Category: Workers Struggles

It’s Survey Time at Highland

This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. It’s that time again at Alameda Health System to complete the SCORE Culture of Safety Survey. Unfortunately, despite our annual attempts to diligently report our workplace safety concerns via this survey, management consistently ignores the survey […]

Bosses have a new tactic to stop workers from forming unions

Workers at big non-union corporations like Tesla and Amazon have been trying to organize unions for the last several years. Some of them have been fired in order to scare the rest of the workers away from the effort. In spite of the firings, however, workers at these companies continue to organize. This alarms the […]

International Women’s Day: Give Us Bread, But Give Us Roses, Too!

March 8th is International Women’s Day. This is a day to commemorate the working women who have struggled and fought to better their conditions. Today in the United States, the attacks on abortion and reproductive rights continue. The Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that all “unborn children are ‘children’” and that an embryo in a […]

Machu Picchu no está en venta

Los habitantes de Cusco, Perú, donde se encuentra la histórica ciudad Inca de Machu Picchu, se han levantado contra los planes del gobierno de privatizar la administración del sitio. El gobierno no electo de Dina Boluarte, que llegó al poder el año pasado tras destituir al ex presidente Pedro Castillo, ha decidido ceder el control […]

Flight Attendants Protest Poor Wages and Working Conditions

Tens of thousands of flight attendants rallied and picketed Tuesday at 30 major airports across the globe to demand that the airline industry provide higher wages and better working conditions. The demonstrations showed that many rank-and-file flight attendants were united and militant. Three unions jointly organized the “Worldwide Flight Attendant Day of Action.” These were […]

What Took the Social Out Of Society?

The following article was written in Speak Out Now’s workplace newsletter at Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). 802! That’s how many deaths from fentanyl were recorded in San Francisco last year. Frontline city workers and BART workers are familiar with the situation. People afflicted by the epidemic are on the streets, in the stations, riding […]

Durham School Staff Defy the Threat of Wage Cuts

When Durham School System announced that 1,300 “classified staff,” (janitors, IT workers, teachers’ aides, and cafeteria employees) would receive a seven percent wage increase, one delighted worker told a local newspaper, “We’re starting to get the pay we deserve.” Workers began to receive paychecks reflecting the raises on Oct. 31. During the MLK holiday weekend […]

Mass Strike in Quebec Shows Potential Power of Working Class

On November 23 of last year, the province of Quebec, Canada, saw the beginning of a wave of overlapping strikes of public sector workers that may be drawing to a close in the new year. The strike was brought on by a combination of factors: slow yet consistent budget cuts; intensifying pressures on public workers […]

Striking Flint

Remembering the 1936-37 General Motors Sit-Down Strike, Genora Johnson

The UAW announces plans to organize non-union auto companies

During September and October, the UAW took 50,000 of its members who work for the Big Three – Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (which owns Chrysler and Jeep) out on strike. The contracts the UAW negotiated include a 25% wage increase and cost of living payments to counter inflation. Most importantly, the new contract no […]

Refinery Fires In Martinez, CA

In Martinez, a small suburb of the San Francisco Bay Area, two separate fires broke out at the Marathon oil refinery over the last month. In a fire on November 19, refinery worker, Jerome Serano, suffered third-degree burns on more than 80 percent of his body, which has left him currently fighting for his life.  […]

Millions Strike in Bangladesh

On October 31, approximately four million textile workers in and around Dhaka, Bangladesh, began what they called a boycott of the garment producers and their factories, and have since then been effectively on strike against the multibillion-dollar industry. The strikes started with the demand for better wages. The workers, the majority of them women, earned […]

Millions of Children Lose Medicaid Health Coverage

Since April, at least 2 million children have lost Medicaid health insurance throughout 21 U.S. states. The reports by researchers at the Georgetown Center for Children and Families and KFF, a health policy organization, sound the alarm of the declining health protections available for children in poverty. States are taking away Medicaid as the poverty rate for children doubled since 2022. Children and […]

Air Traffic Controllers Warn The Sky is Not Safe

Every day we are getting closer to a major air disaster. In recent years, the number of close calls of an airport accident has increased dramatically. In the last year alone there were 300 events in which two commercial airliners almost collided. Just one of these could cost the lives of countless people. The reason […]

California Fast-Food Workers Will Get a Raise, But It’s Not as Good as It Sounds

California fast-food workers at big chains like McDonalds will get a raise to $20/hour starting April 1, 2024. The raise is part of a new law signed by Governor Newsom on September 28. This new law replaces an earlier fast-food law passed last year which would have immediately raised fast-food workers’ wages to $22/hour. The […]

Kaiser’s Historic Strike! But What Will Result?

