Labor Unions

Radicalism, Trade Unions, and the Law: A Question of Strategy

It is not, therefore, straightforwardly advantageous for a union, such as the IWGB, to identify as one of their shorter term goals recognising their members as ‘workers’ entitled to rely on, and gain access to, the various rights, protections, and institutions, that form part of this legal framework, and which shape the pursuit, by traditional trade unions, of their objectives. While doing so may well help insulate their members from the various legal risks attendant on organisation and industrial action, it does so at the direct expense of exposing them to the very compulsions and incentives that have historically helped to de-radicalise trade unions over time.

By |2023-03-15T09:32:53-04:00Mar 15, 2023|
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What can US labor learn from multi-employer bargaining in South Korea?

The capitalist system has been utilizing the tactic of workplace fissuring to weaken the organizing power and bargaining position of US unions. This has led to a decline in worker's ability to negotiate fair wages and benefits. However, as an alternative strategy, unions have begun to adopt multi-employer bargaining [...]

By |2023-03-01T09:52:33-05:00Mar 1, 2023|
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Union advantage? Most workers in Niagara don’t see it that way

Why don’t people always act in their own collective self-interest? This classic puzzle in sociological analysis led us to question why so many workers – even the most precarious among them – were so disinterested in unions as a means to achieve higher pay and better working conditions.  If [...]

By |2023-01-25T12:05:52-05:00Jan 25, 2023|
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Can Union Caucuses Change the World?

In March 2020, New York City became the U.S. epicenter of the emerging Covid-19 crisis. Yet neither city leaders, nor school district officials, nor teacher union leadership provided a meaningful response to a mounting public health crisis. Instead, the city’s fledgling social justice teachers’ union caucus, MORE, rose to [...]

By |2022-12-07T16:28:50-05:00Dec 7, 2022|
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Can Fixed Duration Strikes Work?

On September 12th, 2022, approximately 15,000 nurses went on strike across Minnesota and Wisconsin in one of the largest private sector work stoppages by nurses in U.S. history. Workers demanded increased staffing and higher wages to retain nurses after working for over two years through a deadly pandemic. In [...]

By |2022-11-30T06:59:12-05:00Nov 30, 2022|
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How Are Unions Building Power in an Anti-Labor Era?

There is neither a discernible overarching vision that unites all workers and aids in broad class solidarity nor an easy way of layering strategies so that they serve complementary ends. Whether this misalignment proves damning for labor remains to be seen.

By |2022-09-14T10:14:09-04:00Sep 14, 2022|
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The Working-Class Fight Against Fascism: Lessons From Greece

To assume that this leads to progressive politics is wrong as much as the opposite (that working-class positions are inherently associated with far-right politics). This dichotomy ignores the constitutive split of the class: the same workers that demand recognition of their specificity as an existing ‘class’ of people (affirming their class position) may also call for the undermining of class divides through the redistribution of resources. This paradox of class identity is not to be resolved by those dedicated to class analysis as a pathway to a more equal society. But a deeper understanding of how it works, could make this way shorter.

By |2021-01-13T11:15:20-05:00Jan 13, 2021|
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The Wages of Whiteness or White Fragility? W.E.B. Du Bois and the Enduring Problem of Interracial Unionism

For Du Bois, whites embrace racism not because they are imbued by a psychological predisposition nor because they’re grasping for a shred of psychological superiority. Rather, they embrace white supremacy because the threat of job displacement—and the economic hardship that implies—drives whites to pursue their economic interests in racialized terms.

By |2021-01-06T16:37:51-05:00Jan 6, 2021|
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