The Struggle to Organize Farmworkers Has Been Going On for Decades
Despite high-profile victories in the 1960s and ’70s, farmworkers in the US have been poorly paid and heavily exploited for generations. They deserve the power of a union.
20 Articles by: Jeff Schuhrke
Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian, educator, journalist, and union activist.
Trader Joe’s Workers Have Won Their First Unions in America
The union organizing upsurge in the United States has reached Trader Joe’s. Two stores, one in Massachusetts and one in Minneapolis, have unionized. We talked to a Minneapolis worker about why.
Starbucks Is on a National Union-Busting Crime Spree
The union-busting campaign carried out by Starbucks indicates that the company will not stop until they destroy Starbucks Workers United. The rest of the labor movement has a duty to support the Starbucks union drive — before it’s too late.
115,000 Railroad Workers Are Weighing a National Strike
US labor law is designed to prevent railroad strikes like the kind that shook America in the past. But the constant cuts to staffing levels and erosion of conditions for rail workers could produce a national rail walkoff by September.
UIC Grad Workers Are on Strike for the Second Time in Three Years
Despite slogging through the difficulties of teaching during a pandemic, graduate workers at the University of Illinois Chicago say they continue to face low pay and disrespect at work. On Monday, they went on strike.
Building Union Democracy Across the US-Mexico Border
The relationship between American and Mexican trade unions has been characterized both by US labor officials carrying water for US imperialism in Mexico and by militant, democratic cross-border unionism.
Socialist Actor Ed Asner Fought for Labor
Ed Asner was an immensely talented actor. He was also an uncompromising union militant who fought for lower-paid actors and against Ronald Reagan’s murderous interventions in Central America.
US Labor Leaders Should Stand With Palestine
The American labor movement’s leadership has long sided with the state of Israel’s war crimes and apartheid over the Palestinian people. That has to change.
Union Dues Are About Building Democratic, Self-Sustaining, Working-Class Organizations
Bosses like management at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, where workers are trying to unionize, love to bring up union dues as part of their union-busting. But union organizers shouldn’t shy away from talking about why dues are important: they allow workers to pool the resources needed to fight the boss and win.
Why Won’t the US’s Largest Labor Federation Talk About a General Strike?
The barriers to organizing a general strike in the United States in response to the myriad miseries American workers are facing are massive. But we can’t move toward such a strike without at least putting the possibility on the table and discussing it — something the AFL-CIO has shown no interest in doing.
The US Labor Movement Needs More of the UE’s “Them and Us” Unionism
The United Electrical Workers was once one of America’s mightiest unions. But because many leaders were leftists who challenged corporate power, UE was decimated by McCarthyism. The union managed to survive, though, and UE’s model of militant, democratic unionism is exactly what we need to revive labor in the 21st century.
When Arab-American Detroit Auto Workers Struck for Palestinian Liberation
In 1973, Arab-American workers in Detroit auto plants walked off the job in protest of the UAW’s investment in bonds from the state of Israel. The incident is little-remembered today, but it shows how workers can organize against racism and colonialism — including against the labor movement’s investment in the Israeli occupation of Palestine today.
Even in a Pandemic, the University of Illinois Doesn’t Care About Its Grad Workers
Despite the coronavirus outbreak, the University of Illinois has jacked up health care premiums for graduate workers and refuses to grant additional sick days to those who test positive for COVID-19. This is what workers have to deal with in the corporatized university.
Hundreds of Canadian Workers Are Blockading an Oil Refinery Right Now
The Canadian union Unifor is currently blockading an oil refinery in Regina, Saskatchewan. It’s an important example of what democratic, militant, and solidarity-based unionism can look like.
How the AFL-CIO Can Fight Imperialism and Climate Change
The US labor movement has a long history of aiding US imperialism. By adopting a strong internationalist strategy, making solidarity with the global working class a top priority — including on fighting climate change — the AFL-CIO can reverse that history.
Reckoning With the AFL-CIO’s Imperialist History
Over the past century, the US government repeatedly disrupted leftist movements and supported or carried out coups around the world — aided by American labor leaders. A full reckoning with the AFL-CIO’s collaboration with US imperialism can help us forge a truly internationalist, left-wing unionism in the twenty-first century.
How UIC Grad Workers Fought the Neoliberal University Model — And Won
University of Illinois-Chicago graduate workers recently went on strike over high student fees, poverty wages, and the corporate higher education model. After nearly three weeks, they won.
A Testing of the Waters After Janus
What will the landscape for public-sector workers look like after Janus? The University of Illinois-Chicago is seeing what it can get away with — but campus unions are meeting the attacks with more militancy.
Ed Sadlowski (1938–2018)
“The workers and the boss have nothing in common. It is a class question.”
Taking Militancy to College
Like their counterparts in K-12, academic workers in public higher ed have organized to challenge austerity.