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IN THIS ISSUE:

• Bernie Sanders: "Build a Compassionate Nation"
• No Excuses: Historic New Zealand Election Challenges Labor Movement
• The Movement for Black Lives and Labor's Revival
• Review: Tell the Bosses We're Coming
• Test Your Wits in Our First-Ever Crossword Puzzle
• How to Fight a Coup: The Role of the Workers' Movement
• Soak the Rich, Now More Than Ever
• Labor Notes is hiring! Work for the Troublemakers'' Union!
• Labor Notes Store Back Open with Hoodies, Long Sleeve T''s, and More!

Bernie Sanders: "Build a Compassionate Nation"

by Bernie Sanders

Over the past 40 years, corporate America and the billionaire class have been waging a war against the trade union movement in America, causing devastating harm to the middle class and working class.

When oligarchs like Donald Trump tell us that the economy is "booming," they are right-the economy is booming for the extremely rich and extremely profitable corporations in America-who, by the way, pay nothing or next to nothing in federal income taxes.

READ MORE.

No Excuses: Historic New Zealand Election Challenges Labor Movement

by Ian Hoffmann and Justine Sachs

"No Excuses!"

That's the phrase union activists in New Zealand have been repeating since the Labour Party's landslide victory in our national election on October 17. 

Led by charismatic and media-savvy Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Labour took over 49 percent of the popular vote. The party will now have 64 of 120 seats in parliament. This is unheard of in New Zealand, where since 1996 we have had a mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system that has always led to multi-party coalition governments.

READ MORE.

The Movement for Black Lives and Labor's Revival

by Tim Schermerhorn and Lee Sustar

The police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis ignited the most widespread series of protests in U.S. history. Working people-not only Black, but people of all races-were the driving force. Even labor leaders who are usually reluctant to weigh in on hot social issues spoke out. 

The challenge now is to bring the militancy and energy of this year's revived Black struggle into the workplace-amid the coronavirus-driven economic crisis.

READ MORE.

Review: Tell the Bosses We're Coming

by Tyler Kissinger

American unions are stuck in a trap, and it's partly of our own making. How did we get here, and how do we spring the trap's jaws? In Tell the Bosses We're Coming: A New Action Plan for Workers in the 21st Century, Shaun Richman draws on his experience as a union organizer, plus a great deal of labor history, to suggest answers to these questions.

Like any good organizer, he's not afraid to ask hard questions: Is what we're doing working? If not, why do we keep doing it? If we could wipe the slate clean, what kind of labor movement should we build?

READ MORE.

Test Your Wits in Our First-Ever Crossword Puzzle

by Ferd Wulkan

In Issue 500, Labor Notes published its first-ever crossword puzzle. Try your luck!

DO THE PUZZLE. 

How to Fight a Coup: The Role of the Workers' Movement

by Alejandro Reuss

"It can't happen here." That is the complacent mantra that a society with long-standing "democratic" institutions couldn't possibly succumb to authoritarian dictatorship.

Sinclair Lewis used the phrase as the title for his 1935 novel imagining the rise of a fascist dictatorship in the United States. Even as the aspiring dictator rises in prominence and mobilizes a paramilitary army, many of the characters refuse to believe it.

Today there is ample cause for alarm. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to retain office by authoritarian means. His administration has made unfounded predictions of widespread electoral fraud, claimed that mail-in ballots would especially be characterized by fraud, attempted to interfere with postal delivery, suggested that mail-in ballots be thrown out altogether, refused to commit to the peaceful transfer of power, incited supporters (including far-right armed groups) to engage in voter intimidation, and more.

READ MORE. 

Soak the Rich, Now More Than Ever

by Joe DeManuelle-Hall

As the recession deepens, unions will have to battle concession demands and budget cuts. But beyond these defensive fights there's a demand whose time has come: let's soak the rich.

Put another way: tax the hell out of them. Claw back the profits they've made off the backs of workers. Take that money, and put it to work expanding public services and giving people jobs.

READ MORE. 

Labor Notes is Hiring! Work for the Troublemakers Union!

We're now hiring for a full-time staff organizer position, with a focus on trainings and events. Women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and Spanish speakers are strongly encouraged to apply. 

Preference for staff who can work out of our New York office (when we resume in-person work), or relocate to NYC, but applications from applicants based elsewhere will also be considered. Labor Notes staff is working remotely and has not set a date for returning to our office.

Desired start date is ASAP.

READ MORE. 

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Ballot Measures: Mixed Results for Workers
• Massachusetts Teachers Sick Out for Six Feet
• Most Expensive Ballot Initiative in California History Pits Uber and Lyft Against Drivers Who Built a Union from Scratch
• Here''s How to Join Labor''s Anti-Coup Network
• Labor Notes Is Hiring! Work for the Troublemakers'' Union!
• Labor Notes Store Back Open with Hoodies, Long Sleeve T''s, and More!

Ballot Measures: Mixed Results for Workers

by Joe DeManuelle-Hall

Like everyone else, we've been anxiously watching for updates on the presidential vote-count and consequential down-ballot races. But there were also several ballot initiatives worth keeping an eye on. 

Taxing the rich remains widely popular-but the ballot measures trying to enact it got mixed results. Raising the minimum wage incrementally to $15 won in Florida-while at the same time President Trump appears to have won the state. Is this proof that clear economic demands can be popular in otherwise conservative areas, or an indictment of the Democratic establishment's efforts to win the state?

Questions like these will be important to figuring out how we fight for our demands and what comes next.

READ MORE.

Massachusetts Teachers Sick Out for Six Feet

by Barbara Madeloni

On Tuesday, 915 of the 1,000 union educators in Brookline, Massachusetts, took part in a sickout demanding a six-foot distance between people in classrooms.

The district previously agreed to this safety requirement in a memorandum of understanding. But now it wants to allow the superintendent to change it.

Brookline educators were prepared because, in a springtime struggle against furloughs and layoffs, they had built a communication network so that "every member knew their union rep or a person who they could talk to about what was happening in the union," says Graciela Mohamedi, a ninth-grade science teacher and building representative.

READ MORE.

Most Expensive Ballot Initiative in California History Pits Uber and Lyft Against Drivers Who Built a Union from Scratch

by Brian Dolber

During this election cycle, companies like Uber, Lyft, and Doordash-the so-called "gig economy" giants-spent a record-breaking $200 million backing Proposition 22 in California. The proposition, which passed on Tuesday, will exempt these companies from basic labor law.

