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The following statement was issued on April 30 by Black Workers for Justice, an organization of Black workers founded in 1981 to build the African American workers’ movement as a central force in the struggle for Black Liberation and Worker’s Power. For more, go to Blackworkersforjustice.com, Bwfj@earthlink.net or write to…
The Unions Our Educators & Communities Deserve May 03, 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM EST Zoom Eric Blanc A former high school teacher, Eric Blanc is a doctoral candidate at NYU Sociology and the author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics. During the West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Denver, Oakland, Los Angeles, and Chicago public education strikes, Blanc was Jacobin’s on-the-ground correspondent. Dr. Lois Weiner A former career teacher, now Professor Emerita of New Jersey City University, currently on the editorial board of New Politics, Dr. Lois Weiner, resea...
Helping the Powerless Build Power Oral histories of five activists whoâve worked in and for worker centers Mary Altaffer/AP Photo Activists rally outside New York Gov. Andrew Cuomoâs office to call on a $15 minimum wage. Over the past quarter century, a new form of worker organization â worker centers â have arisen among groups of workers, primarily immigrants and African Americans, for whom unionization isnât usually an option, largely due to the limited scope of the laws governing collective bargaining rights. To tell the stories of these organizations, the Prospect...
There’s No Such Thing as a Low-Skill Worker The label flattens workers to a single attribute, ignoring the capacities they have and devaluing the work they do. 6:30 AM ET Getty Recently, I was mesmerized by a prep cook. At a strip-mall Korean restaurant, I caught a glimpse of the kitchen and stood dumbfounded for a few minutes, watching a guy slicing garnishes, expending half the energy I would if I were doing the same at home and at twice the speed. The economy of his cooking was magnetic. He moved so little, but did so much. Being a prep cook is hard, low-wage, and essential work, as the ...
Black Worker Centers: Building Workplace Power in the Communities Even in anti-union terrains, the centers have found ways to change public and corporate policies. As organized labor grapples with the consequences of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Unionâs landslide defeat at the Amazon mega-warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, one potential direction for the labor movement lies in the types of power- and base-building activities of Black worker centers. That African American workers need to amass the power to better their conditions is beyond dispute. The American working class is...