Campus
CAMPUS LABOR: The future of the labor movement can be found on universities. (3/25/22)
Civil Rights Connection
THE CONVERGENCE: To fight against racism, join the battle for workers’ rights too. Also: Do the same to fight against right-wing authoritarianism.
COVID
LABOR’S MOMENT OF OPPORTUNITY: With the abuse of workers during the pandemic, Ralph Nader says, there has rarely been a better time for unions organize. But the opportunity won’t last forever. (12/19/21) (More here)
MOUNTAIN HIGHS: The stresses of COVID have led grocery workers and other itinerant and low-wage workers across the Mountain West to organize for their rights. (1/15/22)
PUSHED TOO FAR: Pilots walk off the job to protest their treatment in the COVID era. (3/11/22)
Corporate
ACTIVISM FROM WITHIN: Led by Millennials, workers are speaking out on their companies’ role in social crises from poverty to the climate crisis. (1/19/22)
Crosscutting movements
UNITED? The labor and environmental movements have often been at odds. But the climate crisis might be changing that. Exhibit A: A top Labor official’s move to Greenpeace. (2/24/22)
LABOR AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS: Corporations promote “stakeholder” capitalism, with a “resilient energy transition” that “delivers inclusive growth and long-term prosperity.” Sound familiar? A roundtable. (1/16/22)
Democracy
LABOR AND DEMOCRACY: The last guardrail for American democracy, says Pulitzer Prize-winning Chris Hedges, is the labor movement. (1/18/22)
LABOR’S POWER AND POWERLESSNESS: Monopolism has reduced the wages of workers by 20 percent, study finds. (5/22)
Direct action
DISOBEDIENCE: Can labor revive the cause by breaking the law? (3/17/22)
Farm workers
‘WHEN WE ORGANIZE, THEY LISTEN’: Farm workers on Long Island fight for higher wages—which are now 40 percent lower than those of comparable workers. (1/11/22)
Gig economy
STANDING ON OTHERS’ BROAD SHOULDERS: Amazon workers in Chicago plan to build on the organizing success of workers in Staten Island. (5/4/22)
MICROWORKERS: The gig economy has produced a wandering tribe of workers with limited ability to grab even the lowest rung of the ladder of opportunity.
BIDEN FOR GIG ORGANIZING: The NLRB weighs in on the longstanding battle over whether Lyft and Uber drivers should be considered “independent contractors” or organizable workers. (12/27/21)
Global movement
A WORKERS NATO? Laborers—and other social movements—need a strategy to collaborate and come to each others’ aid. (5/1/22) More on mutual aid.
ANALYZE THIS: Students and workers block streets beat U Cal-San Diego to protest low wages for 48,000 campus workers. (4/26/22)
FIRE AND REHIRE: That’s the strategy of companies that want to keep their talent but don’t want to pay full price. What is to be done? Civil disobedience might be the only answer. (4/25/22)
Manufacturing
PICKEL PROTEST: Workers at a pickle factory walk off the job to protest COVID working conditions. (2/12/22)
Marginalia
ANTI-WORK MOVEMENT: Sounds like a punchline, but it’s serious business. Workers who are tired of long thankless hours for low pay have decided enough is enough. (2/15/22)
GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAL! The U.S. women’s soccer team’s activism has produced a landmark agreement on wage equity. (2/24/22)
RAIDER FOR LABOR: The infamous corporate raider Carl Icahn says he’s going to push for worker rights. (3/31/22)
Organizing
LOOSE SOLIDARITY: Are decentralized autonomous organizations–or DAOs–the future of labor organizing? Maybe, but what about human connections and solidarity? (9/24/21)
Policy
‘EXCLUDED WORKERS’ PROTEST: Brooklyn activists march for an “excluded workers fund” for workers who can’t get jobs or unemployment insurance. (3/8/22)
LABOR AGAINST INFLATION: When inflation rears its ugly head, that’s no time to cower in a corner. Lessons from the 1970s. (3/4/22)
Retail
A BITE OUT OF THE APPLE: A successful labor drive in a store outside Baltimore shows some union strength. But voting for a union is not the same as winning a contract, so stay tuned. (1/20/22)
INEVITABLY . . . Ithaca Starbucks closes after activists organize workers. (6/5/22)
A LATTE OF TROUBLE: Remember when Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz talked about how much he cared about workers? LOL. Now his company is firing workers for organizing unions. (2/7/22) Background here.
