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Written by MTSU WIL
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Monday, 07 April 2008 |
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Temporary employment agencies are often touted as a quick and easy way for low income and “unskilled” workers to find a job. This claim has some justification, as the hiring process for these temporary agencies generally only consists of filling out a few forms and providing a Social Security card. Prospective employees do not have to endure a selective hiring process and can often be assigned work the same day they apply. On the surface, this arrangement seems to be an excellent tool to fight unemployment and improve working people’s living conditions. Unfortunately, experience with temporary agencies reveals a much more negative side, one that far outweighs any potential benefits. |
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Written by Alex Gillis
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Friday, 04 April 2008 |
As we enter 2008, millions of undocumented workers are thinking about the economic crisis, immigration raids, presidential elections and Spring mobilizations. Two years after the massive marches and the national boycott and strike of May Day 2006, the problems facing immigrant workers are far from being resolved. On the contrary, we have entered a new stage of militarized repression and loss of our political and civil liberties. |
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Written by Timothy Kaminski UAW 100 (retired)
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Tuesday, 01 April 2008 |
In late January, more than 80 U.S. and Canadian auto workers met in Flint, MI to discuss the impact of the worst contract ever shoved down the throats of the membership. As a result, UAW members and their allies further solidified a loose network of auto worker and community activists. After a day of enthusiastic discussions, important groundwork was laid for the beginnings of an industry-wide class struggle current, starting with a statement and call for the elimination of two-tier workplaces. |
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Written by Brad Forrest
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Thursday, 13 March 2008 |
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The old home of the U.S. machine tool industry, producing about 13 percent of national machine tool output and employing about 15,000 workers, Cincinnati today is blighted by “deindustrialization” and has evolved into a services and financial center with large disparities in wealth and growing levels of unemployment, drug abuse and crime, as jobs have shifted into retail and related “services.”
A recent socioeconomic study by Dan La Botz of Cincinnati Studies, entitled “Who Rules Cincinnati,” has given us a vivid look at the nuts and bolts of capitalist democracy in America through the prism of that city’s politics. The study found that the political and cultural life of the city is dominated by just 7 large corporations: Procter & Gamble, Kroger, Macy’s/Federated Department Stores, Fifth Third Bancorp, Western and Southern Financial, American Financial Corp, and E.W. Scripps. These corporations have a combined revenue stream of $19,781,709.2 million. |
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Written by Karl Belin
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Wednesday, 12 March 2008 |
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The teachers and other professionals at Pittsburgh Public Schools, who we reported on in issue 36 of Socialist Appeal, have attained a number of concrete gains in a new three-year contract with the school district. The agreement comes after a year of hard-fought struggles by Pittsburgh’s teachers.
The Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT) first announced that a tentative agreement had been reached with the district on the evening of January 16 in a letter from the union’s president, John Tarka. Tarka’s letter is available on the the PFT website (www.pft400.org). In the letter, he notified union members that the bargaining unit had reached an agreement which would then be sent to the PFT Executive Board, which would decide whether or not to recommend ratification to the membership. The Executive Board subsequently voted unanimously in favor of ratification. |
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Written by Ed Riley
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Sunday, 09 March 2008 |
The U.S. Department of Labor recently reported that 311,000 more workers joined unions in 2007. While in 2006, 12 percent of wage and salary workers belonged to unions, 12.1 percent are in unions as of 2007. This growth in unionization took place in spite of the fact that many unionized industrial jobs were eliminated in the automobile and related sectors. The report showed that 35.9 percent of public sector workers are in unions, while only 7.5 percent of the private sector was unionized. As recently as twenty five years ago, 20.1 percent of the labor force was unionized. How did we go from strong powerful unions to where we are today? |
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Written by Josh Lucker
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Thursday, 24 January 2008 |
As if graveyard and shift workers needed a new reason to despise their jobs, which place their schedules in opposition to the waking world, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, has recently declared night work a “probable carcinogen,” with the American Cancer Society likely to follow suit. A report by the Associated Press states that research clearly shows “higher rates of breast and prostate cancer among women and men whose work day starts after dark.” This is due to the fact that melatonin, which is integral to the body’s functioning, is usually produced at night, while the body rests. Melatonin production is inhibited by the artificial lighting, putting night-shift workers at risk. |
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Written by WIL - Pittsburgh
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Wednesday, 23 January 2008 |
Teachers in Pittsburgh are under attack. The city’s public school district has so far refused to meet their demands in round after round of contract negotiations. Since June 30 teachers in the Pittsburgh Public School District have been teaching 30,000 K-12 students without an up-to-date contract. The district’s paraprofessionals and technical-clerical employees have also been working without an updated contract. Those about to move up the salary ladder at the end of the 06-07 school year have had their pay frozen by the district, remaining at the same salary level. Now, only the “status-quo clause” of Pennsylvania’s collective bargaining laws hold the conditions of the old contract in place. |
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Written by Shamus Cooke
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Sunday, 20 January 2008 |
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Organized labor in the U.S. is fast approaching a crossroads. The enormous successes of the past are under attack, putting the unions in a defensive position. Battling not only the companies but their own bureaucracy, the rank and file of various powerful unions find themselves facing extraordinary sell-out contracts approved by their “leadership,” but benefiting only the company. The struggle to defeat these sell-out contracts may well be the opening clashes of a revival of the U.S. labor movement, which has lain dormant for decades, but which by its very nature may lead to larger conflict. It is in this context that Amtrak workers have dealt a temporary blow to the trend of concession and showcased their growing political consciousness when, after bargaining for 8 years, a coalition of 10 Amtrak unions either rejected revolting tentative agreements that their union “leaders” had brokered with Amtrak, or refused to continue the seemingly now-pointless process of bargaining. |
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Written by David May
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Sunday, 20 January 2008 |
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While Ford workers in North America prepare to weather a new round of plant closings and layoffs, their bosses in Detroit have unveiled plans for new plants in China, a country with the world’s fastest growing car market along with rock-bottom wages. Meanwhile, Russian Ford workers have won an important victory not only against the company but against the new, repressive Russian Labor Code.
The big corporations in North America, Western Europe and Japan are moving more of their factories abroad in search of lower wages. But in the process they are tying the interests of the international working class more closely together. In global companies like Ford, the interests of a section of workers on almost every continent are directly linked. The answer to capitalist globalization is to link up workers’ struggle worldwide. |
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