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Members of the independent union SINTTIA rallied at a May 1 demonstration. Photo: SINTTIA

El gobierno mexicano está fallando en procesar la violencia de represalia y amenaza contra trabajadores que se organizan, según un nuevo informe, lo que coloca a México en incumplimiento de su acuerdo comercial con Estados Unidos y Canadá.

El informe enumera nueve campañas de organización distintas en las que se hicieron amenazas contra trabajadores: en cada caso, los autores encontraron “poca evidencia de investigación o enjuiciamiento por parte de las autoridades.”

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A crowd marches with signs

After a years-long campaign by unions, Virginia’s General Assembly passed legislation to extend collective bargaining rights to nearly half a million state, county, and municipal government employees.

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Seven women stand by a car holding a Farmworkers Union flag

In 2011 Frank Bardacke published an 800-page history of the Farm Workers union: Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. It opened many eyes to the reasons the UFW became a shadow of its former self.

Bardacke starts the book with an epigraph, a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “O what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down...”

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Smiling strikers pose outdoors with a bright yellow banner handpainted "On strike for our schools" in red. Most people visible in this photo appear to be white or Asian women. Many wear UESF hats. Other visible handmade signs say "Boo Su, give us a fair contract now!" "Keep our counselors" and "Invest in oiur largest asset: children." Palm trees are visible against gray sky. Some people raise fists or a victory/peace sign.

Six thousand San Francisco educators won fully funded health care, sanctuary schools, and an up to 8.5 percent raise over two years by walking out for the first time in nearly 50 years.

After just four days on strike, February 9 to 12, they won their top demands—some of which the district had previously refused even to bargain over.

“It was hard and it was joyful and we f-ing beat them,” said Ilan Desai-Geller, a high school teacher who served on the bargaining committee and as a regional strike captain. “They found the money all of a sudden.

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In less than a quarter-mile stretch of sidewalk, chatter in 57 languages overlaps with the sound of dancehall, bachata, Thai pop, Haitian kompa, and Micronesian hip-hop. At sunset, dozens gather for iftar, breaking their Ramadan fast; the music, pulsing from boomboxes and cell phones held up to megaphones, swells into one shared hum.

In this sliver of land across from the sprawling JBS beef processing plant—among the largest in the country—workers from around the world have united in the largest U.S. meatpacking strike in 40 years.

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A group of people in chairs crowd a room listening to a speaker.

Last year a network of unions and community organizations organized the largest May Day actions in U.S. history: 1,200 actions in all 50 states. This year, the stakes are even higher, and the examples inspiring us are even bolder.

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Women workers in red scrubs rally and chant, outdoors on a sunny day. They hold printed NNU signs. The woman most visible, in big sunglasses, holds a printed sign reading "Trust nurses, not A.I."

A corporate artificial intelligence frenzy is sowing fear for workers on a massive scale. Seventy-one percent of people in the U.S., according to a Reuters poll on A.I., are concerned “too many people will lose jobs.”

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North Carolina is one of six states that prohibit collective bargaining for public school staff. But unionized workers in two school districts have built enough bottom-up power to force their employers to “meet and confer,” a non-binding form of negotiation.

Labor Notes’ Ellen David Friedman talked with Carlos Perez and Allison Swaim of the Durham Association of Educators, representing 5,000 teachers and classified staff.

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