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Remembering Where Flowers Come from on Valentine’s Day »

February 13, 2007 | Alexandra Early

Every year on Valentine’s Day, millions of Americans head to their local florist or supermarket to buy flowers for a friend, spouse, or family member. If there’s a romantic relationship involved, we’re mainly concerned about getting our gift to the recipient--on time. Few of us ever ask where...

News Watch »

February 1, 2007 |


“Gary Rusnell will come back inside over my dead body,” Detroit Newspapers labor relations boss Tim Kelleher once vowed. That was more than a year ago. A court had reversed the firing of Rusnell, a rank and file leader of the newspaper strike, and Kelleher was appealing. But recently, the...

Smithfield Workers Arrested in Immigrant Raids »

January 28, 2007 | William Johnson

21 immigrant meatpackers were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers January 24 at the Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina. The Tar Heel plant’s 5,000 workers have been fighting to organize a union since the early 1990’s. Pro-union workers have faced...

Viewpoint: Longshore Workers Vote for Port Shutdown: Stopping Union-Busters Means Defying the Law »

January 27, 2007 | Jack Heyman

San Francisco has been a union town since the historic 1934 maritime strike of sailors and longshoremen which turned into a citywide general strike after two strikers were killed by police. The strikers’ slogan then was, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” Now, every July 5, “Bloody...

Call for ‘Stewards Army’ Opens Door for New Labor Activism »

January 27, 2007 |
by Rand Wilson, Organizing Director
IUE-CWA Local 201

Can unions train and mobilize tens of thousands of new member-activists on a large enough scale to take on labor's greatest challenges? Backers of the Communication Workers= (CWA) new "Stewards Army" plan think so.

Union Leadership Re-Elected with Less than Half the Vote: NY Transit Workers Get Contract They Rejected »

January 27, 2007 | Steve Downs

More than a year after their three-day strike, New York City’s subway and bus workers finally have a contract—the same one they rejected a year ago. Sharp differences over the contract were reflected in the December 2006 local election, where incumbent president Roger Toussaint was re-elected...

Communication Workers Fight Rural Telecom Redlining In New England »

January 27, 2007 | Steve Early

Four local unions representing 3,000 Verizon workers in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire are waging grassroots campaign to block Verizon’s attempt to abandon its “low-value” landline customers in northern New England. . . .

Members Write Their Own Plan for Rail Unity: UTU-BLET Merger Proposed »

January 27, 2007 | Ron Kaminkow

Railroad engineers and trainmen from two unions are building solidarity and union democracy on the rails. On January 1, Railroad Operating Crafts United (ROCU), a cross-union rail workers’ reform group, officially launched its campaign to unite the two unions: the Brotherhood of Locomotive...

Workers and Unions Fight Back Against 'No-Match' Letters »

January 27, 2007 | Tiffany Ten Eyck

If you’re an immigrant worker and a “troublemaker,” your boss might have a new way of getting you to quiet down. While “no-match letters” have been used for years to intimidate or fire immigrant workers, in recent months their use is on the rise. . . .

Dealing with ‘No-Match’ Letters »

January 26, 2007 | Dan La Botz

Although lack of legal status does not technically prevent workers from exercising their right to organize a union, it does give employers the opportunity to threaten workers who do. The threat of a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement can help keep workers from organizing.

Smithfield Meatpackers Stay Off Work To Demand Martin Luther King Holiday »

January 26, 2007 | William Johnson

Hundreds of meatpackers from the Smithfield Foods hog processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina honored Martin Luther King Jr. Day at a January 15 rally in nearby Fayetteville, where they lambasted the company for its refusal to give workers the holiday off. . . .

Immigrant Workers Buck Long Slide in Meatpacking; Raids Follow as Backlash »

January 26, 2007 | Chris Kutalik

Heavily-armed federal agents stormed six Swift meatpacking plants last month and rounded up nearly 1,300 immigrant workers in one of the largest workplace raids in U.S. history. The raids represented the climax of a year in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ratcheted up its...

Denied Collective Bargaining, North Carolina Public Employees Turn More Militant »

January 26, 2007 | Ashaki Binta

Sanitation workers in Raleigh, North Carolina had had enough. For two days in September, they staged work stoppages for several hours each day, refusing to move their trucks off the garage lot. . . .

Bloated Salaries Limit Organizing, Leave Members Cynical »

January 25, 2007 | Mark Brenner

In today’s labor movement, it’s hard to find a leader who doesn’t stress the need to organize new members. Judging by the size of their paychecks, however, some of labor’s top brass aren’t ready to put their money where their mouth is. According to data filed under the Labor Management...

Pension Showdown Pits Public Employees Against Politicians in New Jersey »

January 2, 2007 | Mark Brenner

Thousands of New Jersey schoolchildren got an unexpected holiday December 11, as teachers joined with firefighters and other public employees in a massive rally at the statehouse in Trenton....

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