labor

University of California is Cracking Down on Workers and Dissent

by Rafael Jaime

The arrest of three UC labor activists on vandalism charges related to chalking a sidewalk with pro-labor slogans show that the university will throw its commitment to free speech out the window when it comes to playing hardball with graduate workers, says one grad union leader. 

Kagan, Sotomayor Join SCOTUS Cons in Sticking it to Unions

By an 8-1 vote, with only Ketanji Brown Jackson in dissent, the Court allowed employers to bypass the National Labor Relations Board to seek potentially crippling tort judgments against unions for business losses related to strikes, removing a major incentive for good-faith negotiation by employers. 

The Police Aren't Part of Change in Chicago

by Dan Berger

A historian critiquing a recent book on Black Lives Matter argues that the political, fiscal and cultural influence of police is so broad that it's impossible to think of meaningful social reform in a society that includes modern police departments. 

U. of Michigan Faculty Shouldn't Flatter New President while the Administration Busts Unions and Politicians Trash Higher Ed

by Silke-Maria Weineck

Top administrators increasingly share with conservative politicians a "desire to refashion universities in the image of the American workplace, where at-will employees do what they’re told by feudal overlords who have poems commissioned in their praise."

The 4-Day Work Week is an Idea Whose Time Has Come (Again)

While workers have long expressed a preference for a shorter work week, the labor market issues of the COVID pandemic have recalibrated the balance of power between workers and management in ways that have made the idea more appealing to policymakers. 

Labor Secretary Nominee Julie Su Shaped by Work on 1990s Sweatshop Trafficking Case

With a prominent record of advocating for immigrant workers, Su faces indifference or outright hostility from moderate Democrats and Republicans as her nomination to succeed Marty Walsh at the Department of Labor advances. 

Rutgers Strikers Ran the Table; Is This the Way out of Higher Ed's Crisis?

by Jonathan David

Three Rutgers unions, representing instructors in different professional positions, won by modeling the kind of solidarity that university workers need to fight back against the privatization and corporatization of public higher education. 

Rutgers Unions Suspend Strike after Big Gains

Although unions representing graduate workers, lecturers, and full-time faculty must approve them, a framework for agreement has been reached that would deliver significant gains in wages and other demands. 

Beyond Quiet Quitting: The Real Crisis of Work

by Erik Baker

Impressionistic accounts of worker withdrawal and labor militancy both fail to capture a deeper issue: Work is failing to deliver on the promises the state has made as an avenue of meaning and fulfillment. 

Why LAUSD Teachers Walked Out

At the heart of the walkout of 60,000 education professionals is the reality that the school district's policies are keeping teachers and students in poverty that makes it harder to teach and learn, says a union official. 

ChatGPT Wants to Join SEIU in Breakthrough for Organized Labor

by Jim Castagnera

Business owners looking to replace workers with automation beware; ChatGPT is a union bot. 

Graduate Student Strikes Fight Back Against Decades of Austerity, Seek to Revive Opportunity

Participants in these actions explain that the goal isn't only pay and benefits for graduate student workers, but returning public higher education to a state of accessibility for millions of students and opportunity for millions of workers after decades of budget cuts and privatization. 

Can a "Return to Normal" Happen Without Repairing Sociability?

by Nate Holdren

The push to return to many pre-pandemic modes of working and living is taking place without sufficient provision for mitigating risk, and with seriously damaged bonds of trust and mutual support; people are again in proximity to each other, but far from being together. 

Why We Need Pirates

by Paul Buhle, Marcus Rediker and David Lester

Though vilified in popular culture, the history of piracy shows that many crews were egalitarian bands of maritime workers escaping their exploitation at the hands of merchant companies and navies. A new graphic adaptation of a recent history of piracy tells the story. 

UC Strike is Energizing a Movement of Research Workers

Collective actions at the University of California campuses and elsewhere are influencing research workers to view the work that they do in the lab as labor. 

Revisiting Kropotkin 180 Years After His Birth

by Sam Ben-Meir

The rise of automation and the concurrent squeeze of workers in the name of profit offer an opportunity to revisit the ideas of Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin as a forward-looking critique of power. 

The University of California is Also a Landlord

The system, which approximates a real estate investment firm that also confers degrees, is squeezing its graduate students both as their wage-payer and as a large-scale landlord that contributes to a housing market that is unaffordable to graduate assistants and postdoctoral researchers. 

Railway Companies Aren't Simply Being Stingy: Denying Sick Days is Central to their Business Model

The regime of Precision-Scheduled Railroading (PSR) has yielded immense profits but cannot accommodate unexpected worker absences. The current impasse is happening because executives and stockholders refuse to abandon the system. 

An Open Letter from Historians In Support of Railway Workers

A group of historians hopes to persuade President Biden and Labor Secretary Martin Walsh to uphold railroad workers' right to strike and to intervene in negotiations to help secure a contract with sick day provisions. 

Grad Workers: Choose Solidarity with New Haven

by Adom Getachew and Sarah Haley

Two former Yale PhD students argue that the university's graduate student union offers not just benefits and protection to graduate student workers, but the chance for them to work in solidarity with other university and New Haven workers across the vast racial and socioeconomic divides separating city and campus.