Working Life

Interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal today: Mine Unions Call Strikes to Obtain A Share of ProfitsBy KRIS MAHER High prices for copper, nickel and other commodities are emboldening miners unions world-wide to stage strikes in hopes of getting better pay and benefits for workers. Concerns over labor-related supply disruptions have contributed to higher […]

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Good for the AFL-CIO. It has decided to link up with the significant movement trying to organize day laborers, who are predominately immigrant workers. It’s a great move not simply because day laborers are exploited–it puts the AFL-CIO directly on the side of workers who are being targeted by the hysteria over “illegal immigration.” Here’s […]

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I had heard this rumor a couple of days ago and, yes, indeed, UNITEHERE has successfully wrestled Hilton Hotels to the ground: the chain agreed to card check recognition at its properties. For the uninitiated, that means that the union doesn’t have to go down the road of the messy, unfair elections held under the […]

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It’s bad enough to see Exxon’s profits rise 36 percent in the past quarter (net income of a nice cool $10.36 billion) and Chevron’s profits hit record highs (though apparently the net income of $4.35 billion wasn’t good enough for the speculators because the company’s share price dropped on this “bad” news)–all happening at the […]

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Good piece today by Steve Greenhouse in The New York Times on the drive to organize security guards. For Michael Johnson, a security guard for 16 years, unionization cannot happen soon enough. Mr. Johnson says the $10 an hour he earns guarding an office tower on Wilshire Boulevard is too little to support his family, […]

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Recently, I wrote about the Kentucky River NRLB cases that are likely to be a bad development for people trying to get a union–the cases, if decided in favor of employers, would take a whole lot of people out of potential or existing bargaining units by classifying them as “supervisors.” Today, The Wall Street Journal […]

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[a publishing note: this post was actually posted–or so it appeared–two days ago. The server for my provide then wigged out and…well, you don’t care about the specifics]. So, I’m reposting it now] The brazen nature of corporate greed and abuse reeks out of every corner in our country. You can point to the obliteration […]

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Kate Bronfenbrenner’s comment on a previous post about a Wall Street Journal article seems worthy to highlight here and maybe get a discussion and/or more facts/input. The WSJ article argued that it’s getting harder for unions to get a first contract, primarily because of employer opposition. Kate says that the data being used is flawed […]

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Yesterday, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that barring marriage for same-sex couples does not violate the State Constitution. It was an appalling ruling–but only shifts the battle from the courts to the legislature. This is an issue that every union member needs care about. Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination. Period. Not all […]

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The headline in The Wall Street Journal this morning could have been “Employers Love Anti-Union Labor Laws” because that is the upshot of the data reported in the article (subscription only): Unions Set Pacts at a Slower Pace As Clout Wanes, Employers Resist By KRIS MAHER Unions are taking longer, as much as five years […]

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