Labor

What the UAW Made

This is one of the best write-ups I've ever read of the importance of the UAW. I've been reading left history since I was 13 or 14, so it's easy for me to forget that this stuff isn't at the back of everyone's minds when they encounter the world we live in today. But the UAW is the equivalent in reality to what FDR was in myth. We wouldn't even have the dull vestiges of a decent society without them. So next time you feel like shit-talking the overpaid line workers at GM (cause god knows how dare line workers expect to make a decent living in return for throwing their lives away for a fucking boss and an assembly machine) read this and think it over again.

Solidarity Demonstration for UE Local 1110 of Chicago!
TODAY! Wednesday, 12noon, Bank of America, 515 Congress Ave., Austin

Today across the nation people will be holding demonstrations in solidarity with workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. The Bank of America shut down the credit for their factory, laying off hundreds of workers with three days notice. This, despite the fact that BoA received $25 BILLION in federal bailout money, PRECISELY to encourage them to loan to job-creating industry.

Republic manufactures high-efficiency windows and doors, so not only are they axing hundreds of jobs, they're axing hundreds of GREEN jobs!

As many have read, 200 of the 240 workers at this plant decided enough was enough, and they occupied their factory last Friday. They're receiving incredible support for this daring act, from the city of Chicago all the way up to President-Elect Obama!

Corona is union-busting, from the Solidarity Center:
"Vidriera Potosí

So, some folks may have noticed that there's a whole bunch of crap going on with the SEIU right now. They've got a civil war brewing in California, and SEIU and the CNA/NNOC (nurse's union) are taking out adjacent attack ads on progressive blogs. Very confusing. Whose side is right?

Well, I'm not going to tell you because fuck if I know, but here's a good article from In These Times, a very fantabulous lefty magazine (that we in fact carry, so come on in and support your friendly neighborhood radical bookstore AND a badass lefty magazine with great writing and magnificent journalism).

Dissent in the Ranks

The California Nurses Association made a few headlines recently when a new nurses union out of Pennsylvania voted to affiliate with them. The CNA has become one of the fastest growing union in the country, bringing together nurses on conjoined demands of better work standards, patient care, and promotion of national single-payer health care. They currently represent about 75,000 nurses. Their greatest success to date has been capping the patient:nurse ration in the state of California. I'm going to repost the note on their new affiliation published in The Nation below. I'm also posting links to the recent AFL-CIO press release, their website, and the website of the national organizing organization. They're organizing in Texas right now.

5,000 Join California Nurses Association/Nurses Organizing Committee

I'll bet you'd be surprised to learn that the east Texas/west Louisiana region was one of the strongholds of the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical union based on direct action and workers' self-management of industry. The IWW is most famous for its work out west, and folks who know about it remember the Free Speech Fights in the northwest, the miner struggles in Rockies and southwest, etc. Lesser known is the work of radical unionists in east Texas and west Louisiana who formed the Brotherhood of Timber Workers, which affiliated with the IWW in 1912. Though short-lived, this union was militant and vibrant. It was known for its radicalism and its racial integration, laudable especially for the time.

Here's the story, straight from the online Handbook of Texas: