#organized labor

[socialjusticeinamerica]

It is taught in public schools.

#never trump #republican assholes #union labor #labor unions #organized labor #traitor trump #crooked donald #republican hypocrisy #corporate greed

[treemaidengeek]

NBC News CNN

#news via destiel #destiel meme #healthcare psa #public health #organized labor

[reasonsforhope]

"The Writers Guild has reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to end its strike after nearly five months. The parties finalized the framework of the deal Sunday when they were able to untangle their stalemate over AI and writing room staffing levels.

“We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA, which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language,” the guild told members this evening in a release, which came just after sunset and the start of the Yom Kippur holiday that many had seen deadline to wrap up deal after five days of long negotiations...

Despite today’s welcome news, it still will take a few days for the strike to be officially over as the WGA West and WGA East proceed with their ratification process. During the WGA’s last strike in 2007-08, a tentative agreement was reached on the 96th day and it wasn’t over until the 100th...

All attention will now turn to ratifying the WGA deal and getting SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP back to the bargaining table to work out a deal to end the actors’ strike, which has now been going on for 70 days.

Details of the WGA’s tentative agreement haven’t been released yet but will be revealed by the guild in advance of the membership ratification votes. Pay raises and streaming residuals have been key issues for the guild, along with AI and writers room staffing levels."

-via Deadline, September 24, 2023

#HELL YEAH #wga #wga strike #wga strong #sag aftra strike #i stand with the wga #writers strike #sag strike #united states #unions #labor unions #union strong #workers rights #labor rights #strike #pro union #organized labor #STRIKES WORK AND UNIONS WORK #good news #hope #film #film industry #film and tv #entertainment industry #writers #hot labor summer #hot strike summer

[berniesrevolution]

You’re Lucky You Have a House, Peasant!

A history of company towns

by Joyce Rice and Kevin Moore

(Continue Reading)

TheNib.com

@thenib​

#politics #the left #the nib #comic #webcomic #labor #Labor Unions #organized labor #history #capitalism #economic inequality #oppression #poverty #working class #long post #long reads

[queen-mabs-revenge]

Solidarity with the striking WGA workers. This strike is an important push back against devaluation, gigification, and precarity that's been forced on all workers. When organized labor fights back, its victories benefit all working people!

The workers united will never be defeated ✊

#descriptions in alt text #wga strike #writers strike #organized labor #all power to the workers ✊ #haven't seen the official press release yet so just wanted to post it

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When parties fail, movements step up

This Saturday (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

Does anyone like the American two party system? The parties are opaque, private organizations, weak institutions that are prone to capture and corruption, and gerrymandering's "safe seats" means that the real election often takes place in the party's smoke-filled rooms, when a sure-thing candidate is selected:

https://doctorow.medium.com/weak-institutions-a26a20927b27

But there doesn't seem to be any way to fix it. For one thing, the two parties are in charge of any reform, and they're in no hurry to put themselves out of business. It's effectively impossible for a third party to gain any serious power in the USA, and that's by design. After the leftist Populists party came within a spitting distance of power in the 1890s, the Dems and Repubs got together and cooked the system, banning fusion voting and erecting other structural barriers.

The Nader and Perot campaigns were doomed from the outset, in other words. Either candidate could have been far more popular than the D and R on the ballot, and they still would have lost. It's how the deck is stacked, and to unstack it, reformers would need to take charge of at least one – and probably both – of the parties.

But that's not cause for surrender – it's a call to action. In an interview with Seymour Hersh, Thomas Frank (Listen, Liberal) sets out another locus of power, one with the potential to deliver control over the party to its base: social movements:

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/ordinary-people-by-the-millions

It's been done before. The parties are routinely transformed by power-shifts within their internal coalitions: since 1970, corporate Dems have consistently pushed the party to the right, making it the power of white-collar professionals and relying on working people showing up and marking their ballots with a D because they have "nowhere else to go."

Bill Clinton was the most successful of these corporate raiders, delivering the parts of the Reagan Revolution that Reagan himself could never have managed: dismantling tariffs and bank regulations, passing the crime bill and welfare "reform." He came within a whisper of (partially) privatizing Social Security.

This set in motion the forces that made Trumpism possible: when Dems told deindustrialized workers to "learn to code" and blamed them for the destruction of their communities, it opened a space for Make America Great Again, the (empty) workerist rhetoric of the GOP. The Dems' plan of putting "really smart people" in charge and letting them run things was a (predictable) disaster. "Really smart" isn't the same as "infallible" and really smart people can be spooked or bulled into doing the wrong thing – like Obama "foaming the runways" for the banks with the houses of mortgage holders, and leaving the bankers responsible for the Great Financial Crisis unscathed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

"Really smart people" can't get us out of this mess. Instead, we need the kind of muscular political action – the "whirlwind" – that characterized FDR's New Deal: "complete reformation of the banking industry.. just about every other industry as well. Regulation. Social Security. Public works. Antitrust. Soil conservation."