While the initiative was opposed by the California Federation of Labor and many Democratic elected officials, its fiercest adversary was a little-known "start-up" union, the 19,000-member Rideshare Drivers United. RDU emerged out of grassroots protests in August 2017 against the lower-than-minimum wage paid by Uber and Lyft to drivers at LAX Airport.

READ MORE.

Here''s How to Join Labor''s Anti-Coup Network

by Barbara Madeloni

Anxious voters have been wondering not only who will receive the most votes, but also: Will those votes be counted? Will the people or the Supreme Court select the next president? Will Trump supporters move beyond intimidation to violence to suppress the vote?

Will we face a president who refuses to accept the results of the vote? Will we have to defend against a coup?

Labor Action to Defend Democracy (LADD) is a grassroots group preparing for these possibilities. It started with a small group of labor activists who realized that they couldn't wait for someone else to protect the vote. They drew up lists, made phone calls, and brought together a larger network of union leaders and members.

READ MORE.

Labor Notes Is Hiring! Work for the Troublemakers Union!

We're now hiring for a full-time staff organizer position, with a focus on trainings and events. Women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and Spanish speakers are strongly encouraged to apply. 

Preference for staff who can work out of our New York office (when we resume in-person work), or relocate to NYC, but applications from applicants based elsewhere will also be considered. Labor Notes staff is working remotely and has not set a date for returning to our office.

Desired start date is ASAP.

READ MORE. 

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Why a Local Labor Council Is Threatening to Expel the Seattle Police Guild
• West Coast Dockers Stop Work to Honor George Floyd
• Teachers Must Set the Terms for How and When Schools Reopen
• Interview with a Minneapolis Bus Driver: ''We Are Fighting for Our Lives Against People with Money and Power''
• Corporations Now Love ''Black Lives''-But What About Their Own Black Workers?
• Sending Love: A Letter to Black Workers, Organizers, and Labor Leaders
• Labor Notes Books Are Back! Visit labornotes.org/store
• In Mexican Border Town, Prominent Independent Labor Lawyer Arrested
• ''You Can Rebuild a Post Office, But Not a Life'': Minneapolis Postal Workers March from Burned Post Office in Solidarity with Protests
• Review: The Grapes of Wrath

Do police unions belong in the labor movement? It's a question on the lips of many unionists amid a nationwide uprising for racial justice and against police violence-and Seattle is the test case.

Delegates to the Martin Luther King County Labor Council, which includes Seattle and its suburbs, will decide June 17 whether to kick out the Seattle Police Officers Guild.

Two resolutions brought the issue forward. One, backed by the teachers union in the working-class Highline area south of Seattle, calls for kicking the cops out, full stop. The labor council's executive board has heard it but not yet voted on it.

An alternative resolution, submitted by SEIU Healthcare 1199NW and Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 21, passed June 4. In it, the executive board set an ultimatum for the police guild to meet certain demands by June 17 or else be kicked out.

READ MORE.

At 9 a.m. on Tuesday, ports across the U.S. West Coast ground to a halt as longshore workers stopped work to mourn the death of George Floyd. For nine minutes-the amount of time police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck-members of the Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) performed no work, from Southern California to northern Washington state.

ILWU local presidents also approved a second, longer action: an eight-hour shutdown of West Coast ports for the Juneteenth holiday on June 19. Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of Black people held in slavery in 1863. Such a coast-wide shutdown would be the first day-long work stoppage the ILWU has called since the one in May 2008 protesting the Iraq war.

READ MORE.

As life under the pandemic settled into something like a routine, educators could see the coming storm. Dangers to health when schools re-open. Austerity budgets and job cuts. And then, one more video of police murdering a Black person-and the uprising that followed.

I asked educators: What needs to happen in order for schools to reopen? Do we have the power to make sure we reopen under those conditions? What are you or your union doing to build that power? 

READ MORE.

by Bianca Cunningham and Doni Jones

Since the video was released of Officer Derek Chauvin pressing his knee on the neck of George Floyd for almost nine minutes as Floyd said his last words, "I can't breathe," protests have exploded in eighteen countries and all fifty states. The cry of Black Lives Matter can be heard in small towns and big cities throughout the United States.

Will organized labor recognize their collective power and step up in this moment to propel the movement forward? In Minneapolis, bus drivers organized under the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005 provide an example of what that looks like. After protests erupted, they refused to transport police officers and instead made it clear that they stood with the broader working class. Hear more in this interview with Doni Jones, bus driver and president of the black caucus of the ATU's Minneapolis local, discussing policing and how to bridge the gap between Black Lives Matter and the labor movement.

READ MORE.

Sending Love: A Letter to Black Workers, Organizers, and Labor Leaders

by Cherika Carter and Sybill Hyppolite

As the world and the United States navigate the coronavirus pandemic, there's a common refrain that we're living in unprecedented times, with mass unemployment, unsafe working conditions for those still working, lack of access to health care, and food scarcity.

For some Americans these experiences are unimaginable, but for many Black people they are too familiar.

READ MORE.

Corporations Now Love ''Black Lives''-But What About Their Own Black Workers?

by Toni Gilpin

Never underestimate the American business community''s capacity for hypocrisy. That's one of the lessons to be drawn from the explosive reaction to George Floyd's murder. As demonstrators began flooding streets, corporate PR departments flew into rapid response mode, issuing a flurry of agonized, apologetic pledges to do more to combat racism and inequality.

As they nimbly co-opt the language of the protests, corporate leaders are offering up "solutions" to structural racism that won't diminish managerial control or redistribute power in the workplace, meaning their proposals won't promote actual structural change of any sort. With a few well-publicized contributions and some new rounds of diversity training, business elites hope to emerge from the present crisis with their privilege, and their profits, intact.

READ MORE.

The Labor Notes online store is back! We''re now open for book sales after a two-month hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic. Discounts of up to 40 percent off are available for bulk purchases.

In Mexican Border Town, Prominent Independent Labor Lawyer Arrested

by Judy Ancel

Labor lawyer Susana Prieto Terrazas was arrested on Monday in the Mexican border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, where she was attempting to aid factory workers to recover wages owed to them during a two-month coronavirus shutdown. Prieto came to prominence early last year for her central role in the wave of strikes that swept the export-oriented maquila factories in Matamoros demanding "20/32": a 20 percent raise and an annual bonus of 32,000 pesos ($1,600).

READ MORE.

''You Can Rebuild a Post Office, But Not a Life'': Minneapolis Postal Workers March from Burned Post Office in Solidarity with Protests

by Tyler Vasseur

On Sunday postal workers in Minneapolis organized a display of solidarity with the Black freedom movement that is emerging after the brutal police murder of George Floyd.

