil Rights Unionism and Democracy for Teachers

  by Jesse Chanin

  Nat LaCour connected civil rights unionism to teachers’ struggle to build union democracy. A remembrance and evaluation.

• 
• SOURCE: Labor and Employment Law Daily
  10/13/2020
  

  Labor Pulse: Is This Election Labor's Last Chance?

  by Jim Castagnera

  The election presents organized labor with a choice between a death sentence and a reprieve that will prove temporary unless unions can put their needs at the center of a Biden presidency's priorities. 

• 
• 7/7/2020
  

  Unions Are Essential for Eliminating Racism

  A new study finds that unions don't just increase wages and benefits for workers on the job — union membership is also linked to diminished racist attitudes among white workers. If we want to defeat racism, building strong, democratic unions is essential.

• 
• SOURCE: Chicago Teachers Union
  5/19/2020
  

  Zoom Webinar: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Discusses "Race for Profit," May 19, 4:30 PM CDT

  The award-winning historian and public speaker will discuss the relationship between housing policy and racial inequality in the United States

• 
• SOURCE: St. Paul Union Advocate
  5/4/2020
  

  Lessons from Labor History can Inform our Labor Movement During COVID-19 Crisis

  by Peter Rachleff

  The story of the 1934 Twin Cities' Teamsters strike story shows how the union won better lives for its members by linking workers and their families to the union, other unions, and the community.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/23/2020
  

  Front-Line Workers in the Covid-19 Fight Need Unions

  by William P. Jones

  Without strengthening labor laws, and extending them to all sectors, we cannot ensure workers have the power to protect their own health and safety on the job and the health and safety of our communities.

• 
• 4/19/2020
  

  We Had a Better Social Safety Net. Then We Busted Unions.

  by Lane Windham

  For a time, union contracts were the closest thing the U.S. had to the kinds of robust social safety nets found in European countries.

• 
• 3/6/2020
  

  Jack Welch Was a Bitter Foe of American Workers

  by Erik Loomis

  Most national obituaries left out or downplayed Jack Welch’s greatest impact in shaping the unequal and unfair America of today: unionbusting.

• 
• 12/22/19
  

  Pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act

  by Martin Halpern

  If unions and their allies win passage of this legislation, they may begin to shift the country away from the glaring inequality that is at the core of the country’s discontent. 

• 
• 12/8/19
  

  A Boss is a Boss: Nurses Battle for Their First Union Contract at Albany Medical Center

  by Lawrence Wittner

  A nonprofit employer is not necessarily a better boss than a profit-making one. That sad truth is reinforced by the experience of some 2,200 nurses at Albany Medical Center, who have been fighting for a contract since April 2018, when they voted for union representation.

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  9/11/19
  

  The Necessary Radicalism of Bernie Sanders

  by Jamelle Bouie

  Conflict was the engine of labor reform in the 1930s. And mass strikes and picketing, in particular, pushed the federal government to act.

• 
• SOURCE: Time
  8/30/19
  

  Beyond Labor Day: 3 Ways Unions Have Helped American Workers

  by Peter Cole

  “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”