FDR got there by alienating his former classmates and refusing the go-slow entreaties of his cronies. He got there because there was a mass social movement that made him do it ("I want to do it, now make me do it"):

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/i-agree-with-you-i-want-to-do-it-now-make-me-do-it/

Every time in US history where one of the political party duopoly listened to its base, it was because of a mass social movement: the farmers' movement (1890s), labor (1930s), civil rights and antiwar (1960s). As Frank says:

Social movements succeed. They build and they change the intellectual climate and then, when the crisis comes, they make possible things like agrarian reform or the New Deal or the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s.

Today, we see the seeds of those social movements: the new union movement. Black Lives Matter. Neobrandeisians with their "hipster antitrust." These are the movements that are creating "ideas lying around": ideas that, in time of crisis, can move from the fringe to the center in an eyeblink:

https://doctorow.medium.com/ideas-lying-around-33a28901a7ae

They are setting in motion another transformation of the Democratic Party, from its top-down, "really smart people" model to a bottom-up, people-powered one, kept in check by movements, not party bosses. As Frank says, "They require the mass participation of ordinary people. Without that, I am afraid that nothing is possible."

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/17/popular-front-of-judea/#speaking-frankly

#pluralistic #sy hersh #theories of change #third parties #us politics #thomas frank #unions #labor #organized labor #civil rights movement #black lives matter #dinos #entryism #occupy democrats

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Striking members of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) picket on 7th Avenue between 36th and 37th Streets, March 6, 1958. The strike, then in its second day, involved 105,000 workers in seven eastern states, 65,000 of them in the New York City area. The strike was the first in 25 years and union officials said it was "100 percent effective."

Photo: Associated Press via U Calif Irvine School of Social Sciences

#vintage New York #1950s #ILGWU #strike #unions #pickets #picketing #March 6 #6 March #women's unions #labor action #organized labor #overtime #vintage NYC

[catgirl-kaiju]

honestly, it'd be awesome if all of these strikes led to an eventual general strike. i don't think it will happen but i want to believe

#scout's brain #union strong #sag solidarity #sag strike #sga strike #sga solidarity #sag aftra strike #teamster strike #ups strike #organized labor #general strike #iww #anarchism #anarchist #leftist #communist #communism #labor rights #activism

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

#labor unions #organized labor #middle class #Republicans hate you

[rednblacksalamander]

Gilded Age problems require Gilded Age solutions.

#uaw strike #uaw #sag aftra #wga strike #sag strike #organized labor #union strong #capitalism #political cartoon

[whereserpentswalk]

When you had accidently contacted magical forces beyond the known world, an entity came up to you offering to make a deal. She appeared as a slender woman, with messy hair, in a black suit, and when you got close to her you saw that her grin was full of sharp teeth, and her eyes were black with red pupils. It was clear she wanted your soul, and while you ended up asking a lot of questions, you've now ended up saying that you need time to sit and think about the question, and because of this she has to stay while you wait on the question.

After awhile you end up bringing her to your apartment, as you need more and more time. She has to stay with you. You ask her if she should stay in the guest room or if she's fine just taking the couch, she tells you nobody ever spends this much time deciding weather or not to sell their soul.

When you wake up in the morning (you're still not sure where or if she sleeps) she starts tempting you with the normal demon stuff, but after awhile it gets kind of played out. You've stopped being scared of the black eyes or sharp teeth awhile ago, she's just kind of a person to you now. Eventually you end up spending the morning just talking, she's actually an interesting person when you get to know her. She talked about this obscure Japenese horror movie from the seventies for like half an hour before reminding herself to remind you that she wants your soul. There's something kind of cutely awkward about her, or there would be if she wasn't so creepy.

She follows you to work, trying her best to look human. There's something nice about having her by your side. She's able to get a cop to stop bothering someone on the subway, as she's a being that doesn't actually have to worry about such people. She's even able to get your boss to act move reasonably just by talking to him with a certain type of manipulative kindness. Even on your way back she was close to deboneing a street harasser for you, the only reason she couldn't if because she doesn't own your soul yet.

After a few days of her staying with you, and most of your freinds being super scared away, your demon freind starts actually opening up to you. She complains to you a bit about her boss, this big red oni whose one of the top soul moguls in the underworld, he's constantly yelling at her to drive up her soul count. All she has is a small studio apartment in the underworld, and if she can't keep up her rate of at least one new soul a month (a lot by demon standards) she'll likely be evicted. Things seem to really suck for her, she doesn't even have a family or anything, she was just created like this, her suit doesn't even come off it's just part of her body like skin. She barely has time to explore much of the world, hanging out with you for a few days is like a vacation.

