Contract Talks by Teamsters and the UAW Have the Potential to Change Our Politics: Upcoming union negotiations can swing the 2024 election—and help rebuild democracy.

• June 25, 2023
• Posted in Labor Movement, Mobilizing, Organizing, Strikes, The Nation, Unions

Unions once played a central role in the political education of the working class. The Teamsters, who announced a 97 percent yes-to-strike vote by members on June 16, and the UAW have a chance to build on the brilliance of the teachers’ unions in Chicago and Los Angeles and educate everyday Americans on how to fight back and win what we need at work—and in our democracy. Read More

How Should Workers Respond to the Supreme Court’s Ruling in Glacier Northwest?: The court's ruling could have been much worse—and soon will be. Workers and unions need to be prepared.

• June 3, 2023
• Posted in Labor Movement, Mobilizing, Organizing, Strikes, The Nation, Unions

Today’s US Supreme Court ruling in the Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters case was a blow to workers—but not quite the knockout punch hoped for by the Chamber of Commerce. Despite the court’s 8-1 decision favoring the employer, the justices made a relatively narrow ruling, rather than a broad one weakening the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) even further. Read More

Power and Participation in Negotiations and Politics with Jane McAlevey: How to democratize union negotiations and build significant worker power by practicing transparent, big, and open negotiations

• May 23, 2023
• Posted in Elections, Interviews, Podcast, Strikes, Unions

Jane McAlevey talks with Gordon Lafer and Adolph Reed Jr. about the impact of negotiations as political education, for building strong unions and for rebuilding democracy. Listen here >>   Read More

These Unions Are on the Front Lines Fighting Against the Uberization of Us All: Some long established unions are challenging Silicon Valley’s agenda by pushing back on AI, surveillance, and wage theft.

• May 13, 2023
• Posted in Labor Movement, Mobilizing, Organizing, Strikes, The Nation, Unions

In the past year and a half, start-up unionization efforts such as those at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, and Apple have been satisfying to witness for those of us hungry for social justice in the United States. We have their backs, and we’ll continue to root for them. But the workers with the best chance of actually slowing the spread of oppressive technology (which aims to supplant humans with artificial intelligence and tries to maximize productivity by surveilling workers and controlling their time down to a fraction of a second) and stopping the Uberization of the workforce (which replaces full-time workers with contractors, turning good jobs into underpaid gigs with no benefits) are in unions that are already established. Read More

The Lessons The Legacy Unions Need To Learn w/ Jane McAlevey: Jane McAlevey discusses using big, open, democratic bargaining tactics to win major gains at the table and in the contract.

• May 2, 2023
• Posted in Class Struggle, Interviews, Labor Movement, Strikes, Unions

Jane’s interview begins at 19:00 The wave of unionization continues apace across the United States and elsewhere in the world, but there’s often much less attention paid to the part of the process that comes after the winning of a union election: the bargaining of a contract. It can seem like the hard part is over when the votes are counted, but our guest this week reminds us that the hard part is just beginning. Read More