A few co-workers and I planned a rally at the burned-out Lake Street post office and a march from there to the memorial site for Floyd. We thought it was important to show the world where we stood, because city hall and Governor Tim Walz have used the destruction of buildings-including two post offices-as a justification to mobilize the National Guard to suppress the protests.

READ MORE.

Review: The Grapes of Wrath

by Toni Gilpin

With unemployment now reaching levels not seen since the 1930s, should you really want to spend a few hours immersed in the hardships endured by working people during the first Great Depression? Yes.

If you've never seen the classic 1940 film The Grapes of Wrath-or last did decades ago-turn off the news for a bit and join the Joad family on their American odyssey. You might just find yourself more energized to confront our current crisis, especially once you discover some of the history the movie omits.

READ MORE.

ORGANIZING IN A PANDEMIC: LABOR NOTES RESOURCES

Visit labornotes.org/coronavirus for articles, organizing tips, and other resources. 

And visit labornotes.org/coronavirusnews for all our coronavirus-related coverage.

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Interview: Vermont State College Workers and Students Rebuff Shock Doctrine
• Another Look at the VA, in the Midst of a Pandemic
• The VA's Fourth Mission and the Pandemic
• Following Strikes by Mexican Workers, U.S. Presses to Keep Border Plants Open
• Argentinian Workers Fighting COVID-19-And Their Employers
• West Virginia Teachers Run for Top Union Offices
• COVID-19 Highlights the Need for Prison Labor Reform
• The Worker Mini-Revolts of the 21st Century

by Ashley Smith

Unionized faculty and staff at the Vermont state colleges are in a fight to defend their jobs and schools, which teach working class students mainly from rural parts of the state. Last month Chancellor Jeb Spaulding announced the immediate, permanent closure of three of the six state colleges.

But a large movement rose up extremely quickly, stopped the closures, forced Spaulding to resign, and is now demanding increased funding to keep affordable public education available in the state.

READ MORE.

Another Look at the VA, in the Midst of a Pandemic

by Betsy Zucker

In part one of a two-part series, Betsy Zucker describes how the current crisis has made painfully clear the deficiencies in our fragmented and profit-oriented health care system. As millions lose their jobs, the folly of basing access to health care on employment has never been more obvious, and the need for universal health care has never been more evident.

While many of us are calling for Medicare for All, it's also a good time to take a second look at a national health care system that actually exists here in the U.S.-and has worked remarkably well (that is, except when it is severely underfunded, understaffed, and under constant attack by privatizers and union-busters): the Veterans Administration.

READ MORE.

The VA's Fourth Mission and the Pandemic

by Betsy Zucker

In part two of a two-part series, Betsy Zucker describes how the VA's "fourth mission" is to provide backup health care for veterans and even civilians in emergencies. The VA is expected to have the expertise, emergency-ready volunteer personnel, supplies, and equipment to mobilize in disasters. It has participated in pandemic planning as far back as 2006, and has mobilized well during previous emergencies, such as Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, Houston after Harvey, and after the California wildfires.

However, the administration's attacks have left the VA in a weakened position to deal with the coronavirus as a national emergency.

READ MORE.

Following Strikes by Mexican Workers, U.S. Presses to Keep Border Plants Open

by David Bacon

In Washington, D.C., President Trump is trying his best to reopen closed meatpacking plants, as packinghouse workers catch the COVID-19 virus and die. In Tijuana, Mexico, where workers are dying in mostly U.S.-owned factories (known as maquiladoras) that produce and export goods to the U.S., the Baja California state governor, a former California Republican Party stalwart, is doing the same thing.

 READ MORE.

Argentinian Workers Fighting COVID-19-And Their Employers

by Julia Soul

Early general quarantine in Argentina has succeeded in stopping the massive spread of COVID-19. Alberto Fernandez's government decreed a national quarantine on March 20 when the total number of COVID-19 cases in Argentina hadn't reached 100. Today the number of cases has not reached 5,000 and the spread appears to be controlled. There is broad agreement that the early quarantine is one of the main reasons.

But employers, media, and national union leaders are now pressing the government to end the quarantine, arguing "economic costs." And the quarantine showed the instability of workers'' jobs and living conditions. The policies the government launched to protect workers'' earnings will not prevent either a general fall in working class incomes or the dismissal of thousands of "precarious" workers, those hired under contracts that give them almost no rights.

READ MORE.

West Virginia Teachers Run for Top Union Offices

by Leslie Clayberger Haynes

After West Virginia''s groundbreaking rank-and-file-led teachers'' strike in 2018, a caucus of reformers is running for leadership positions in the West Virginia Education Association. Leslie Clayberger Haynes describes how being brought into the reform caucus has been transformational for her and how she hopes it will transform her union.

READ MORE.

COVID-19 Highlights the Need for Prison Labor Reform

by Lauren-Brooke Eisen and Lauren Seabrooks

For decades, prisoners in American correctional facilities have worked for no wages or mere pennies an hour. As the United States attempts to reduce transmission of COVID-19, more than a dozen states are now relying on this captive labor force to manufacture personal protective equipment badly needed by health care workers and other frontline responders. 

READ MORE.

The Worker Mini-Revolts of the 21st Century

by Jeremy Brecher

In the decade that followed the Great Recession of 2008, inequality and the concentration of wealth became so extreme that, according to a 2017 Oxfam study, eight individuals together owned as much wealth as half the human race. The wealthiest three billionaires in the U.S. had as much wealth as the bottom half of the U.S. population combined. Meanwhile, a 2018 study by the Federal Reserve Board found that 4 in 10 Americans did not have the money to meet an unexpected expense of $400.

READ MORE.

ORGANIZING IN A PANDEMIC: LABOR NOTES RESOURCES

Visit labornotes.org/coronavirus for articles, organizing tips, and other resources. 

READ MORE.

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Full Steam Ahead on Reopening Schools? No Way, Say Teachers
• Maine Shipbuilders Bring the Hammer Down to Reject Concessions
• Lessons from the Amazon Tax Victory in Seattle
• 'No Increase? No Work!' Toronto Health Care Workers Save Pandemic Premium via Job Action
• Herman Benson''s Lifelong Fight for Democratic Unions
• Santa Rosa Hospital Workers Strike to Defend Sick Time and Health Care in Midst of Pandemic
• Three Bold Moves Our Movement Must Embrace in the Wake of the Landmark LGBTQ Supreme Court Decision
• Detroit-Area Teachers: ''Safe Schools or No School!''
• Letters to the Editor: Issue 497
• Concessions and How to Beat Them: Now available online

READ MORE.

