Working Life

Today, 152 million children—children—are in forced labor around the world, along with 40 million people are simply slaves. Don’t turn your head away! Because we need to know about this—and understand the movement afoot to end this moral stain on the planet. After participating in a United Nations summit, I speak to two leading global […]

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A relevant point to raise in the current debate over the future of the labor movement: listen up, sometimes old white guys can do the right thing (this being a bit of the bone of contention in the back and forth between Anonymous AFL-er and Union Maid over my post on seniority). Take Sol Stetin, […]

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Last week, I asked whether there was any international union president willing to say publicly that the seniority is a sacred union principle and that the way in which the AFL-CIO layoffs were structured potentially threatens that principle. I haven’t heard from any international president. But, I just got this letter that was written by […]

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Well, actually, I’m not sure…my previous post about the issue emanated from what I think now is a bad rumor. There is too much information flying around and sometimes (as Newsweek discovered) it may be wrong, I’d say forget it—and I’ve also taken the step of deleting this information from this post. Ah, the beauty […]

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A few tidbits today from 16th Street. A good friend, deep inside 16th Street, says that based on a draft job description of the new job categories decreed by Chairman Welsh, “there is no way the AFL-CIO is going to win any arbitration because they are so similar.” My friend knows the details of the […]

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I have just been given two letters that were sent to John Sweeney yesterday by Federation workers at 16th Street in the wake of the deep cuts announced two weeks ago. Coming soon after the release of the insurgents new proposal, this cannot help John Sweeney try to stem the vibrations coursing through the AFL-CIO […]

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Here’s a wacky, radical idea: why not let the 13 million members of the affiliated unions of the AFL-CIO vote on the competing proposals put out by the two main camps in the past couple of weeks? There’s a debate going on about which side has the best ideas or strategies—but it’s a debate within […]

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Okay, folks, here it is: Restoring the American Dream: Building a 21st Century Labor Movement That Can Win (The final version is now posted. Apologies for confusion). I’m going to do a more detailed side-by-side comparison of this proposal versus the AFL-CIO officers proposal released a couple of weeks ago (by the way, I’ll just […]

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The new salvo from the insurgents will be available for your reading pleasure at 1 p.m. today!!! A few tidbits ’til then: All five of the insurgent unions (Laborers, SEIU, UNITE-HERE, UFCW and Teamsters) are on-board for the program; the UFCW will put out a letter of support pending approval of its Executive Board. At […]

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Today is going to be a wild, red-hot day in the debate over the future of labor—and there is new movement to report in the forces at play here. The insurgents (UNITE-HERE, Teamsters, Laborers, SEIU and UFCW) will be releasing a new set of proposals and initiatives today that was hammered out at the recent […]

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