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

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

Belabored: How to Bargain for Power, with Jane McAlevey: The longtime organizer and theorist discusses tactics that unions can use to win major gains at the table and in the contract.

• April 22, 2023
• Posted in Class Struggle, Interviews, Labor Movement, Strikes, Unions

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

Reinventing Strategy – “Labor Power and Strategy” from CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies: This episode tackles the big labor organizing questions of the day.

• April 17, 2023
• Posted in Class Struggle, Interviews, Labor Movement, Strikes, Unions

Jane McAlevey, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Stephanie Luce, and Peter Olney tackle the big labor organizing questions of the day: What is the relative strategic importance of organizing workers at the commanding heights of the 21st century economy, like the docks for example, versus organizing workers whose solidarity is strong, yet whose structural power within the economy is weaker, like those at Starbucks? Read More