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Can We Save the Postal Service?
• How You Can Help Defend the Postal Service
• Follow the Money: Employers Are Behind the Rush to Reopen
• VIDEO: Ford Workers Shut Down the Line at Dearborn Truck Plant
• Hundreds of Apple Packing Workers on Strike in Washington State
• WEBINAR: Abolish Debt: Save Our Public Schools and Colleges
• You''ve Got the Rona But You Fail the Test
• Workers Unite Film Festival: Online, May 22-25

by Alexandra Bradbury

The U.S. Postal Service is in deep trouble. The postal Board of Governors has asked Congress for $75 billion to keep the agency afloat; without it, the outgoing Postmaster General said, USPS could "run out of cash" by September.

Now we have foxes in charge of the henhouse: an openly hostile president and postal Board of Governors, and a ghoulish incoming Postmaster General from the private logistics industry. They'll happily offer cuts, outsourcing, and union-busting in exchange for the quick infusion of cash the agency needs. 

READ MORE.

How You Can Help Defend the Postal Service

by Jamie Partridge

Nationally the postal unions are rumbling into gear to build public pressure beyond individual messages to Congress (necessary, but not sufficient). A handful of local leaders and rank and filers have already organized standout protests and car caravans, but it will take much more widespread activity to put the brakes on the privatizers' designs. Here are some ways you can help.

READ MORE.

Follow the Money: Employers Are Behind the Rush to Reopen

by Chris Brooks

Conservative operatives are trying to reignite a Tea Party-like "movement" to pressure states to reopen their economies. A billionaire-backed network of corporate front groups with deep ties to conservative state lawmakers and the White House helped mobilize a motley crew to protest stay-at-home orders at state legislatures and amplified their actions in the media.

"It's like strike-breaking," said Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America. "You can find people who will do it, but without the active role of the employer it would never happen. It's only because there are all these corporate-funded front groups that are supported and amplified by Fox News and the right-wing echo chamber that they can create the fiction of a mass movement and exploit the crisis to force through unpopular policies they know would never happen otherwise."

READ MORE.

VIDEO: Ford Workers Shut Down the Line at Dearborn Truck Plant

by Chris Brooks

A video taken by an auto worker and obtained exclusively by Labor Notes shows a rowdy and chaotic scene inside Ford's Dearborn, Michigan Truck Plant on Wednesday as workers refused to work after a co-worker tested positive for COVID-19.

This is the first week of production at the Big Three automakers, following weeks of lockdowns that idled the plants. Workers have to arrive early to stand in socially distanced lines and make their way into the plant after completing a health survey and having their temperature taken.

READ MORE.

Hundreds of Apple Packing Workers on Strike in Washington State

by David Bacon

"The most important demand for us is that we have a healthy workplace and protection from the virus," said Agustin Lopez, one of the strike leaders at Allan Brothers. "Fourteen people have left work over the last month because they have the COVID-19. So far as we know, the company isn't paying them. We need protections at work, like adequate masks, and we want tests. How do we even know if any of us have been infected if there are no tests?"

READ MORE.

For the latest updates on the strikes, follow Familias Unidas por la Justicia on Facebook or Twitter.

WEBINAR: Abolish Debt: Save Our Public Schools and Colleges

by Barbara Madeloni

No sooner had the pandemic hit than the attack on public education-K12 through higher ed-began. Workers are being furloughed, jobs cut, and the "common sense" of online learning imposed. We are told that we have to tighten our belts and accept austerity measures.
It does not have to be this way. We can reshape our economy, refuse debt, and create ongoing sustainable support for public education.

Join Labor Notes and the Public Higher Education Workers network on Thursday, May 28, at 7 p.m. Eastern time to learn:

• How debt functions to rob workers, students, and communities
• How the debt crisis is gendered and racialized and especially harms women and people of color
• How to organize and win a debt-free future

READ MORE AND REGISTER.

You''ve Got the Rona But You Fail the Test

by Sonya Huber

What will happen to all the people who catch the coronavirus but never get a positive test? As states gear up to send workers back to work, the number of infections will skyrocket. We are going to need a whole new layer of protection for workers who are scarred by this virus but who cannot document its presence in their bodies.

Millions of people will get this devastating infection and will be forced back to work before they are ready. It seems to many of us struggling with recovery that there is a "post-exertion malaise" that comes with a kickback. One can actually put oneself in peril by pushing too hard. I worry about the millions of people who will be told that they've used up their sick time, who will be forced back to work in physically demanding jobs, and whose bodies will continue to be ravaged by the mysterious workings of a disease that we don't yet understand.

READ MORE.

Workers Unite Film Festival: May 22-25

Starting today, free virtual film screenings from the Workers Unite Film Festival are available all Memorial Day weekend at workersunitefilmfestival.org, where you can check out the schedule and movie trailers.

The films highlight the struggles, successes, and daily lives of workers organizing. Along with full-length films there are lots of shorts, including a puppet named Dirty Patti visiting the L.A. teachers picket lines!

ORGANIZING IN A PANDEMIC: LABOR NOTES RESOURCES

Visit labornotes.org/coronavirus for articles, organizing tips, and other resources. 

And visit labornotes.org/coronavirusnews for all our coronavirus-related coverage.

KEEP IN TOUCH!

Weingarten Rights: How to Represent Workers in Investigatory Interviews
with Robert M. Schwartz
Webinar: Thursday, August 6th, 7:00pm EDT
Register here.

Labor Notes is pleased to present the second in a series of webinars taught by veteran Boston labor lawyer Robert M. Schwartz and hosted by Labor Notes staffer Bianca Cunningham.

Topics will be taken from his bestselling Labor Notes guides to stewards'' rights, just cause, Weingarten rights, and strikes.

The second is entitled Weingarten Rights: How to Represent Workers in Investigatory Interviews and will be based on the book The Legal Rights of Union Stewards.  

 We will be taking questions from participants as time allows. 

The webinar will take place on Thursday, August 6 at 7:00pm EDT. Registration is free, but if you can contribute, please do! Your support helps Labor Notes offer more trainings like this one.