On October 4, 75,000 Kaiser healthcare workers went out on an unfair labor practices strike (ULP). The strike was set to last three days, ending at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday the 7th.  Many are considering the strike historic, the largest healthcare workers’ strike in U.S. history. There has been a lot of media coverage of […]

Autoworkers’ Strike Shows Our Possibilities

Going into the third week of the strike, last Friday, UAW (United Auto Workers) union president, Shawn Fain, called on another 7000 workers at two assembly plants to strike. The workers at the Chicago Ford plant build the Ford Explorer, Police Interceptor Utility and Lincoln Aviator and the GM plant in Lansing, MI builds mid-size […]

The Autoworkers Strike — Go Big or Go Home  

There are 150,000 members of the United Auto Workers who work at Ford, General Motors and Chrysler (Stellantis).  Yet UAW leaders decided that only 12,700 of its members should walk off the job when the contracts expired on September 14th, stopping production at only one plant of each of the three companies. The struck plants […]

TV and Movie Writers Reach Tentative Agreement

On Sunday, September 24th, the top officers of The Writers Guild of America (WGA), announced a tentative agreement (TA) on a new contract for its 11,500 members who work for Hollywood film and TV studios, like MGM and Disney. WGA members went on strike on April 18th, almost six months ago. The 115,000-member Screen Actors Guild (SAG) struck […]

UAW Autoworkers Strike: This is Class War!

In the early hours of Friday, September 15th, union officials of the United Auto Workers (UAW) called on 12,700 workers at three assembly plants to shut them down. This was part of the strategy of the UAW in dealing with the contract expiration of the “Big Three” auto companies – Ford, General Motors (GM), and […]

There’s a new contract between the Teamsters and UPS — what did the workers get?

Leaders of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) announced toward the end of last month that UPS workers had ratified a new five-year contract. The new contract included wage increases of up to 16% for most drivers working full-time, topping out at $47/hr. The new contract eliminates the hated two-tier system for delivery drivers that […]

Labor Day – Not Just Another Holiday

Labor Day is a holiday in the United States that supposedly celebrates the history and achievements of working people. Some politicians and union officials may give speeches celebrating the efforts of the nation’s working people, even as millions of workers are still forced to work on Labor Day. For those lucky enough to get the […]

The UPS Contract – Now It’s Up to the Workers

On July 25, the bargaining team of the Teamsters union and United Parcel Service (UPS) reached a tentative agreement on a five-year contract for more than 340,000 workers. Teamster members will vote on the contract from August 3 to August 22. UPS management and the union’s top officials, along with the U.S. Department of Labor […]

Short Staffing = Short Breaks

This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. At a time of severe understaffing at Highland, we truly need our rest when we finally go on break. But there is never enough time to break when the hospital is always in dire need of […]

Teamsters Union and UPS Reach Tentative Agreement

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and United Parcel Service (UPS) announced on Tuesday, July 25 that they have reached a tentative agreement on a new five-year contract for approximately 340,000 workers. Teamster members will vote to approve or disapprove the contract, with voting spread out between August 3 and August 22. They had voted to […]

Actors on Strike

On July 14, 165,000 actors represented by SAG-AFTRA went on strike against Hollywood studios. They join the 11,500 writers of the Writers Guild of America, who have been on strike since the beginning of May. This is the first time that both unions have been on strike at the same time since 1960. While Hollywood […]