You ask her if soul collectors have any sort of union and she doesn't seem to understand the concept. You give her a brief rundown and she seems really excited. Later that night, after your home from work, she calls up a few of her freinds from the underworld to talk to you. A skeleton faced man in a top hat, a woman with bat wings and a scorpion's tail, and a creature made entirely of shadow, wait patiently at your dining table. You explain to them the basic concept of collective bargaining and how to use it.

Later that night your demon freind is gone, though she gave your her number. For the next few weeks a lot of sold souls get their contracts suddenly suspended, the devils and the crossroads are on strike.

#196 #my thougts #worldbuilding #writing #my writing #fantasy #my worldbuilding #urban fantasy #leftism #leftist #angels and demons #demons #demon #demon girl #devil #devils #underworld #labor unions #organized labor #anticapitalist #anticapitalism #anti capitalism #anti capitalist #short fiction #short story #flash fiction #original fiction

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Corporate greed.

#john fetterman #ceo pay #organized labor #unions #uaw #strike #auto makers

[iww-gnv]

Drivers represented by Teamsters Local 705 began an unfair labor practices (ULP) strike on 8 January at the US Foods distribution center in Bensenville after weeks of contentious contract negotiations, the union said. “With this strike, the Teamsters have struck a blow that will resonate throughout corporate America,” Teamsters Warehouse Division Director and Teamsters Central Region International Vice President Tom Erickson said. “US Foods Teamsters held the line until they secured the contract they deserved. Workers in the food service and grocery industry are organizing with the Teamsters like never before to hold greedy employers accountable.”

#news #labor news #us foods #teamsters #teamsters local 705 #bensenville #strike #labor strike #labor unions #organized labor

[reasonsforhope]

Version that doesn't require sign-in.

"Hot Labor Summer just became a scorcher.

[On August 25, 2023], the National Labor Relations Board released its most important ruling in many decades. In a party-line decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, the Board ruled that when a majority of a company’s employees file union affiliation cards, the employer can either voluntarily recognize their union or, if not, ask the Board to run a union recognition election. If, in the run-up to or during that election, the employer commits an unfair labor practice, such as illegally firing pro-union workers (which has become routine in nearly every such election over the past 40 years, as the penalties have been negligible), the Board will order the employer to recognize the union and enter forthwith [a.k.a. immediately] into bargaining.

The Cemex decision was preceded by another, one day earlier, in which the Board, also along party lines, set out rules for representation elections which required them to be held promptly after the Board had been asked to conduct them, curtailing employers’ ability to delay them, often indefinitely.

Taken together, this one-two punch effectively makes union organizing possible again, after decades in which unpunished employer illegality was the most decisive factor in reducing the nation’s rate of private-sector unionization from roughly 35 percent to the bare 6 percent at which it stands today...

“This is a sea change, a home run for workers,” said Brian Petruska, an attorney for the Laborers Union who authored a 2017 law review article on how to effectively restore to workers their right to collective bargaining enshrined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which was all but nullified by the act’s weakening over the past half-century. Taken together, Petruska added, last week’s decisions recreate “a system with no tolerance for employers’ coercion of their employees” when their employees seek their legal right to collective bargaining...

Since the days of Lyndon Johnson, every time that the Democrats have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, they’ve tried to put some teeth back into the steadily more toothless NLRA. But they’ve never managed to muster the 60 votes needed to get those measures through the Senate. The Cemex ruling actually goes beyond much of what was proposed in those never-enacted bills."

-via The American Prospect, August 28, 2023

--

Note: I didn't include it because the paragraphs about it went super into the weeds, but the reason all of this is happening is because of the NRLB's general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, who was appointed by Biden. In fact, according to this article, this "secures Abruzzo’s place as the most important public official to secure American workers’ rights since New York Sen. Robert Wagner, who authored the NLRA in 1935." Voting matters

#labor #labor rights #labor unions #workers rights #unions #unionize #nlrb #national labor relations board #biden #biden administration #united states #us politics #voting matters #american politics #organized labor #union busting #good news #hope #hope posting #hot labor summer #pro union

[berniesrevolution]

@_ericblanc

#politics #the left #progressive #progressive movement #organized labor #Labor Unions #labor movement #union rights #unions #unionisation

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Forty-One Years Ago Today (5th August, 1981), Ronald Reagan Fired 11,345 Striking Air Traffic Controllers, and Permanently Decertified the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization.

A quote from David Schultz, in the Encyclopedia of public administration and public policy (2004) p. 359 [cited in Wikipedia]:

"The firing of PATCO employees not only demonstrated a clear resolve by the president to take control of the bureaucracy, but it also sent a clear message to the private sector that unions no longer needed to be feared."

(Emphasis my own)

For the record, my father was a professional airline pilot, and a union man, and he sided firmly with the air traffic controllers. His life, and the life of his passengers, depended on the work they did, and he knew that they deserved to fight for decent working conditions.

#Ronald Reagan #History in my lifetime #Organized labor #U.S. history