Labor Notes Books Are Back-Including All Robert Schwartz Titles

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• In the Face of Mass Unemployment, We Need a 21st Century WPA
• Chicago Unions Demand to Defund Police and Fund Health Care for All
• Why and How SEIU Members Are Calling on Our Union to Expel Cops
• Webinar: Saving Our Postal Service: Next Steps, Sunday July 12, 7pm EDT
• Labor Notes Books Are Back! Visit labornotes.org/store

A webinar hosted by Labor Notes. We''ll hear from postal workers and other activists about:

1) Surviving Covid-19
2) Fighting for full funding
3) All in on July 20: a grassroots plan to deluge key Senators with calls and letters when they return from recess

More info on the Save Our Postal Service Facebook page. 

REGISTER HERE.

The Labor Notes online store is back! We''re now open for book sales after a two-month hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic. Discounts of up to 40 percent off are available for bulk purchases.

ORGANIZING IN A PANDEMIC: LABOR NOTES RESOURCES

Visit labornotes.org/coronavirus for articles, organizing tips, and other resources. 

And visit labornotes.org/coronavirusnews for all our coronavirus-related coverage.

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Remember the Public Sector in the Fight for Black Lives
• Viewpoint: Pro-Labor Candidates Are Upending New York Politics-But Where Are the Unions?
• ''We Feed You, Don't Let Us Starve'': Restaurant Workers Mobilize to Extend Unemployment Benefits
• New York Bookstore Workers Blast Their Boss for Layoffs While Taking a PPP Loan
• Viewpoint: Failure to Enforce Mask Mandate Leaves Grocery Workers Vulnerable
• Viewpoint: Concessions Are Back. So Are the Flashbacks.
• Concessions and How to Beat Them: Now available online

While today''s wave of protests focuses on the role of police in our society, we cannot ignore another big looming crisis for Black lives: the destruction of the public sector. Without federal fiscal aid, state and local governments are projected to make cuts resulting in 5.3 million workers losing their jobs before the end of 2021.

Given the crucial role the public sector has played for the advancement of Black workers, this situation could spell a disaster for Black life. Resisting the brutal austerity drive over the next few years is inseparable from the larger fight for racial justice.

READ MORE.

READ MORE.

by Strand Shop Stewards

Shop stewards at the Strand, a prominent New York City bookstore, are denouncing owner Nancy Bass-Wyden for accepting federal loans but failing to keep workers on the payroll.

Strand Bookstore, Inc. received a federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan of $1-$2 million by claiming to retain 212 jobs. But in fact Bass-Wyden, who is married to Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, laid off all but a few employees shortly before applying for the loan. Wyden helped author the PPP.

READ MORE.

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Cleveland Heights Teachers Strike in the Snow, Beating Austerity with Solidarity
• Will Biden Resuscitate the NLRB?
• Winnipeg Postal Carriers Force Improvements with Weeklong Overtime Ban
• Webinar: Signed, Sealed and Delivered: Film and Discussion of Rank-and-File Militancy at the Post Office
• Jacobin magazine: "This is a Revolution, Sir"
• Labor Notes Is Hiring: Work for the Troublemakers Union!
• Order for the Holidays: Labor Notes Hoodies, Long Sleeve T''s, and More!

Cleveland Heights Teachers Strike in the Snow, Beating Austerity with Solidarity

by Tony Bifulco

Teachers in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, walked out on strike December 2 for the first time since 1983.

Why now? The state was trying to privatize public education. The local school board was trying to balance the budget on our backs. Add to that a once-in-a-century pandemic.

A well-organized membership was determined not to bend to the pressure from all of the above.

READ MORE.

Will Biden Resuscitate the NLRB?

by Robert M. Schwartz

Unions are hoping that President-elect Joe Biden quickly takes control of the National Labor Relations Board and launches a new era of federal labor policy.

Over the past four years, a cabal of Trump appointees, determined to rewrite U.S. labor law, has run the NLRB into the ground. The agency has issued a steady stream of precedent-setting anti-labor rulings, seemingly designed not only to undo all progress made on workers' rights during the Obama administration but also to grievously undermine the ability of unions to resist.

What are the chances that Biden will resuscitate the Labor Board and restore its role as a defender of workers' right to engage in concerted action against employers? It may take quite a while before we find out.

READ MORE.

Winnipeg Postal Carriers Force Improvements with Weeklong Overtime Ban

by Basia Sokal

Like workers at the U.S. Postal Service, we have a lot of Covid-related health and safety concerns at Canada Post-including over proper staffing, cleaning, and the process when someone tests positive.

At the Downtown Winnipeg delivery depot, we had a series of complaint meetings about these concerns and other violations of our collective agreement-but we were getting nowhere. So we decided to take group action.

The genius of our action was that it involved doing nothing. For the entire week after Black Friday (November 29-December 4), everyone refused overtime.

We have about 80 carriers at the depot. We worked eight hours each day and didn't help out with additional parcels or mail, or anything outside our normal route duties.

When the voluntary overtime sheet was empty on Day 1, a Monday, management assumed it was because everyone was overloaded with their own routes. To their shock, senior carriers brought back mail and parcels that day. And on day 2, the list was once again empty.

READ MORE.

Webinar: Signed, Sealed and Delivered: Film and Discussion of Rank-and-File Militancy at the Post Office

Mandatory overtime, speed-up, and union-busting at the U.S. Postal Service-sound familiar? Here's how postal workers in 1978 confronted grueling and dangerous conditions: they walked out on a wildcat strike.

Join the organizers of the ad hoc "Save Our Postal Service" Facebook page for a film and discussion about then and now.

Signed, Sealed and Delivered: Labor Struggle in the Post Office (1980, 36 minutes, by Tami Gold, Dan Gordon, Erik Lewis) shows the strike and the events that followed. Management at the New Jersey Bulk Mail Center fired 200 strikers; workers launched a campaign to get them rehired. After a young worker was tragically killed on the job, their fight against dangerous conditions drew national attention.

Today postal workers are once again facing forced overtime, speed-up, and union-busting. plus the daily risk of deadly pandemic exposure. What can we learn from this history to power up our strategy for the fights ahead? Hear from the filmmaker and from veterans of the strike, and join the conversation.

When: Sunday, December 20, 5 - 6:30 p.m. Eastern
Where: Online. After registering you will be emailed a Zoom link, which will allow you to view the event on your smartphone, tablet, or computer.
Tickets: Free, with a suggested donation of $5. 

READ MORE AND REGISTER HERE.

"This Is a Revolution, Sir"

by Thomas Crowley

Workers in India two weeks ago launched a general strike that brought out an estimated 250 million people, arguably the largest in human history. Now, they're joining hands with farmers to protest Narendra Modi's pro-corporate, far-right agenda.

