The Great Walmart Walkout
Labor strife at Walmart is nothing new. But in the retail giant’s half-century of existence, it’s never looked like this. On the heels of a series of failed organizing campaigns, unions and their allies are mounting the strongest-ever North American challenge to Walmart. The new campaign faces daunting odds and extreme versions of the hurdles facing US workers everywhere: employers on the warpath and labor laws tilted against employees. But with a new organizing strategy and a savvy focus on Walmart’s supply chain vulnerability, this attempt has come closer than any at forcing change from the dominant player in our economy—a necessary task if there’s ever to be a robust future for the US labor movement.
Source: thenation.com
(via Robert Reich: The Inequality Battle in the Heartland - Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics)
In the state where the American labor movement was born—and where, because of labor unions, the American middle class once had the bargaining power to gain a significant portion of the nation’s total income—Republicans and big money are striking back.Legislators in the Michigan state House, followed almost immediately by Republicans who dominate the state Senate, voted Thursday afternoon to eliminate basic union organizing and workplace protections for both public and private-sector workers. Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder says he’ll sign the measure.
FILMS: Taylor Chain II: A Story of Collective Bargaining, The Last Pullman Car, Taylor Chain I: A Story in a Union Local, HSA Hospital Strike ‘75, UE/Wells, What’s Happening at Local 70?, Where’s I. W. Abel?, As Goes Janesville
Thousands of union workers & supporters have swarmed Michigan’s capitol this morning fighting against the union-busting right-to-work bill that could be signed by Gov. Rick Snyder later today.
“What’s really unfolding here in Michigan is a long, protracted battle. I don’t think labor will walk away and lick their wounds and say they lost this one,” said Kristin Dziczek, director of the labor industry group at the Center for Automotive Research.
FILMS: Taylor Chain II: A Story of Collective Bargaining, The Last Pullman Car, Taylor Chain I: A Story in a Union Local, HSA Hospital Strike ‘75, UE/Wells, What’s Happening at Local 70?, Where’s I. W. Abel?, As Goes Janesville
(via unitehere)
Source: thepeoplesrecord
In the state where workers sat down in Flint General Motors plants seventy-five years ago and emboldened the industrial labor movement that would give birth to the American middle class, Republican legislators on Thursday voted to gut basic labor rights.
Source: thenation.com
