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Un/Employment

  • Statement of Protest and Solidarity with Northwest Strikers
    25 August 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    Statement of Protest and Solidarity with Northwest Strikers
    Submitted to Portside by Peter Rachleff
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    Sisters and Brothers:
    As I am sure you know, 4,400 mechanics, cleaners, and custodians represented by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association have been on strike for 4 days at Northwest Airlines. The issues they are facing will soon face all of us. They have dug in for a substantial fight and they intend to win, despite NWA’s "preparations" which have been lauded on page (…)

  • Terms of the Divorce : California unions try to maintain cohesion even as their movement comes unstuck
    23 August 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by HAROLD MEYERSON
    Breaking up is hard to do. And for an American labor movement currently splitting in two, nowhere more so than in California.
    The impact of the secession of three of the AFL-CIO’s four largest unions is particularly acute in California because the departed three - the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Teamsters - constitute a far greater share of the labor movement out here than they do elsewhere, and (…)

  • Labor’s Foreign Policy Heads in a New Direction
    18 August 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Tim Shorrock
    Lost amidst the publicity about the breakup of the AFL-CIO at its convention last month were two events that, in their own ways, could point to a radically new foreign policy for American unions and workers. The first was the convention’s passage of a resolution placing organized labor squarely behind a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq-the first time that the AFL-CIO has ever taken a public stance against an ongoing U.S. war. The significance of the resolution was (…)

  • New Homeland Security Work Rules Blocked
    17 August 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    Employee, Union Rights Not Protected, Judge Says
    By Stephen Barr
    The Department of Homeland Security, after more than two years of work on new workplace rules, may have to scrap the plan after a federal judge questioned whether it protects union and employee rights.
    The rules were scheduled to begin today but were blocked by U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer in a ruling released Friday night. A spokesman for the department, Larry Orluskie, said officials are to meet today and (…)

  • AFL-CIO draws plan to let breakaway unions’ locals stay involved
    17 August 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Business Reporter
    The AFL-CIO, which following the disaffiliations of several big unions last month sharply limited the work they could do with its local labor councils, changed its stance Thursday —a move welcomed by key groups here, but blasted by dissidents.
    The national body said locals of the disaffiliated national unions can apply to be part of AFL-CIO central labor councils or state federations under proposed new solidarity charters. But it will cost them more. (…)

  • Urgent appeal for solidarity with Gate Gourmet workers at Heathrow Airport
    17 August 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    by Eric Lee
    Last week, in an extraordinary display of corporate bullying, the company which provides British Airways with its in-flight meals at Heathrow Airport sacked some 800 workers — using a megaphone.
    In response, baggage handlers at Heathrow — members of the same union as the Gate Gourmet workers who had just lost their jobs — walked off the job in solidarity. Within hours, the entire airport was essentially shut down, stranding thousands of passengers and costing millions of (…)

  • AFL-CIO Leader Reaches Out to Affiliates
    12 August 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    By WILL LESTER
    WASHINGTON — AFL-CIO President John Sweeney proposed Wednesday allowing affiliates of several breakaway national unions to continue working with the labor federation locally.
    After the Teamsters and the service workers union split from the AFL-CIO in late July, Sweeney announced that the federation’s constitution would not allow them to have any role in groups like state labor federations and central organizing councils — groups that are key to local unions’ political (…)

  • To Grow out of Unemployment
    8 August 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    By: Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
    There is a connection between economic growth and unemployment. There is a connection between growth and inflation. Therefore, commonsense (and financial theory) goes, there must be a connection between inflation and unemployment. A special measure of this connection is the Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU). Supposedly, this is the rate of unemployment which still does not influence inflation. If unemployment goes below NAIRU, inflationary (…)

  • Subway Automation Threatens Jobs and Safety
    8 August 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by William Johnson
    Automation is transforming working conditions for the thousands of union members who keep the New York subways running. On June 19, the system’s “L” line between Brooklyn and Manhattan began running trains without conductors, leaving train operators as the only crew on board.
    Currently, One-Person Train Operation (OPTO) is functioning on the L only during weekends and after midnight, but train operator Tim Schermerhorn believes that once New York’s Metropolitan (…)

  • The bad old days are waiting in the wings
    2 August 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    He’s backed by the bully-boys of big business, by the industrial and financial clout of organised capital, by the mighty corporate unionism flexing its muscles at the big end of town.
    Now that Howard, their hard-hatted, hard-hearted, heavy-hitting henchman, has achieved a closed shop in the Reps and the Senate, black-banning anyone and anything his comrades among the CEOs don’t like, it’s time to strike. Against what’s left of the trade unions; against those millions of Australians (…)