Aug 31, 2002

CHICAGO – Even with the threat of rain looming, almost 5,000 people, Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 1 members, families, and supporters marched through the “Magnificent Mile” shopping and hotel district for better wages, affordable healthcare, and respect from luxury hotels here, Aug. 23.

“No-match” letters have become the weapon of choice as employers and the government step up their attack on immigrant workers.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The five-million-strong Ohio Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs is “fed up with legislative stonewalling.” An “Initiative Petition,” filed July 2, has lain in limbo with no action for over a month in Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery’s office.

Growing opposition to the Bush administration’s planned attack on Iraq, even from prominent right-wing Republicans, provides a “window of opportunity” to prevent such a war, Kathy Kelly, coordinator of Voices in the Wilderness, a humanitarian group working to end economic sanctions against Iraq, told the World. “I hope every grassroots group will develop a committed nonviolent resistance campaign, including sit-ins at Congressional offices if need be,” to stop a U.S. war on Iraq, she said.

Not since the massive drives to organize the basic industrial unions of the CIO in the 1930s, has there been such general agreement about the need to bring millions of new members into unions. We won’t go into all the facts and figures; we don’t have to. The big business media constantly blasts us with the declining union membership numbers and declining union density figures.

As the battle over the longshore contract with the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) intensifies, corporate America is chomping at the bit at the prospect of even greater profits, if it can bust the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) currently in contract negotiations.

SACRAMENTO, California – Miles de manifestantes marcharon al Capitolio de este estado el 25 de agosto para exigir que el gobernador Gray Davis firme una ley que ayudaría a los trabajadores del campo llegar a acuerdos laborales con los rancheros.

Today, many unions are beginning to realize the need to organize unorganized workers. Some are still learning how to organize. Only a few have had marked success. Perhaps only the Service Employees International Union has had the mass organizing successes we look for in the rest of the movement – and those wins came after years of effort.

LOS ANGELES – Thousands of demonstrators protested here Aug. 20, in a massive march against the closing of hospitals and community health clinics by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Workers Correspondence


As our local union prepares to negotiate a labor contract with New York City Transit, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proclaimed that a $2.00 subway fare was in the offing. The current fare is $1.50. Fighting the fare increase has brought a new set of coalitions into the fray.