General strikes in the era of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi have an oddly repetitive quality to them. First, the major national-level trade unions - save for the one aligned with Modi's far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - call for a one- or two-day general strike, usually in response to the BJP's latest raft of anti-worker policies. Millions of people across the country pour into the streets in support. Strike leaders tout the action as perhaps the largest strikein history. Left media outside the country hail the walkout, while the mainstream media in India barely mentions it. And then life seemingly returns to normal.

READ MORE AT JACOBIN. 

Labor Notes Is Hiring: Work for the Troublemakers Union!

We're now hiring for a full-time staff organizer position, with a focus on trainings and events. Women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and Spanish speakers are strongly encouraged to apply. 

Preference for staff who can work out of our New York office (when we resume in-person work), or relocate to NYC, but applications from applicants based elsewhere will also be considered. Labor Notes staff is working remotely and has not set a date for returning to our office.

Desired start date is ASAP.

READ MORE. 

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FRIDAY: Join Labor Notes and Haymarket Books in commemorating May Day with a discussion from leading labor voices about how we can build a radical working class response to the current crisis.
 

SYSTEM IN CRISIS: A WORKING-CLASS VISION FOR THE FUTURE
Friday, May 1, 5pm EDT

Featuring:
Stacy Davis Gates, VP of the Chicago Teachers Union
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA
 Sarah Jaffe, labor journalist

This event is a fundraiser for Haymarket Books and Labor Notes. Haymarket Books is an independent, radical, non-profit publisher. Labor Notes is a media and organizing project that is the voice of union activists who want to put the movement back in the labor movement.

Every dollar we take in from this event will go directly to support our joint project of sharing ideas for changing the world-a project that has never been more necessary or more urgent. We need your help to continue to do the work.

While the event is free, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our continuing to do this important publishing and organizing work. All donations will be shared between the two sponsoring organizations, Haymarket Books and Labor Notes.

Register through Eventbrite to receive a link to the stream on the day of the event.

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What is our vision as the working class for a different future, one free from exploitation and corporate greed, and how do we organize to win it?

May Day, international workers'' day, is a time to honor and celebrate the radical traditions of the labor movement. In the midst of the current crisis it is more important than ever to build on the militant legacy of May Day and organize a fighting, working-class resistance that demands a better world for us all.

Sara Nelson is the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO and she represents 50,000 of aviation's first responders at 20 airlines. In 2019, The New York Times called her "America''s most powerful flight attendant" for her role in helping to end the 35-day government shutdown by calling for a general strike.

Stacy Davis Gates is the Vice President of the Chicago Teachers Union. This past fall, she helped to lead a 15-day strike and to negotiate a historic contract that provides for smaller class sizes, ensures a nurse and social worker in every Chicago public school, secures sanctuary protections for immigrant families, and supports students and families experiencing homelessness.

Sarah Jaffe is a reporting fellow at Type Media Center and the author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt and the forthcoming Work Won''t Love You Back, both from Bold Type Books.

For more on radical labor history and working class resistance today check out Haymarket''s Class War Reading List where you can get books for 30% off plus a free ebook.

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Unions Are Beginning to Talk About Staving Off a Possible Coup
• How Unions Can Lay the Ground for the Next Upsurge
• Review: Forty Years of Working-Class Films
• With City''s Economic Future in Doubt, Can New York Unions Stop the Cuts?
• Petition: Tell Global Brands to Stop Union-Busting at Myanmar Sporting Goods Factory
• Labor Notes Store Back Open with Hoodies, Long Sleeve T''s, and More!

Unions Are Beginning to Talk About Staving Off a Possible Coup

by Barbara Madeloni

Earlier this week, the Central Labor Council in Rochester, New York, passed a resolution calling for all labor organizations "to prepare for and enact a general strike of all working people, if necessary, to ensure a Constitutionally mandated peaceful transition of power as a result of the 2020 Presidential Elections." The Rochester CLC may be the first out of the gate to call for direct action over concerns many share: will there be a peaceful transfer of power after the November election? Will votes be fairly counted, and will the outcome be determined by the voters-not the courts?

But if resolutions like this and others are to have teeth, the leaders who voted to endorse these actions need a plan to talk with members, name the risk, and prepare workers.

READ MORE.

How Unions Can Lay the Ground for the Next Upsurge

by Mark Meinster

Working-class upsurges often happen in the context of deep changes in society as a whole, such as abrupt and widespread economic dislocation, a profound loss of legitimacy by ruling elites, or abnormal political instability. Many of the factors contributing to an upsurge are not under our control, but some are. If we're ready at these moments, we can turn a dust-up into a strike, one strike into several, one plant occupation into five, into 10. And then maybe that spark turns into an inferno.

There are all kinds of moments in history where the right combination of forces could have moved in a way that caused an upsurge, but didn't. The mass immigrant rights demonstrations and strikes in 2006, the financial crisis in 2008, Occupy and the mass worker pushback in Wisconsin in 2011, the Red for Ed strike wave in 2018-2019, and the uprisings for Black lives this year all presented big opportunities.

Unions must do what's necessary to survive. But we need to be doing a lot more to lay the groundwork for turning the next moment into an upsurge.

READ MORE.
This is the cover story of Labor Notes Issue 500. Subscribe today to receive our monthly print magazine.

Review: Forty Years of Working-Class Films

by Toni Gilpin

Feature films expressly about class conflict have always been rare in American cinema, and in recent decades have become even more so.

It is still possible, though, to find engaging and valuable movies about working people where labor/management conflict is not the central focus. Here are my recommendations of some of the best that have come out since Norma Rae and Labor Notes debuted back in 1979-plus info on where to find them.

READ MORE.

With City''s Economic Future in Doubt, Can New York Unions Stop the Cuts?

by Chris Maisano

The COVID-19 pandemic has killed nearly 25,000 New York City residents. The worst of the public health crisis may have passed, but its dire toll has triggered a second crisis. Shutting down huge swaths of the economy was necessary to save lives, but the deep freeze on economic activity has plunged the city into its worst fiscal crisis since the troubled 1970s.

Then as now, municipal workers and their unions are in the crosshairs. If the city's economic and political elites have their way, labor will pay for the crisis again-just like it did in the 1970s.

READ MORE.

Petition: Tell Global Brands to Stop Union-Busting at Myanmar Sporting Goods Factory

After the VIP 1 and 2 factory unions in Myanmar demanded COVID-19 safety measures inside the factory, the factory dismissed all union members in both factories and the VIP 2 factory union president was stabbed by company thugs. It is a clear, brutal case of union-busting. The factories make sporting goods for Mizuno, CCM, Evil Bikes, and Pivot Cycles. Despite months of direct outreach from the unions, the brands have refused to intervene or mediate whatsoever. 