BARISTAS VOTE WITH THEIR FEET: A revival of the Joy Silk Doctrine could revive union organizing. The upshot: People would be able to organize without interference and harassment. (3/14/22) Also see this.
COFFEE SHOP SKIRMISH: After the organizer at a Pittsburgh coffee shop is fired, UFCW Local 1776 files charges of unfair labor practice with the NLRB. (12/28/21)
Service professions
NURSES WIN IN WORCESTER: A ten-month strike at St. Vincent’s brings some needed relief to nurses. But can unions counter the bottom-line orientation of modern hospital chains? (1/6/22)
ORGANIZING AT ASSISTED LIVING FACILITIES: With the pandemic care, underpaid workers fled the homes. In Dickensian condition, the remaining workers decided to organize. (1/14/22)
NURSES FIGHT BACK: Celebrated as “essential” in the early COVID crisis, nurses feel abused and endangered by relaxed safety standards. They’re protesting to fight back. (1/12/22)
Teachers
SCHOOL OF LIFE: Chicago schools refuse calls to discipline teachers who teach environmentalism. (7/28/22)
Tech and service industries
WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE: Netflix, long a case study for enlightened capitalism, fights worker organizing. (5/20/22)
TECHIES OF THE WORLD, UNITE! Office and non-office workers engage in unprecedented levels of activism, from the warehouse to the boardroom. (5/23/22)
NOW IT’S VERIZON: Workers in Washington State vote to unionize. (4/15/22) Also: More on the organizing efforts at Amazon and other previously anti-union workplaces.
GAME ON: Game makers tell their players how to get into their labor fight. (2/7/22)
PRIME: Meanwhile, Amazon workers are picking up their organizing efforts where they left off inn Alabama. (2/8/22)
SILICON LABOR BOOM? Not so fast. The vote in Staten Island boosted the movement. But the size of Big Tech makes unionization hard.
THIS IS THE WAY: At Amazon’s Staten Island facility, workers voted 2,654 to 2,131 to form a union. The company, which spent more than $4 million to oppose unionization, now has 1.6 million employees globally. (4/1/22) Also: Biden says he’s on their side.
THE PLAYBOOK: How the union organizers at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse beat the union busters at their own game. (4/4/22) Can labor build on this victory?
ROLL, LABOR TIDE, ROLL: How workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, almost pulled off a historic victory in the heart of Dixie–and how they were beaten. (8/21)
Union busting
DEATH BY MEETING: That’s Amazon’s approach to quashing union organizing. (3/24/22)
BUSTING UNON BUSTERS: The NLRB sues Amazon to restore the job of a worker fired for organizing activities. (3/17/22)
PROJECT VIVIAN: Remember that name. It’s the codeword for Google’s campaign to crush union organizing, the subject of a recent settlement. (3/21/22)
UNION BUSTING: The Labor Lab offers an up-to-date map showing illegal campaigns against union organizers.
OLD GRAY TACTICS: The NLRB charges The New York Times with illegal subverting labor union drives. (1/5/22)
Whitewashing
WHITEWASHING: When corporations trumpet their support for this or that cause, start asking questions about what they’re not discussing. Labor, anyone? (3/4/22)
★ WOKE DON’T PAY BILLS: The Amazon unionization story shows one thing: Woke capital puts on a happy face but is brutal with its own people. (4/14/22)