This week, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka ran unopposed for the presidency of the AFL-CIO—but only because his opponent, labor activist Harry Kelber, died before the election. While foul play is not suspected (he died from natural causes in late March), the death of 98-year-old union dissident Harry Kelber still came as a shock to me. Harry had gotten so good at living, and at finding beauty and...

A widely heralded union peace agreement  that would end a global boycott of Hyatt Hotels Corp and usher in a new era of better labor relations at the sprawling lodgings chain is hitting some potholes on the road to completion, but both sides are still expressing confidence in its ultimate success. Announced July 1, Hyatt's "national agreement" with the Unite Here union was advertised as the way to...

An UN security officer stands at a cell entrance of a jail in Bunia in the DRC. A new policy by Ban Ki-Moon would curtail security officers' ability to negotiate safer working conditions, even though their work brings them to high-risk areas.   (UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti) United Nations workers spend their time on the front lines of the global struggle for human rights, but now they are battling fo...

Nurses and supporters marched over the Brooklyn Bridge this summer to protest the closure of the Long Island College Hospital. (Photo from NYSNA).   The momentum in the fight to save Brooklyn's hospitals seems to have shifted decidedly to the side of the community, not the bosses. Not only did the fight over the hospitals prove central to the mayoral primary , helping sweep Bill de Blasio from the...

Respect DC is fighting to ensure a living wage for employees of six planned Wal-Mart stores in Washington, D.C. (Respect DC / flickr )   District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray disappointed labor supporters Thursday when he vetoed a bill that would have boosted the minimum wage for some retail workers at a time when Wal-Mart is moving forward with a major expansion in the nation’s capital. The bil...

Nicole Berry is one of the 321 cafeteria workers at the University of Miami who joined 32BJ SEIU in May. (32BJ SEIU)   Food-service workers at the University of Miami walked off the job today during the noontime rush hour, accusing the university’s food service subcontractor, Chartwells’, of bargaining in bad faith. A yearlong organizing campaign culminated in 321 cafeteria workers joining the Ser...

Teachers have gathered en masse in Mexico City to protest President Nieto's new education reform legislation. (Viral MediaNews/Youtube)   In Mexico City, school teachers are meting out some serious discipline to a government gone awry. For the past several weeks, the metropolis has pulsed with a labor insurrection . There have been fierce union-led rallies, clashes with police , and mass demonstra...

Frank Little, who came to Butte in 1917, was brutally murdered for his efforts to organize mine workers against the Anaconda Copper Company.   (KUED / Creative Commons) In June of 1917, 168 workers died in the Speculator mine disaster in Butte, Montana—many from asphyxiation. That July, legendary Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union organizer Frank Little arrived in Butte to help organize a...

Late last week, OUR Walmart —a union-backed organization of store associates calling for improved working conditions, health benefits, and a minimum $13-an-hour wage—staged its largest protests since Black Friday. Demonstrations in 15 cities drew several thousand people, and about 100 were arrested . In addition to OUR Walmart’s core demands, the protesters turned out to insist that Wal-Mart resci...

Downtown Klamath Falls, Ore., where the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers is organizing employees of the local Jeld-Wen factory as part of a farther-reaching campaign.   (Llywrch / Wikimedia Commons) One of the most ambitious new union drives in the country is gathering momentum from its starting point in the Pacific Northwest. The International Association of Machini...

On Sept. 5, 2013, Walmart workers rallied for better pay and the right to organize in outside the San Francisco Four Seasons, home of board member Marissa Mayer. (Photo by R.M. Arrieta)   SAN FRANCISCO—With Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up For Your Rights” blasting in the background, about 150 loud and raucous Wal-Mart workers and local union supporters marched down Market Street in downtown San Fra...

The owners of Chez Panisse in the San Francisco Bay Area have added an automatic surcharge to bills in lieu of tips. (Ulterior Epicure / Flickr / Creative Commons)   Tipping is falling out of fashion—at least if you believe a new article in the New York Times. According to Pete Wells of the paper's Dining and Wine section, the practice is “irrational, outdated, ineffective, confusing, prone to abu...

When workers in a labor struggle are forced to agree to major concessions, labor leaders and allies often find ways to recast the defeat as a long-term victory. Often, they say that losing a tough fight opened up workers’ eyes to the lengths they must go to in order to win the next one. In 2011, for instance, labor circles widely celebrated the massive Wisconsin protests of Governor Scott Walker’s...

At the Victoria’s Secret flagship location in Manhattan’s Herald Square, where all three floors are frequently packed with customers, a single bra can sell for $58 and customers often drop hundreds of dollars in a single spree. Yet wages for the company’s New York City retail workers can start at less than $10 an hour, and employees say unreliable scheduling means that a consistent paycheck is nev...

Four young men breakdancing on the Federal Plaza last week in downtown Chicago say a lot about why this Labor Day provides occasion for both celebration and protest. The dancers—black, white, Latino, all of them putting on a spectacular show—were fast food and retail workers on strike for the day for $15 an hour pay and the right to form a union without retaliation. They were among about 400 low-w...