United States: John Deere workers win
27 November 2021 , by MIAH Malik
The United States labour movement won its biggest victory in years on November 17.
John Deere workers began militant strike action in the mid-west in October, stood up against a powerful employer — and, when necessary, their own national union leadership — and won.
Strikes in many industries (...)
United States: Workers rise up in strike wave
3 November 2021 , by MIAH Malik
Thousands of workers are on strike right now in the United States, in what is being dubbed "Striketober". In some cases, bosses are using "replacements" (scabs) to cross picket lines and keep the profits flowing.
Strikers are fed up with poor working conditions, forced overtime, 16-hour shifts, (...)
United States – The Great Resignation: A Workers' Movement in America
20 October 2021 , by LA BOTZ Dan
The United States is experiencing one of the biggest worker movements in decades. While it is not organized by the labor unions, involves no strikes, and has had little fanfare, it is a common action–if not exactly a conscious collective action–being taken by millions
Over the last several (...)
United States – Is America experiencing an unofficial general strike?
13 October 2021 , by REICH Robert
Last Friday's jobs report from the US Department of Labor elicited a barrage of gloomy headlines. The New York Times emphasized "weak" jobsgrowth and fretted that"hiring challenges that have bedeviled employers all year won't be quickly resolved," and "rising wages could add to concerns about (...)
United States: How Work Is Killing Us – Three Authors Look at Work's Devastation of Life
14 September 2021 , by EARLY Steve
A Review of Worked Over: How Round-The-Clock Work is Killing the American Dream by Jamie K. McCallum (Basic Books, 2021); Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone, by Sarah Jaffe (Bold Type Books, 2021) and Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and The (...)
Amazon (Alabama, United States): Defeat in Bessemer – A wake up call for the Left and labor
15 April 2021 , by ALLEN Joe
It seemed like everything was set for victory. A large, powerful corporation that took advantage of poverty wages paid in a southern state. Union organizers who countered company propaganda by highlighting connections between "civil rights and union rights" to a predominately African-American (...)
Difficult period to organize for unions (United States): Postmortem on Bessemer Amazon Defeat
13 April 2021 , by GOLDFIELD Michael
First, we must recognize that the overwhelming vote against the union in Bessemer marks a decisive defeat, not to be under estimated. It will undoubtedly have a dampening effect on other workers, especially given its broad media attention, and the high expectations of many. Yet, before (...)
Trade Unionism (United States): The Fight to Organize Amazon Is Just Getting Started
13 April 2021 , by PRESS Alex N.
The cameras and news trucks may be leaving town. But at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, where the company won a closely watched unionization vote last week, the fight isn't over. And at Amazon's other warehouses, it's just getting started.
At the press conference held by the Retail, (...)
United States: Amazon loss a setback for unions, but what next?
13 April 2021 , by MIAH Malik
After a week of counting by the United States National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a majority of those casting a postal vote at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama rejected a unionisation effort by the Retail, Warehouse and Department Store Union (RWDSU).
Workers voted 1798 to 738 (...)
United States: Union Organizing Drive at Amazon Fails—Why? What Next?
12 April 2021 , by LA BOTZ Dan
In a major setback for the U.S. labor movement, last week the union organizing drive at the giant Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama defeated. Workers voted 1,798 against and 738 for the union in a union representation election in which only about half of the 5,876 eligible workers (...)
United States: Amazon workers fight for a union, dignity – Amazon's anti-union smear campaign
18 March 2021 , by MIAH Malik
Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, are voting on whether to become the first unionised Amazon warehouse in the United States.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) mailed ballots to nearly 6000 Amazon workers, who will decide whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store (...)
USA: Looking for John Sweeney - A Correction
5 March 2021 , by SCIPES Kim
The death of AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has evoked examinations of his legacy. One can praise the good things but its important to address the bad things so we can have a more accurate understanding of his time.
The February 2021 death of AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeny has evoked a (...)
United States: Mutual aid will help us survive the Biden presidency
20 November 2020 , by SPADE Dean
Biden and Harris are not going to stop the crises we are facing — mutual aid projects are essential to survive and build the world we want to live in.
The only thing that keeps those in power in that position is the illusion of our powerlessness. A moment of freedom and connection can undo a (...)
The Rank and File Strategy on New Terrain
12 August 2020 , by GRIFFITHS Kate D.
Seventeen years after the release of Kim Moody's pamphlet The Rank and File Strategy for the socialist organization Solidarity, and two decades after Moody's then prescient assessment of the state of the working class, Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy, his recent (...)
United States: Unions to strike for Black lives
14 July 2020 , by MIAH Malik
More unions are stepping up to join the anti-racist fight in the Unites States, as the disproportionate impact of coronavirus hits oppressed communities. They are a high percentage of essential workers in the hospital, medical support, retail and food service industries.
Tens of thousands of (...)
Firing Up the House of Labor to Fight for Racial Justice: Confronting Hard Truths
7 June 2020 , by WEINER Lois
Criticizing labor is hard for socialists. On the one hand we know the unions are the underdog in the class struggle, and it's painfully apparent that our society has suffered because unions are so weak. At the same time, it's clear most unions can't or won't live up to their social and political (...)
The American Working Class on Unfamiliar and Dangerous Terrain: A Fightback Begins
1 June 2020 , by LA BOTZ Dan
The working class in the United States faces tremendous difficulties, but there are some hopeful signs of movement in workplaces and unions, in communities, and on the left. As this article was being edited, the national uprising against the police murder of George Floyd spread across the (...)
US: From Invisible to Essential: Worker Struggle in the COVID Pandemic
13 May 2020 , by BRADBURY Al, RESNICK Bill
Al, today we'll be discussing worker challenges to their employers during the COVID epidemic – about health and safety and pay, and also of worker challenges to what the corporations like to call management prerogatives. In winning the right to collective bargaining, trade unions in the U.S. (...)
USA : Amazon-owned Whole Foods is quietly tracking its employees with a heat map tool that ranks which stores are most at risk of unionizing
20 April 2020 , by PETERSON Hayley
Stores' risk scores are based on more than two dozen metrics, including racial diversity, employee turnover, and "tipline" calls.
Amazon-owned Whole Foods is tracking and scoring stores it deems at risk of unionizing, according to five people with knowledge of the effort and internal documents (...)
Amazon climate employee group calls on company's tech workers to stage virtual walkout
16 April 2020 , by AFP, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), ROMANO Benjamin
[Click here for all ESSF coverage of the Coronavirus pandemic
A fired Amazon employee activist called for the company's tech workers to go on a one-day virtual walkout during a controversial online meeting with warehouse workers Thursday.
"Do you think this is right? Are you OK with the firings (...)
UE Union (USA)
Rank-and-File"unionism:"UE" is the abbreviation for United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, a democratic national union representing some 35,000 workers in a wide variety of manufacturing, public sector and private non-profit sector jobs. UE is an independent union (not (...)
Labor / Labour movement
People's Movements & social actors