Among those fired was factory unoin president Hla Yee San, who attended last year''s Asia Regional Labor Notes Conference. Labor Notes asks our supporters to send a message to the CEOs of these brands demanding they order the immediate reinstatement of Hla and all dismissed union members at the factories.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE. 
Share the petition with others using this URL: labourstart.org/go/myanmar

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Trump''s Anti-Worker Labor Board
• Labor Notes #500 Goes to Print Next Week
• Understaffed and Unsafe, Bay Area Hospital Workers Strike
• UPDATE: East Bay Health Care Workers Strike Forces County to Disband the Boss
• Detroit Bus Drivers Strike over Violent Attacks
• Viewpoint: AFT''s Refusal to Challenge Democratic Establishment Leaves Every Teacher Behind
• Labor Notes Store Back Open with Hoodies, Long Sleeve T''s, and More!

Trump''s Anti-Worker Labor Board

by Paul Prescod

In his State of the Union address this year, President Trump declared that "our agenda is relentlessly pro-worker." Despite this populist posturing, any sober assessment of Trump's first term will show that it has been an all-out assault on labor.

Actions of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are the most striking example of his anti-worker agenda. Trump has rapidly turned an agency designed to serve workers' interests into another tool of corporate power.

READ MORE.

Labor Notes #500 Goes to the Printer Next Week

The 500th issue of our monthly magazine is headed to the printers next Wednesday. Get it delivered straight to your doorstep: subscribe today ($30/year, $50/two years).

This issue features a piece from Senator Bernie Sanders on building a vibrant union movement; a cover story on preparing for the next upsurge; a look at the implications of the Movement for Black Lives for labor''s revival; a retrospective on 40 years of movies about working people; editor Jane Slaughter''s reflections on the differences between our first issue and our 500th; and even a crossword.

SUBSCRIBE TODAY.

Understaffed and Unsafe, Bay Area Hospital Workers Strike

by Bianca Cunningham

Workers at eight campuses of the Alameda Health System (AHS) in California's East Bay began a five-day strike on Wednesday.

"We have a lack of leadership in the administration before the crisis that was just heightened during the crisis," said Adrian Jackson, a respiratory therapist. "When we have to fight the administration it's impossible for us to give 100 percent of our care and attention to the patients who desperately need us."

The 3,200 members of Service Employees (SEIU) Local 1021 make up three bargaining units: nurses, advanced practitioners, and staffers such as housekeepers, technicians, social workers, food service workers, and many more. The vote was 98 percent for an unfair labor practice strike.

READ MORE.

UPDATE: East Bay Health Care Workers Strike Forces County to Disband the Boss

by Keith Brower Brown

On day two of their five-day strike, Alameda Health System workers in California''s East Bay won a landmark victory. After years of stalling, the elected Board of Supervisors of Alameda County suddenly announced they would disband the unelected Board of Trustees that has long mismanaged this public safety-net health care system.

READ MORE.

Detroit Bus Drivers Strike over Violent Attacks

by Jane Slaughter

Detroit bus drivers, the first essential workers in the country to strike for safety during the pandemic, pulled a wildcat work stoppage again last Friday, angry over escalating violence against drivers. 

The work stoppage was triggered by the suspension of a driver who was captured on video punching a passenger-though the video does not show the events leading up to the driver''s self-defense. The passenger had declined to wear a mask, then approached the seated driver, snatched away a barrier chain, and raised his fist.

READ MORE.

Viewpoint: AFT''s Refusal to Challenge Democratic Establishment Leaves Every Teacher Behind

by Mark Wutschke

The American Federation of Teachers had its work cut out for it at its 2020 convention in July. In the last two years, more than 400,000 teachers had hit the streets in strikes and protests, from North Carolina and New Jersey to Arizona and California, with a red-shirted panorama in between. You would have thought that building on these actions would consume the convention's work.

That was not the case. Instead, the convention was mostly a three-day promotion for the election of Joe Biden, with the ubiquitous Democratic National Committee member and AFT President Randi Weingarten hosting.

That President Trump needs to go is incontestable to just about everyone in labor and to most teachers. There's no need to hammer away at that. There is also little to gain, and much to lose, by ignoring the challenges that a status quo, pro-corporate Biden will create.

READ MORE.

We''ve Reopened Our Merchandise Store-with New Shirts, Tote Bags, and More!

Just in time for fall, our full line of Labor Notes merchandise is available for sale again. We''ve got some new items available, including long sleeved "Solidarity" shirts, high-vis Troublemakers Union T-shirts, and Fight the Boss, Build the Union tote bags.

SHOP NOW.

P.S. You can get our Fight the Boss, Build the Union T-shirts (now in red and black), plus a free subscription to our magazine, by pledging $10/month or more at labornotes.org/donate.

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• The Hammer and the Dance: Why Reopening Now Will Kill
• Virtual May Day Today at 5 EDT with Sara Nelson, Stacy Davis Gates, and Sarah Jaffe
• Chicago Grad Workers First to Win COVID-19 Demands
• Plexiglas and Union Power
• How New Orleans Library Workers Shut It Down
• Lessons from the First Union Climate Strike in the U.S.
• Organizing COVID-19 Action Teams in New York Hospitals
• Los Angeles Teachers Use Contract Action Teams to Win COVID-19 Victory
• Viewpoint: During the Crisis, Teachers Need the Freedom to Focus on Student Needs, Not Online Metrics
• Viewpoint: Publicly Fund News Media, Because Journalists Fight for Us All

by Chris Brooks

If an enigmatic global pestilence weren't enough, workers are being squeezed in an ever-tightening vice grip between mass unemployment and economic misery on the one hand and returning to work without adequate protections on the other. 

Many states are now racing to reopen their economies, even though the daily number of new confirmed cases is holding steady nationally. In the absence of a comprehensive nationwide plan, if workers go back to their jobs now we will likely see further spikes in the number of cases, and more deaths.

To see why, it's useful to start with an understanding of how things got so bad in the first place and why the move to reopen the economy now is so dangerous.

Chicago Grad Workers First to Win COVID-19 Demands

by Zukhra Kasimova and Dawn Tefft

Workers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have bargained what they believe are the first set of wins for a graduate union negotiating the effects of COVID-19. It was their winning strike last year that made the employer realize it should come to the table and give them what them demanded.

