What if I told you an employer had agreed that it could no longer make any change to policies affecting members without “prior affirmative consent” from the union?
Wow, you might say—that’s what I call worker power! But hold your applause till you hear who the employer is: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that detains and deports immigrants.
This week the U.S. labor movement lost its best-known and best-loved troubadour: the great folksinger-songwriter Anne Feeney. She died of Covid on February 3, at age 69, with her children at her side. With her fantastic songs and feisty spirit, she made an incalculable contribution to the movement. She is irreplaceable, and gone too soon.
Mandatory overtime, speed-up, and union-busting at the U.S. Postal Service—sound familiar? Here’s how postal workers in 1978 confronted grueling and dangerous conditions: they walked out on a wildcat strike.
Holiday toy production season got off to a chaotic start this year. Santa Claus at first resisted the elves’ demands for COVID safety measures—prompting a wave of sickouts around the toy workshop.
Many elves joined the sickouts, especially in candy striping and wrapping and ribbons, despite frantic efforts by Elves, Reindeer, and Candy Stripers Local 1224 President Zack Keebler to tamp down the risky resistance. The crisis peaked when a batch of candy canes was shipped out unstriped—an error unprecedented in polar history.
The subway is something I’ve always loved about New York City life. But my family can’t ride it together, because my daughter has cerebral palsy and 3 out of 4 stations have no elevator.
One in seven U.S. adults has serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs or can’t do so at all. People with disabilities generally, including vision and hearing impairments and intellectual disabilities, make up 1 in 4 adults: that’s a huge minority.
Goodbyes are the worst. Labor Notes writer-organizer Chris Brooks is leaving our staff this month to become the mobilization director for the New York NewsGuild.
Chris joined the staff in 2016, in the run-up to that year’s conference. His first day in the office, as I recall, he helped proof the final manuscript of Secrets of a Successful Organizer. Then he plunged right into devising a system to schedule hundreds of volunteers into jobs and shifts.
This month’s magazine is bittersweet; it’s the last one with Samantha Winslow’s name on the masthead, as she leaves the staff.
It’s hard for me to imagine Labor Notes without Samantha. We started working here at almost the same time, eight years ago. Over those years Labor Notes and I have benefited enormously from her organizing knowhow; her excellent political judgment and insights; her keen mind and creativity; and her warm good humor.
