Page 32 - Labor Notes News Today

Stain Weir writes about direct action and on-the-job union leadership as a merchant marine in the 1940s.

A critical review of Chris Rhomberg's The Broken Table: The Detroit Newspaper Strike and the State of American Labor.

A short history of the sit-in strike of women workers at Woolworth's in Detroit, which shook the nation and helped galvanise a militant working class movement which won big gains in pay and conditions.

American capitalism needs a means of containing the growth of socialist politics within the working class. It has such means with the trade unions.

Marianne Garneau criticises the leftist idea of a separation between workplace struggles and politics. This article was first published on Organizing Work.

2008 American Axle strike contains important lessons for Volvo workers After more than a month on the picket line, 2,900 autoworkers have returned to the assembly line at Volvo’s New River Valley Plant in Dublin, Virginia, the largest Volvo truck plant in the world. The mood is restive, as workers discuss and process the betrayal that has just taken place. The Volvo workers voted down three sellout tentative agreements pushed by the United Auto Workers. But last week the union forced a re-vot...

Workers at the Frito-Lay chip plant in Topeka, Kansas, have been on strike since July 5. Forced overtime is a major issue, with some workers saying theyve been forced to work 12-hour days, seven days a week for weeks on end. Photo: Topeka Frito-Lay Union Members Appreciation Page But frustrations over forced OT aren’t limited to Topeka. Below, we publish a letter from the wife of a Frito-Lay warehouse worker at another of the company’s 30 U.S. manufacturing facilities, who said she feels li...

Published July 15. 2021 12:05AM  Taylor Telford, The Washington Post Get the weekly rundown Email* Submit Hundreds of striking Frito-Lay workers in Kansas are calling on one of the nations biggest snack makers to put an end to forced overtime and 84-hour workweeks brought on by a pandemic-era surge in demand. Workers at the Topeka plant have been pushed to the brink as the factory revved up operations during the pandemic according to the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobac...

The Volvo strike and the silence of the pseudo-left lambs With the strike by roughly 2,900 Volvo Trucks workers in southwestern Virginia reaching a decisive turning point this week, the silence on the walkout by organizations and political figures that present themselves as “left-wing” or “socialist” is taking on an even greater significance. The Volvo strike is undoubtedly one of the most important labor struggles in the US in decades. Early on, workers formed the Volvo Workers Rank-an...

What the growing class struggle in the US reveals about the pseudo-left Both in the United States and in other countries, workers are engaging in an upsurge of strikes and militant struggles, seeking to reverse decades of worsening living standards and working conditions. As has often been the case, the development of the class struggle is shedding light on fundamental aspects of contemporary social and political life, putting to the test political programs and tendencies. Striking Volvo Truck ...