Labor

OAKLAND, Calif. — As travelers streamed into the Southwest Airlines terminal at Oakland’s International Airport April 5 they were greeted by an unusual sight — a crowd of passenger service workers and their supporters outside the terminal, demanding union rights, decent wages and affordable health care.

HAYWARD, Calif. — Solidarity filled the air April 6 as hundreds of parents, students and community supporters gathered in Birchfield Park to express their backing for striking Hayward teachers.

“We want to be proud of wearing our university apparel,” said Aria Everts, a University of Michigan student who was arrested April 3 after staging an eight-hour sit-in at the college president’s office. Everts was protesting against sweatshop-made gear sold on campus.

WAYNESBURG, Pa. — The banner on the stage declared, “One union, One contract, No exceptions.” Hand-lettered picket signs proclaiming, “We made the profits, where’s our share?” were held high by over 1,800 members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), their families and supporters uniting for justice in the coal fields.

Texas House Democrats were backslapping and praising themselves for a job well done as public education gains were realized in the 80th Texas legislature this spring. They won pay raises, stopped the nation’s largest “merit-pay” scam in its tracks, and fatally wounded the “school voucher” scam in the Texas Legislature.

Last week Circuit City announced layoffs of 3,400 “high paid” employees, saying it would replace them with lower-wage workers. It’s yet another example of the cruelty of a profit-driven, corporate-dominated system.

A front-page photograph in the Oct. 26, 1936, edition of the Daily News captured the defiant, young face of Jessie Taft as she stood chained to the balcony of a New York City hotel.

CHICAGO — Imagínese si usted tuviera que despertarse en la oscuridad cada mañana para luego tener que cosechar tomates durante una jornada de 10 horas — cada día, siete días a la semana — en condiciones explotativas y bajo la vigilancia de hombres armados.

Autoworkers face one of their biggest challenges ever: how to fight in an era of globalization when companies threaten to move ever more production abroad to get the lowest wages and benefits possible.

The Portland (Maine) Press Herald in a recent editorial claims that the “Employee Free Choice Act opens the door to coercion.” The act, recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, with the support of Maine’s two congressmen, isn’t about coercion. It is about workers’ rights.