Dan DiMaggio

Three miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, auto parts workers in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, voted yesterday to join an independent union, defeating company attempts to usher in an employer-friendly, politically connected union.

The independent Mexican Workers’ League (la Liga Sindical Obrera Mexicana) won 186 votes, while a union with ties to the powerful Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) received 101.

“Seven months ago if you asked me about a union I would’ve said, ‘I don’t know, cops have them?’” says Sarah Pappin, a shift supervisor at a Seattle Starbucks. But on June 6, she and her co-workers voted unanimously to join Starbucks Workers United, part of an upsurge of organizing by younger workers with little union experience that is breathing new life into the labor movement.

Auto workers at a General Motors plant in central Mexico delivered a landslide victory to an independent union in a vote held February 1-2. It's a major breakthrough for workers and labor activists seeking to break the vice grip of the employer-friendly unions that have long dominated Mexico’s labor movement.

2021 saw high-profile strikes and contract battles that put unions in the public spotlight. And 2022 could potentially be more explosive.

Workers are already sensing their increased leverage in a tight labor market. They’ll be feeling the squeeze of record inflation while their employers rake in profits. There’s every reason to hold the line against concessions, or to win back what they gave away before.

Johnson Brothers Strikers Take Their Fight to the Customers

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For more ideas on taking your campaign to consumers, see the Steward's Corner by Robert M. Schwartz, "How to Picket Stores That Sell Your Employer's Products."

Striking delivery drivers in Rhode Island are providing a good example of what you can do with a small squad of roving picketers. The drivers, who deliver wine and liquor for Johnson Brothers of Rhode Island, have been targeting stores and restaurants that are accepting scab deliveries.

‘It Feels Like We Started a Movement’: Despite Mixed Results in Frito-Lay Strike, Workers Proud They Stood Up

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Frito-Lay workers won one guaranteed day off per week and put an end to forced “suicide” shifts after a 20-day strike this summer at their plant in Topeka, Kansas. Many were frustrated that the union didn’t hold out longer and win more—but are proud of the role that their fight played in launching the ongoing strike wave.

A month-long strike by Nabisco workers beat back the snackmaker’s bid to introduce a two-tier health care plan and switch them onto 12-hour shifts. Employer contributions to workers’ 401(k) plans will be doubled.

One of the biggest issues in the strike was the company’s effort to do away with premium pay for weekend shifts and work after eight hours. The company wanted to put all workers on an Alternative Work Schedule consisting of 12-hour days, paid at straight time.

Workers Have Leverage. It's Time to Use It.

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The capitalist vultures are wheeling low, but they’re finding slim pickings to choose from these days.

“No one wants to work!” The bosses whine about a worker shortage—though it’s one they brought about.

Eighteenth-century British economist Adam Smith noted how common it is to hear complaints about workers coming together to fight for their interests, and how rare it is to hear about all the scheming the bosses do to plunder workers’ labor.

It was 6:30 a.m. and workers at a San Jose light rail maintenance yard were talking with their union president during shift change.

Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 265 President John Courtney was there to discuss the state of the union, including a campaign for hazard pay and management’s push to squeeze more passengers onto buses and trains despite Covid. “You can’t run a union from your office,” Courtney says. “You have to get out there amongst the people. You have to hear what they have to say. They have to hear what I have to say.”

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