Posts tagged Labor Day
Labor Day weekend draws Portland workers out in droves to the picket lines
September 5, 2023 // Across town, in Northeast Portland, New Seasons Market employees walked off the job and took up signs to express their frustration. "We're out here today protesting against a union-busting tactic that New Seasons has sort of been leveraging," said Wil, a New Seasons Market employee. "They've used their very punitive attendance policy to pit union stores and non-union stores against each other." The New Seasons Labor Union is an independent workers union, and so are many of the groups that marched in downtown Portland on Saturday. “We’ve always had the larger unions representing us, but now working-class people are taking it into their own hands to form their own unions and take the power back in the workplace," said Samantha Medina with the Coalition of Independent Unions.
‘I’m ready to rumble.’ UAW workers march at Labor Day Parade with strike looming
September 5, 2023 // President Joe Biden also spoke about the strike, saying he isn't worried about a strike and said it won't happen. UAW President Shawn Fain was shocked by Biden's comments and said Biden must know something he doesn't. "We just voted to strike by 97% because our members are fed up," Fain said. "I'm ready to rumble for whatever cause, we deserve and are out here to fight for our cause," a worker told us.
COMMENTARY: What Big Labor Doesn’t Want You to Know This Labor Day
September 5, 2023 // "Yet, instead of adapting and finding ways to still provide value to workers, unions have maintained strictly seniority-based compensation structures and rigid workplace rules that reduce workers’ productivity, pay, and flexibility. That ends up hurting workers who desire autonomy and flexibility. For example, young workers who are parents typically lack the seniority needed to choose the hours they want. And workers who want to put in extra effort to earn a pay raise have little incentive to do so because most union contracts prohibit employers from giving employees performance-based pay raises or bonuses that exceed the union-negotiated pay scales."
From Strikes to New Union Contracts, Labor Day’s Organizing Roots Are Especially Strong Across the Country This Year
September 5, 2023 // The first U.S. Labor Day celebration took place in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882. Some 10,000 workers marched in a parade organized by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor. A handful of cities and states began to adopt laws recognizing Labor Day in the years that followed, yet it took more than a decade before President Grover Cleveland signed a congressional act in 1894 establishing the first Monday of September as a legal holiday.
Biden takes shot at Trump on jobs in battleground Pennsylvania
September 5, 2023 // A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month showed that the economy, unemployment and jobs remained Americans' top concern. A full 60% of Americans, including one in three Democrats, said they disapproved of Biden's handling of inflation, according to the poll. The Fed's preferred inflation gauge has moved down to 3.3%, from its peak of 7% last summer. Although the decline was a "welcome development," Fed Chair Jerome Powell said late last month, inflation "remains too high" and interest rates may need to move higher. Republicans and some economists say Democratic policies helped spark the rise in prices, making Americans pay more for rent, groceries and gasoline under Biden's watch. Economists say inflation was also stoked by the lifting of COVID-era restrictions and revival of business activity that followed.
COMMENTARY Is a Worker Revolt Brewing After Michigan Repeals Its Right-to-Work Law?
September 5, 2023 // Michigan employees affected by this law don’t have to put up with this violation of their freedom of association. They don’t need to pay dues to a forced-membership organization. They don’t have to keep supporting a union’s radical political agendas. They don’t have to watch a portion of their paychecks going to pay for union oligarchies out of state. They certainly don’t need to pay for fancy dinners, cars, vacations, and political junkets and pad the pockets of union bosses. By tossing out the union altogether, employees can keep their money in their own hands and out of the hands of political machines and their elected attendants. The Center for Independent Employees, which assists employees seeking to prevent unionization at the workplace or remove an unwanted union, is already hearing rumblings of this revolution through our offices and our ground game in Michigan.
This Labor Day, ask yourself: Are unions living up to their promises?
September 4, 2023 // Good people across the country may believe that handing more power to public sector union executives will fix teacher shortages or improve ineffective government programs. Instead, these good people should reflect this Labor Day and ask themselves whether public sector unions have lived up to these promises over the past 50 years. They should also ask how we can hold union executives accountable and improve how public sector unions work. Unfortunately, anyone trying to advance ideas to improve public sector unions soon discovers union executives aren’t interested. Public sector union executives will go to war to ensure they keep their power — even at the expense of the employees they purportedly represent.
10 biggest labor strikes in U.S. history
September 4, 2023 //
Elisabeth Messenger: Where Do Your Union Dues Go?
September 1, 2023 // I think when a union can stay very independent and hyper-local, it can be what it was meant to be, and that is a force to speak for all, to help all, to protect all, to raise all at the same time. But again, it’s only when it’s independent it’s not tied to a national, bloated corporate union. And it’s only when it’s at the local level.
Labor Day 2023: Here’s a principled way for workers ‘to make their own choices’
September 1, 2023 // The best way to help workers and families is to remove barriers to their freedom and opportunity, instead of erecting new ones. That means empowering workers to make more of their own choices instead of letting bureaucrats and union officials control what they earn, where they work, and how our economy functions. Workers don’t need more leaders who advocate the failed ideas of the past. They deserve leaders who respect their role as the protagonists in their own and their families’ lives and will deliver better jobs, bigger paychecks, and a brighter future.