READ MORE.

Plexiglas and Union Power

by Paula Lukaszek

Unions at the three hospitals on the University of Washington campus asked management for protective Plexiglas barriers similar to what is seen at some grocery stores. When management said no, they built them themselves.

READ MORE.

How New Orleans Library Workers Shut It Down

by Ian Wolfe

Libraries are one of the last social services to normally be open to all. Their workers'' labor benefits community health in many ways. But New Orleans library workers understood that their workplaces' social role also made libraries a potentially massive infection site for the at-risk populations they overwhelmingly serve. Read how they shut them down.

 READ MORE.

Lessons from the First Union Climate Strike in the U.S.

by Iris Altamirano, Greg Nammacher, and Priya Dalal-Whelan

On a pitch-dark night on February 28, striking janitors led a huge march along the frozen streets of downtown Minneapolis. Any other night, the janitors would be warm inside, cleaning the buildings of the Fortune 500. Instead they were leading what some have called the first union-sanctioned "climate strike" in U.S. history.

 READ MORE.

Organizing COVID-19 Action Teams in New York Hospitals

by Sean Petty

For most New York City nurses and other health care workers it''s been the most traumatic month of their careers. Nurses took steps to make things a little better, transforming their Contract Action Teams to "COVID Action Teams," and winning important victories.

READ MORE.

Los Angeles Teachers Use Contract Action Teams to Win COVID-19 Victory

by Karla Griego

United Teachers Los Angeles, a 34,000-member union, used Contract Action Teams (CAT) in every school to build up to their winning strike in January 2019. Recently, members used the CAT again in one school when their principal tried to push teachers to do the work of the administration while they are working from home.

READ MORE.

Viewpoint: During the Crisis, Teachers Need the Freedom to Focus on Student Needs, Not Online Metrics

by Amy Mizialko

The Milwaukee Teachers Education Association is trying to use this time of pandemic to strip back what has been wrongly imposed on students-relentless standardized testing, scripted curriculum, one-size-fits-all online interventions-and work toward a way of teaching that honors relationships as the foundation of learning.

READ MORE.

Viewpoint: Publicly Fund News Media, Because Journalists Fight for Us All

by Jon Schleuss

In a cataclysmic health crisis, it's plain to see how essential the work of journalists has become. Yet the hedge funds that have acquired many of the nation's newspapers are making draconian cuts. Our union is exploring ideas to create an equivalent of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to support news publications online and in print, funded by a tax on Facebook and Google.

READ MORE.

ORGANIZING IN A PANDEMIC: LABOR NOTES RESOURCES

Visit labornotes.org/coronavirus for articles, organizing tips, and other resources. 

READ MORE.

KEEP IN TOUCH!

IN THIS ISSUE:

• It''s Time to Make Black Lives Matter in Our Unions
• Philly Sanitation Workers Rally, Join Demand for PPE, Right to Refuse Dangerous Work
• Striking McDonald''s Workers Block Entrance, Shut Store
• Unions Take Up the Black Lives Banner
• Our LGBTQ Community Became Stronger When We Organized
• Webinar: Workers Organizing for Black Lives: June 24, 8 p.m. Eastern
• Labor Council Votes to Expel the Seattle Police Guild
• Labor Notes Books Are Back! Visit labornotes.org/store

It hasn't taken long for workers to figure out that employers see an economic and public health crisis as an opportunity. But Philadelphia sanitation workers are not prepared to give up their safety without a fight.

For months already, the sanitation workers in Local 427 of AFSCME District Council 33 have been asking for hazard pay and personal protective equipment (PPE), to no avail. Sanitation is one of the most dangerous jobs there is, even in normal times. During a pandemic, having to interact with homes in every zip code doesn't help. More than 50 Philly sanitation workers have been infected with COVID-19 so far.

READ MORE.

Striking McDonald''s Workers Block Entrance, Shut Store

by Kaela Sanborn-Hum

As the world and the United States navigate the coronavirus pandemic, there's a common refrain that we're living in unprecedented times, with mass unemployment, unsafe working conditions for those still working, lack of access to health care, and food scarcity.

For some Americans these experiences are unimaginable, but for many Black people they are too familiar.

READ MORE.

Unions Take Up the Black Lives Banner

by Saurav Sarkar

The Black Lives Matter uprising has prompted strong statements about racism and police accountability from top union officials, but more of the initiative to take action has come from below.

Among the union members raising their voices are Verizon techs, journalists, electrical workers, teachers, longshore workers, bus drivers, security guards, and rail workers. Here''s a round-up of some of the action so far. 

READ MORE.

Our LGBTQ Community Became Stronger When We Organized

by Alexia Garcia

The Crush Bar Workers Collective in Portland, Oregon made news in March when laid-off workers staged a sit-in at the well-known LGBTQ bar, making demands around the COVID-19 closing and reopening.

When they were laid off March 17, CBWC members demanded half pay for the hours they'd been scheduled for the next seven days, a promise of rehire when the business eventually reopens, and accrued sick pay. As of today, only accrued sick pay has been granted, but CBWC is still functioning for solidarity and mutual aid.

READ MORE.

Webinar: Workers Organizing for Black Lives
Wednesday, June 24, 8 p.m. Eastern

The country has erupted in protests after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, from big cities to small-town America. Citywide coalitions are pushing to reduce funding for police and use the money for the many other public services that are always on the chopping block. How are union members and unions rising to the moment?

Join a Labor Notes discussion with:

• West Coast longshore workers who will strike in solidarity with protesters on Juneteenth
• Chicago educators who are organizing to get cops out of schools and instead fund counselors and student support
• Minneapolis bus drivers who refused to transport protesters or cops

Why a Local Labor Council Just Expelled the Seattle Police Guild

by Alexandra Bradbury

On Wednesday, in a roll call vote, the Martin Luther King County Labor Council expelled the Seattle Police Officers Guild. The weighted delegate vote was 45,435 yes, 36,760 no. Next step for antiracist unionists everywhere: show up to support Black Lives Matter protests today, Juneteenth, with your union gear!

READ MORE.

The Labor Notes online store is back! We''re now open for book sales after a two-month hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic. Discounts of up to 40 percent off are available for bulk purchases.

ORGANIZING IN A PANDEMIC: LABOR NOTES RESOURCES

Visit labornotes.org/coronavirus for articles, organizing tips, and other resources. 

And visit labornotes.org/coronavirusnews for all our coronavirus-related coverage.

KEEP IN TOUCH!