There likely won’t be any more VW-like neutrality agreements with other foreign-owned US-based automakers, but the UAW can still win big. As Shawn Fain himself said last Friday, “What matters is what you do with that experience.” Everyone will continue to cheer this new UAW leadership on, as we should. Read More
The tight labor market signaled by the Great Resignation—when so many workers took individual action, leaving jobs and employers they hated—has converged with other economic and cultural trends to create a unique set of conditions that support union organizing. From Trader Joe’s to Apple to smaller, regional chains and one-off kitchen shops, workers have been turning individual indignation into collective action to change the quality of their work lives by staying put and transforming their workplaces rather than hopping between shitty jobs. Read More
Kate Lappin, Public Services International Regional Secretary Asia Pacific, talks to Jane on the sidelines of PSI Congress. Read More
https://janemcalevey.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/The-State-Of-Labor-After-The-UAWs-Victory-_-Jane-McAlevey-_-TMR.m4a Jane McAlevey walks through her insider perspective on the evolution of the labor movement over the last three decades, with the Chicago Teachers Union’s election of Karen Lewis in 2010 marking a major turning point in the raising of worker expectations across the US, planting the seeds for a renaissance of worker action over the next decade, before the Pandemic slammed a brief lid on growing discontent, ramping up the pressure on the working class and resulting in the post-COVID explosion of labor action across the US. Read More
(excerpts…) Organizing is not an art of telling people what to do, McAlevey explains, but of listening for what they cannot abide… McAlevey has become not just an expert organizer but a social scientist of organizing’s methodology. She has written four books that have become touchstones for a new generation of labor leaders. Read More