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unions

The Work to Be Done This Labor Day

August 31, 2018 by Miranda Cunningham Leave a Comment

On Labor Day 2018, it’s hard to maintain hope. Many will labor on Labor Day (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Growing up in a blue-collar union household, working on holidays was considered a boon). Many labor in worse conditions than our parents and grandparents. The Gig Economy The gig economy leaves millions on their […]

Filed Under: Building Economic Alternatives, Classism in the Economy, Classist Corporations, Corporate power, Dismantlng Classism, Labor movement, Poverty, Systemic Classism Tagged With: activism, community organizing, downward mobility, low-wage jobs, middle class, Minimum wage, public services, race and class, social movements, unions

Cross-Class Alliances: Silicon Valley

December 20, 2017 by Lita Kurth Leave a Comment

On Labor Day, I thought, what better way to celebrate than to show up for cross-class picketing at a local McDonald’s? The first thing I saw was a line of yellow school buses bringing the picketers from the local labor council to the restaurant, partly because many workers rely on a bus, not a car […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Cross-class alliances, Dismantlng Classism, Race and Class Tagged With: activism, classism, community organizing, low-wage jobs, Minimum wage, speaking up, unions

Beyond Trump: Donald Trump Needs Our Racism

October 19, 2016 by Jude Diebold 1 Comment

Part of the White, Working Class, and Worried about Trump (#WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump) Campaign*: Throughout the 2016 election cycle, the U.S. electorate has subjected to overt and systemic racism from the Republican candidate Donald Trump. We have also borne witness to Trump exploiting white racial fears in order to garner the support of white people, in particular the white […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Classism in Politics, Dismantlng Classism, Electoral politics, Institutional racism, Labor movement, Owning class, Politics and Class, Race and Class Tagged With: #WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump, blaming the victim, classism, owning class, unions, working class

SCOTUS: Public Sector Unions Safe for Now

March 30, 2016 by Bill Fletcher Jr. Leave a Comment

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it was deadlocked in the case of Friedrichs v California Teachers Association (representing 325,000 teachers in 1,000 school districts). The 4-4 vote, for now, leaves undisturbed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which found itself bound by a prior SCOTUS precedent upholding a system […]

Filed Under: A World Without Classism, Building Economic Alternatives, Classism in Politics, Labor movement, Politics and Class Tagged With: labor law, public sector, public sector unions, Supreme Court, union-bashing, unions

Championing Postal Workers Is Good Class and Economic Sense

November 19, 2015 by Maynard Seider Leave a Comment

I watched the second Democratic debate hoping that Senator Bernie Sanders would clearly articulate an economic policy that would differentiate him from Hillary Clinton, that would advance the interests of American workers and that would easily resonate with the millions of debate viewers. Unfortunately he didn’t. Instead he continued to lash out at the one […]

Filed Under: Building Economic Alternatives, Classism in Politics, Dismantlng Classism Tagged With: blaming the victim, boycott, low-wage jobs, middle class, middle-class jobs, public services, unions

Where is labor on Labor Day 2014?

August 29, 2014 by Bill Fletcher Jr. Leave a Comment

With every passing year, Labor Days becomes increasingly surreal. Labor, as a movement, receives decreasing attention and, to the extent to which Labor Day is acknowledged, it tends to be in the context of work alone. This may sound strange except when you remember that both the original Labor Day—May 1st—as well as the US-constructed […]

Filed Under: Labor movement Tagged With: activism, Labor Day, movement building, unions, working class

Beneath the Veneer of Harris v. Quinn

July 17, 2014 by Michael C. Duff 2 Comments

Harris v. Quinn is a recent Supreme Court opinion, featured often on the news, holding that “partial” public employees – home health care providers – should not be “compelled” to join a union or, put in less charged language, to contribute to union representation in their workplace even when a majority of employees has voted […]

Filed Under: Classism in Politics, Labor movement Tagged With: labor law, public services, Right to Work, unions

The Worker Center Boogyman

December 9, 2013 by Michael C. Duff Leave a Comment

Lately the Chamber of Commerce (the Chamber) has been complaining loudly that Worker Centers are a kind of front group for unions.  Worker centers are community-based and community-led organizations that engage in a combination of service, advocacy, and organizing activities to provide support to low-wage workers. The vast majority of the Centers were created primarily […]

Filed Under: Labor movement, Politics and Class Tagged With: labor law, union-bashing, unions, worker centers

Why I became an adjunct (against the advice of everyone that I knew…)

October 8, 2013 by Abby Machson-Carter 2 Comments

When I was finishing my master’s degree in creative writing I started telling my professors and family members that when I graduated I wanted to “go into teaching.” I got a variety of responses.  When I was lamenting a missed a job opportunity, one teacher responded: “Good.   Being an adjunct teacher was the worst job […]

Filed Under: Class in Higher Education, Labor movement, Workplace classism Tagged With: academia, low-wage jobs, teachers unions, unions

Imagining a Labor Day without a Labor Board (It isn’t Hard to Do)

August 30, 2013 by Michael C. Duff Leave a Comment

Recently there has been much congressional skirmishing over the funding of the National Labor Relations Board, often referred to as simply the “labor board.”  During the last year or so President Obama’s recess appointments to the labor board have also been widely discussed. But I am not especially interested in the details of the latest […]

Filed Under: Labor movement, Politics and Class Tagged With: National Labor Relations Board, unions

President Obama’s Middle Class: the Rhetoric and the Reality

February 18, 2013 by Maynard Seider Leave a Comment

It should come as no surprise that President Obama focused on the “middle class” in his State of the Union speech. He mentioned that term six times, even calling it “our generation’s task…to reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth – a rising, thriving middle class.” What the president didn’t mention was the critical […]

Filed Under: Classism in the Economy, Labor movement, Politics and Class Tagged With: deficit, low-wage jobs, Minimum wage, unions

Who represents the working class?

June 25, 2012 by Maynard Seider Leave a Comment

There was a time when if one asked, ‘Who represents the working class?’,  a reasonable answer would have been the Democratic Party.  But since Jimmy Carter that party has moved to the right, supports so-called Free Trade, champions legislation that fosters financial speculation, has forgotten the poor as a group worthy of aid,  and goes […]

Filed Under: Labor movement, Politics and Class Tagged With: immigrants, middle class, Occupy Movement, teachers unions, unions, working class

What’s needed at this political moment? 5 well-known leftists, 5 strong opinions

June 12, 2012 by Betsy Leondar-Wright 10 Comments

At the Working-Class Studies conference last weekend, I heard an amazing dialogue about class, race and movement-building by five progressive journalists and activist scholars: Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!, Frances Fox Piven, Bill Fletcher Jr. of Blackcommentator.com, and former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert of Demos, with conference organizer Michael Zweig, author of The […]

Filed Under: Classism in Politics, Labor movement, Politics and Class, Poverty, Race and Class Tagged With: debt, jobs, low-wage jobs, racism, unemployment, unions, working class

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