Joe DeManuelle-Hall is a staff writer and organizer at Labor Notes.
The longshore strike that paralyzed East and Gulf Coast ports for three days last year produced big wage gains and expanded protections in an industry where jobs are constantly under threat of automation.
Union negotiations covering East and Gulf Coast longshore workers have been stalled since June, making a strike more likely as the September 30 contract expiration looms. A strike would have a massive economic impact, costing billions of dollars per day.
This week, workers in Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools voted to unionize, forming a wall-to-wall union of 27,500 teachers, custodians, teaching assistants, bus drivers, and more. The vote has created one of the largest K-12 unions on the East Coast.
In a new survey, the overwhelming majority of railroad workers say they reject a proposed settlement that fails to improve their draconian working conditions. They could strike as soon as September 16.
With railroad companies refusing to offer employees a favorable contract, 115,000 railworkers could soon launch a nationwide strike. We spoke with a train engineer about the industry’s brutal working conditions — and why a strike could spread like wildfire.
Labor is going into a new decade weaker than it’s been in nearly a century. But the year was a promising one for those looking for sparks from the US working class — and hoping the new decade can stoke those sparks into a flame.
In what may be the first coordinated strike at a US Amazon facility, fifty Somali-American workers walked off the job in Minnesota recently to protest work speedups. And organizers say it won’t be the last strike.