Page 33 - Labor Notes News Today

Gig workers are essential workers As pandemic business closures escalated in 2019-2020, many immigrant workers who lost jobs at hotels and construction sites turned to the gig economy for work with Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, GrubHub and Instacart. Labelled as independent contractors by the companies, these workers have few labor protections.…

The 2,900 members of UAW Local 2069 hit the bricks April 17, shutting down the largest Volvo truck manufacturing facility in the world. But 13 days later many were dismayed when the union sent them back to work and said they would be told later what had been bargained. Over the weekend, workers voted by 91 percent to reject the tentative agreement. Photo: DelegateTara, Twitter. Update: On May 20 union officials brought back a second tentative agreement. Workers are organizing to again vote no a...

To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog: A set of bills being finalized by the New York State legislature would, if enacted, dramatically alter the landscape of laws affecting independent contractor drivers who provide services to customers of ride-sharing technology companies like Uber and Lyft and delivery technology companies such as DoorDash, Instacart, and Amazon Flex. If enacted, it would establish “sectoral” bargaining, for the first time in the U.S., between a nu...

Palestine solidarity sweeps the US as Israel continues assault on Gaza 21.05.2021 - US, United States - Waging Nonviolence American Muslims for Palestine helped organize a 1,000-person-strong rally at the State Department and march to the White House on May 12. (Image by Twitter/AMPalestine) Hundreds gathered...

Federal judge hands UAW ex-President Dennis Williams wrist-slap sentence of 21 months for corruption charges On Tuesday, a federal judge for the Eastern District of Michigan sentenced former United Auto Workers International President Dennis Williams to 21 months in prison with one year of supervised release, three months less than originally recommended. In addition, he must pay $132,000 in restitution and a $10,000 fine. Williams is one of 15 individuals to have been charged in connection to ...

The US labour movement has an unfortunate practice of failing to publicly draw lessons from our setbacks. Yet it’s important that labour and the left learn from the Bessemer Amazon experience. After all, we’ve seen a series of defeats in the South from Volkswagen to Nissan and now Amazon. [On 29 March a government-mandated ballot on union recognition at the Amazon Bessemer distribution centre returned a clear anti-recognition majority]. In this article we want to focus a bit on problems wit...

Amazonians United: A new trap for workers Last month, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) lost its unionization vote at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama by a more than two-to-one margin. The RWDSU, which relied on the backing of the Biden administration, Democratic members of Congress and even right-wing Republican Senator Marco Rubio, was incapable of generating any significant support from workers. As the World Socialist Web Site has explained in a numberofarti...

✕ ✕ Common migration routes from East Africa to Europe. Route information adapted from the International Organization for Migration, August 2015, by Colin Kinniburgh. Countries party to the Khartoum process are shaded in orange (note: not all shown on this map). ✕ At the 1936 International Conference of Business Cycle Institutes, sponsored by the Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research, Vienna. Ludwig von Mises is seated in the ...

Speaking at the 2014 Labor Notes Conference in Chicago, Karen Lewis drove home the importance of building a militant, bottom-up labor movement. The speech is characteristically funny, engaging, and powerful. Watch it here. Photo: Jim West/jimwestphoto.com Karen Lewis, the Chicago Teachers Union president who led the landmark 2012 strike, died February 7. Her generosity, charisma, and indomitable strength of purpose were gifts to labor organizers across the country who watched, learned, listened...

Labor Notes is excited to bring on two wonderful new staff organizers, Sarah Hughes and Luis Feliz Leon, at our New York office in February. Sarah and Luis are joining our training and events team, and they’ll also write for Labor Notes. And Zach Rioux, who has been temping with us for a year, is now permanent as a part-time administrative worker in our Detroit office. Sarah is an experienced organizer and trainer with a passion for labor education. She has worked for the National Educati...