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unions

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    6/1/2023

    Kagan, Sotomayor Join SCOTUS Cons in Sticking it to Unions

    By an 8-1 vote, with only Ketanji Brown Jackson in dissent, the Court allowed employers to bypass the National Labor Relations Board to seek potentially crippling tort judgments against unions for business losses related to strikes, removing a major incentive for good-faith negotiation by employers. 

  • 5/31/2023

    Ayn Rand's Defense of an Anti-Union Massacre

    by Greg Mitchell

    The screenwriter and novelist was inspired by the 1943 memoir of Republic Steel head Tom Girdler, in particular his refusal to apologize for collaborating with Chicago Police to crush a march of striking steelworkers and their families in 1937. 

  • SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
    5/19/2023

    The Writers' Strike Opens Old Wounds

    by Kate Fortmueller

    The plot of each sequel of negotiations between the producers and writers has followed a formula of compromise for mutual self-preservation. Technological advances have convinced studio heads that they no longer need the labor of writers enough to keep compromising. 

  • 5/7/2023

    Buried Footage Helped Chicago Police Get Away with Killing 10 Labor Activists in 1937

    by Greg Mitchell

    Paramount's newsreel division shot footage of the murderous attack on a steelworkers' march in 1937. They sided with the bosses by burying the footage. Even after Senator Robert LaFollette pushed for the film's release, cities banned it from the screen as Chicago prosecutors ruled the killings justifiable. A new documentary tells the story of the film. 

  • SOURCE: New Labor Forum
    4/28/2023

    Wins at Amazon and Starbucks Shouldn't Obscure the Hard Road Independent Unions Face

    by Erik Loomis

    The improvised and worker-led efforts to organize the new economy giants has led some commenters to proclaim the end of big labor. A labor historian says that workers still need the resources and support of legacy unions – if they commit to organizing new workplaces – to win against employers more determined than ever to bust unions. 

  • SOURCE: Fast Company
    3/29/2023

    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. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    3/17/2023

    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. 

  • SOURCE: In These Times
    2/24/2023

    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. 

  • SOURCE: CNN
    2/16/2023

    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. 

  • SOURCE: The Baffler
    12/8/2022

    "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? 

  • SOURCE: The Progressive
    10/10/2022

    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.

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    9/15/2022

    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. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    9/14/2022

    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.