After a brief two-day strike in late September, United Auto Workers (UAW) negotiators signed a tentative agreement with General Motors. Members began voting on the proposed contract local by local in early October. . . .

We regret the decision by the UAW negotiators to tentatively agree to place the future health care protection of hundreds of thousands of UAW retired members under a union run Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, or VEBA. . . .

For the first time in 37 years the United Auto Workers (UAW) launched a two-day nationwide strike against General Motors in late September. More than 73,000 production workers poured out of GM plants after an 11 a.m. strike deadline was passed on September 24. . . .

Labor Notes is not just a magazine; it’s a project built by and for labor activists. The upcoming 2008 Labor Notes Conference is a prime example, drawing on the work of labor activists from around the country—and the world. . . .

In a modest office in the central business district of New Orleans, two years after Hurricane Katrina, the Workers Center for Racial Justice organizes the city’s guest workers and day laborers. . . .

It was a good day to ride your bike in the Big Apple. New York City cabbies launched a two-day strike on September 5, leaving the city's streets quiet and would-be passengers scrambling...

A boisterous crowd of more than 1,000 meatpacking workers and supporters was on hand to greet Smithfield Food shareholders at their annual meeting August 29 in Williamsburg, Virginia. Demonstrators called on Smithfield executives to respect the organizing drive. . . .

The deportation of immigrant rights activist Elvira Arellano by federal authorities on August 20 was a blow aimed at the immigrant rights movement. Arellano, a 32-year old single mother who had spent a year living in a Chicago church in defiance of a deportation order, had become a spokesperson for the New Sanctuary Movement, which focuses on how immigration law and immigration authorities have separated families, and a symbol of resistance for the broader immigrant rights movement.

When Cami Automotive in Ingersoll, Ontario hired 500 new employees, Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 88 wanted to make sure it had a plan to get the new hires, many of them under 30 and starting their first union jobs, involved in the union. . . .

When Cami Automotive in Ingersoll, Ontario hired 500 new employees, Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 88 wanted to make sure it had a plan to get the new hires, many of them under 30 and starting their first union jobs, involved in the union.

Local 88 leaders came up with an inspired answer: start a youth committee. According to Local 88 President and Labor Notes Policy Committee member Cathy Austin, “The original concept was to get a youth committee started and if that was successful, to get a youth member-at-large on the union’s executive board.”

WINNING THE UNION OVER

Not everyone in the union was enthusiastic about the idea at first. “There was a lot of debate in the union and quite the debate on the floor,” said Austin. “In the beginning people asked, ‘Why do they need a special committee? I never had a youth committee.”

Auto workers at the Avto VAZ plant in Togliatti, Russia continue to demand living wages despite their company’s refusal to negotiate and meet the workers’ demands. The independent trade union, Yedinstvo, is calling for all workers in the Avto VAZ plant to pressure top managers of Avto VAZ to raise the minimum monthly pay from 8,000 rubles ($325) to 25,000 rubles ($980) a month to meet monthly wage standards for the region set by the Samara provincial legislature during local elections.

The Avto VAZ plant is the largest auto manufacturing plant in Russia, employing over 112,000 workers in three workshops in the plant. On August 1, workers at Avto VAZ called a strike in response to having received no reply from the company regarding their demands. The union called an end to the strike on August 1 after four hours of striking at several Avto VAZ shops.

Eight excutive board members of the Union of Nursing Workers of El Salvador (SIEGEESAL), were arrested on September 4 after helping organize protests in the San Vicente area of El Salvador. The actions were called to protest health services privitization, medicine shortages in public clinics, and the alleged embezzlement and misuse of funds by the regional public health director.

Union leaders have secured the nurses release on bail, but they still face charges for public disorder and damages to private property.

The protests, which took place in early July, involved a call for strikes at Santa Gertrudis national hospital. The work stoppages led to a meeting with the Director General of Hospital Services who agreed to discuss the unions’ demands, launch an inquiry into the charges of embezzlement and not seek reprisals against those who participated in the protest.