What’s In the Health Insurance Bill, What’s Not
What’s weird about the whole health insurance fracas is that Republicans and some insurance company execs fought just as hard against the crappy bill we have before us as if it were really what they claim it is: a vast government “intrusion” into health care.
Mexico: Union Strikes and Blockages Back Fired Electrical Workers
Electrical utility workers in Mexico called for a national strike yesterday to support their fight against the liquidation of their company, and some of the country’s more militant unions responded—including by blocking highways. Police responded with tear gas and violence.
Women in the Trades: They've Got Stories
It was a day like today—60s and sunny, decades ago—when I swung from the top of a telephone pole and thought I had the best job in the world. A few months earlier, in the Detroit winter, not so much. I remember phoning a customer from the pole behind her house and hearing her tell me she could see a man working on the pole back there. When I visited another customer’s home, climbing boots and tool belt and all, she called me “operator.”
'Toxic' Health Bill or No, Labor's 'Medicare for All' Activists Dig In
When I told friends I was on my way to the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer conference, held last weekend, they all said, “I bet that’ll be a bunch of long faces.” I predicted not—these were people who’d always known the health care reform debate in Congress would come up short. Yet the 124 delegates to the March 5-7 conference in Washington were upbeat.
Steelworkers Protest US Steel’s ‘Wholesale Indifference’
Ask a union member what’s the bedrock of a union contract, and most will answer “seniority.” Long established as the way to keep the manager’s brother-in-law from getting the good jobs, companies have learned to live with taking turns and following recall lists.
Health Care Victory—or Pretzel?
Yesterday Rich Trumka announced a deal with the White House: high-cost union health care plans won’t be subject to an excise tax till 2018—five years later than almost everyone else. Trumka made clear that the intent of the changes the unions brokered is to make so many groups exempt from the tax that in practice it will almost never be applied. But why build a pretzel around the right thing?
Reform Teamster Leaders Out, Then In Again, in Chicago
In 2007 Teamsters in scores of small Chicago shops, and a few big ones, capped years of organizing against corrupt leaders and stolen elections by electing a reform slate to head 11,000-member Local 743. Attendees at the 2008 Labor Notes Conference heard President Richard Berg tell the inspiring story of how persistence had enabled the slate to slash officers’ salaries, get rid of do-nothings, and beef up representation and education.
‘There Are No Tea-baggers in Soup Lines’
Auto workers outshone the tea-party types as dueling demonstrations took place in the snow outside the Detroit Auto Show today. Small numbers of auto workers gathered to say government should use its role in the auto bailout to direct the factories toward job-creating green products such as high-speed trains and wind turbines—and should enact Medicare for All.
Lean Production Is Alive and Well in Mexico
Chris Kutalik reported here recently that there’s something called the “lean community,” which exists to (1) spread the gospel of lean production and (2) make sure the name of lean is not blasphemed. “It’s not about speedup! Workers love lean production!”
A $26,000 Pilot?
Sometimes high-paid jobs provoke a lot of envy and resentment. But sometimes you feel a lot more comfortable when workers in certain positions are making more than a living wage. While attending the Teamsters for a Democratic Union convention Friday, I met a pilot who took home $26,000 last year as a first officer (that’s the one who sits on the right). And he’s union.