Let’s Rebuild a Democratic Global Trade Union Movement

by Zwelinzima Vavi

The Bullet | May 30, 2017

The following speech by Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of the newly formed South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), was delivered in New Orleans at the 46th International Convention of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists(CBTU) a few days ago.

Greetings to my brother and comrade, President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), Rev. Terrence L. Melvin. Revolutionary salutes to my big brother Bill William Lucy, the former President of CBTU and leading member of the AFL-CIO and AFSCME now trying to enjoy his well deserved retirement.

U.S: This Massachusetts Nurses’ Union Is Reviving the Strike

by Jane McAlevey

The Nation | July 19, 2017

Barb Tiller is a mother of four boys, a wife, and a highly skilled operating-room nurse who has been working at Tufts Medical Center in Boston for 27 years. On July 12, for the first time in her life, she walked off the job along with 1,200 other nurses – almost all women – in the largest nurses’ strike in Massachusetts’s history, and the first in Boston for 31 years. “Nurses don’t stand up for ourselves,” says Tiller. “We stand up for our patients; we stand up for our families when we go home. We stand up for everyone else. But we can’t work under these conditions anymore – like being locked in the operating room with no water, no bathroom break, no meal break, for 12 hours at a time.”

Uber driver says: “You’d be better off working at McDonald’s”

by KATIE WELLS, KAFUI ATTOH AND DECLAN CULLEN

People’s World | August 08, 2017

In this July 15, 2015 file photo, Uber driver Karim Amrani sits in his car parked near the San Francisco International Airport . | Jeff Chiu / AP

To be an Uber driver is to work when you want. Or so Uber likes to say in recruitment materials, advertisements, and sponsored research papers: “Be your own boss.” “Earn money on your schedule.” “With Uber, you’re in charge.” The language of freedom, flexibility, and autonomy abounds, and can seem like a win for workers.

Condemn The Arrest Of Mine Workers In Sukinda Valley In Odisha

Press Release | June 23, 2017

Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation strongly condemns the arrest of three mine workers Rabi Murmu, Abhimanyu Mohanto and Ramesh Majhi on June 12, 2017 on false and fabricated charges of conspiring to wage a war against the Indian state and inciting violence. We understand this arrest and the imposition of severe charges as an attempt by the ruling BJD and BC Mohanty & Sons, the company operating the mine in Sukinda valley to intimidate and prevent the mine workers from forming a trade union and challenging human rights violations resulting from mass tribal displacement in the region.

Rabi Murmu is the President and Abhimanyu Mohanto is the General Secretary of the Aancholiko Khoni Khadaan Mazdoor Sangh, a union that has been organizing in the pursuit of regularizing the wages of mine workers as well as their registration in the B Register. The union has also been drawing attention to rights violations of persons displaced by the mines, with an eruption in mining licenses over the past few years in Sukinda valley, which is the chromite-rich belt of Odisha in Jajpur district. Odisha has 98% of the total chromite reserve in India, 97% of which is found in the Sukinda valley. Currently, there are 14 chromite mines in the Sukinda valley of which 12 or 13 are in operation.

US: House passes bill that forces workers to work without pay

by MARK GRUENBERG

People’s World | May 11, 2017

HR 1180 legalizes a practice that employers like Walmart have been sanctioned for in the past. AP

WASHINGTON – By a 229-197 party-line vote, the House has approved a bill, HR 1180, that will give employers the power to decide whether or not they will pay for overtime work.

The Working Families Flexibility Act “is not good for working families at all. It changes our nearly 80-year system of overtime that discourages employers from overworking us,” Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers said in his blog.

Under the bill’s provisions, employers could force workers to accept compensation time rather than pay them for work done in excess of 40 hours.

From: Report of the Second Annual Session of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada

Held in Cleveland, Ohio

November 21, 22, 23, 24, 1882

Third Day – Afternoon Session

Eight-Hour Work Day

The eight-hour declaration of the Chicago Trades Assembly being next in order that document was read by the Secretary as follows:

Resisters fight for $15 at Illinois state capital

by EARCHIEL JOHNSON

People’s World | April 28, 2017

Earchiel Johnson/PW

SPRINGFIELD, Il. – On Tuesday, hundreds of people gathered for a rally at the state capital to lobby the Illinois House of Representatives to raise the minimum wage to $15. The action was led by a multi-generational coalition consisting of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Illinois Alliance of Retired Americans(IL-ARA), Steel Workers Organizing Active Retirees, Nabisco 600 and many others.

Raising the minimum wage would impact the wages of a diverse swath of industries including fast food and home care workers.  In Chicago, the current minimum wage is $10.50 and will steadily increase until 2019 until it reaches $13 an hour. However, the rest of the state’s workers labor under a minimum wage of only $8.25 an hour.

North Carolina measure aims to get rid of unions

by LARRY RUBIN AND MARK GRUENBERG

People’s World | April 28, 2014

Darron Cummings/AP

The right wingers who have captured North Carolina’s legislature are pushing to make the state’s anti-union, so-called “right to work” (RTW), law a part of the state constitution, which would make it more difficult to get rid of in the future.

North Carolina is just 3 percent unionized, the second lowest union density state in the nation. The state with the lowest percentage of union workers is South Carolina.

More Than 1000 Miners Strike in Peru over Wages and Conditions

telesur | 11 March, 2017

More than 1,000 miners at a U.S.-owned copper mine in southern Peru put down their tools on Friday morning over pay disputes, mirroring ongoing strikes in neighboring Chile.

The indefinite strike at the Cerro Verde mine, Peru’s largest copper mine, started at at 7:30 a.m. local time. Around 1,200 miners are involved in the action which has halted 95 percent of the site’s production, equivalent to about 40,000 tons per month, the union said.

Miners are demanding special benefit payments to give them protection against the potential fall in copper prices. They are also asking for better working conditions and family health benefits. Initially, the strike was planned to last five days, but the union then decided to stop work indefinitely.

Marx on Immigration

Workers, Wages, and Legal Status

by David L. Wilson

Monthly Review |  Volume 68, Issue 09 (February 2017)

Photo credit: Values & Capitalism.

On April 9, 1870, Karl Marx wrote a long letter to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt, two of his collaborators in the United States.1 In it Marx touched on a number of subjects, but his main focus was the “Irish question,” including the effects of Irish immigration in England. This discussion seems to have been Marx’s most extensive treatment of immigration, and while it hardly represents a comprehensive analysis, it remains interesting as a sample of Marx’s thinking on the subject—at least on one day in 1870.