No More Water Breaks: Workers’ Barbeque, Texas Style

September 1, 2023, is a day that will live in workers’ rights infamy. Texas House Bill 2127 will ban mandatory water breaks for all workers. Governor Greg Abbot has signed the bill, which critics have begun referring to as the “Death Star” bill, because the state legislature can act as a dominant Death Star over local governments […]

July 17, 1936 Spain: Workers’ Power Defeats Coup Attempt

On the morning of July 17, 1936, right-wing generals in Spain ordered their troops to begin occupying dozens of towns and cities throughout the country. Over the next three days, troops loyal to right-wing army generals marched out of their barracks and attempted to occupy Spanish population centers. This was an attempted coup, designed to […]

Support UPS workers – Their fight is our fight, too!

The contract between UPS and workers in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters expires on July 31. It covers more than 340,000 workers, making UPS the largest U.S. company that bargains contracts with a union. UPS is a rich company, far more profitable than any of its competitors, like FedEx, and has become more profitable as […]

The Fight of Dock and Delivery Workers is Our Fight, Too

In the past month, we have seen glimpses of workers showing their power in the shipping and delivery sectors, and there could be more to come. Frustrated after working without a contract for almost a year, dockworkers in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) temporarily shut down major ports along the West Coast in […]

UPS Workers Vote to Authorize a Strike

The contract between the Teamsters Union (IBT) and UPS expires July 31. UPS workers have been voting for the last ten days to authorize the union leaders to call a strike if no tentative agreement is reached by July 31. According to the union, the strike vote was approved by 97 percent of those who […]

Rockridge Trader Joes and the Difficulty of a Contract

Workers at the Rockridge Trader Joe’s in Oakland, California, voted on April 20 in favor of unionization by a vote of 73 to 53. The Rockridge Trader Joe’s is the fourth Trader Joe’s in the country to unionize, after 3 other stores in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Kentucky voted to form a union with Trader Joe’s […]

Yes, It’s The System

The following is reprinted from Speak Out Now’s workplace newsletter at Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Station Agents face threats of attacks every day. No matter how alert and conscientious a worker is, an attack can seem to come out of nowhere. These can be deeply traumatic events, especially when a worker faces returning to […]

CSX in Baltimore: A Dangerous Place to Work

The December 2021 explosion at the CSX coal pier in the Curtis Bay neighborhood of Baltimore, along with ongoing toxic pollution, has prompted immense public outcry against the company’s executives, including numerous protests, city hearings, and a community-led lawsuit. However, the company’s illegal neglect and unfair abuse—across the country, in Maryland, and in Curtis Bay—falls […]

May Day: Celebrate Workers’ Power and Possibilities

May Day was established as an international holiday in 1889 to honor the struggles and sacrifices of the international working class. It is a recognition of its historic mission — to liberate humanity from the exploitation and oppression caused by the capitalist system. Today, more than ever, working people need to remember our history, as […]

Determined Until the Withdrawal of the Pension Reform!

April 10, 2023 Editorial of the Workplace Newsletters of the Etincelle fraction of the NPA. Translated from French. The demonstrations of April 6 were once again numerous – young people, workers, pensioners gathered in the streets of large and small cities. This is enough to make the government tremble, a government that will use any […]

Exposed! Railroads Bosses’ Dirty Tactics to Make Sick Workers Stay on the Job

Union Pacific Railroad (UP) routinely employs private investigators to find a pretext for firing employees taking sick leave, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Texas. Shifts on the UP can last 12 hours for days at a time, and the danger of injury is a constant threat. In this case, UP Conductor De’Ron Rutledge […]

Academic Workers Strike in New Jersey

On Monday morning, nearly 9,000 tenured professors, part-time lecturers and graduate student workers went on strike at the three campuses of Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey, and one of the largest state universities in the nation. The workers who make the university run are sick of Rutgers spending money on new buildings, […]

France: The Working Class Can Decide Its Future

For months, starting in mid-January, there have been ongoing strikes and mobilizations in France. There have been multiple strike days and demonstrations, called by the unions in both the public and private sectors. Millions of people, across France — in big cities, small towns and villages — have participated in these actions. Workers have blocked […]