Fast Food Workers Go On Strike in NYC!

 From Josh Eidelson at Salon:

 "At 6:30 this morning, New York City fast food workers walked off the job, launching a rare strike against a nearly union-free industry. Organizers expect workers at dozens of stores to join the one-day strike, a bold challenge to an industry whose low wages, limited hours and precarious employment typify a growing portion of the U.S. economy."

Photo by Laura Clawson at Daily Kos

Sarah Jaffe had this to say in The Atlantic:

"For so long, a lot of labor and other folks have avoided these industries because they thought they were too low wage, too hard to organize, and now our economy has become an economy of mostly low wage service jobs," Westin said. "It was the same thing when they were organizing factories in the early 1900s. They organized those factories and lifted an entire segment of the population into the middle class. This could happen here. We could lift an entire segment of the US population out of poverty and into the middle class."

 Crossposted from LABORSTRAT:

"And this is the common thematic element of the new organizational efforts we’re seeing take place in the service industries. Both the Walmart strikes and the New York City fast food strikes taking place are very demonstrative. That is to say, they are attempting to expose a contradiction in an industry (very successful companies who compensate workers very minimally) with a very visible, highly publicized action. This is a great way to create a discussion, but the question remains after that discussion begins: what type of organizations, unions, and institutions are we to build which can maintain the energy we’ve produced through activism. What receives this infrastructure being built by organizers? How are resources built, and more importantly, how are victories produced in which workers are not only politically better off, but economically better off?"

Thoughts Since Black Friday

I participated in the Black Friday action. No workers struck at my location but dozens of supporters held a spirited and effective action that a) received really good media attention that highlighted the demands of the Wal-Mart associates and b) successfully rattled the cage of store management. All in all a fun day. Nationally the picture was much more varied from strikes with dozens of strikers and hundreds of supporters to a single supporter or striker (yes one striker) picketing a store by themselves. I wanted to share some thoughts on the implications of the Black Friday strike and protests.

• The strike was a successful escalation. The number of workers participating increased. A new layer of leaders seems to have stepped up since the earlier strikes. A broad spectrum of allies showed up to support the workers. Wal-Mart desperately tried to dismiss the actions as tiny and irrelevant. The key was to for OURWalmart to successfully show thatWalmarts intimidation campaign had not pushed the Associates back, in fact that new additional leaders stepped forward to carry out this series of strikes showed the capacity or OURWalmart to grow despite management's campaign.
• The strike was a watershed moment for labor. Not because any Wal-Marts were shut down or not, but because WalMart's image as a benevolent employer has been effectively challenged in American public discourse. Illustrated here:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Employees Strike Back
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

The degree to which the strikers and the supporters were portrayed as leading a just fight by many media outlets was a critical blow to anti-worker PR in general.

• The notion that changing Wal-Mart was key to change America and creating a new economy is now firmly established among American progressives. Before there was tepid support among many liberals who perceived the Wal-Mart struggle as just another union "pet issue". It is now common wisdom among the progressive blogosphere and academia that Wal-Mart's role in the supply chain is a key roadblock to economic justice for ALL workers.
• This is where I piss people off. I was disappointed when I noticed that a broad swath of the labor movement sat out the Black Friday action. I was mortified to find out that some large UFCW locals opted to not build or participate in actions. The more this campaign is seen as simply a project of the UFCW International by local UFCW unions, the more difficult it is going to be to build the grassroots infrastructure needed to expand the campaign. The active support and participation UFCW local unions and the full support of labor councils and other labor organizations are key to generating community support and protection  for the OURWalmart activists that will give them the much needed "breathing space" to continue to organize and grow. Bureacratic abstention, Grudges and petty divisions blocking particpation in these HISTORIC actions are the equivalent of high treason in the moment of both peril and opportunity for our entire movement. 

 There I said it. Let me have it.

Will Black Friday be a Tipping Point?

Tomorrow, "Black Friday", Walmart Associates across the country will be walking off the job to stand up for their right to organize and to protest management retaliating against their members for standing up. No one really knows exactly how many people will walk off the job during the busiest shopping day of the year, but whatever the number, it is clear that Black Friday has brought the issues the workers face to the forefront of the public consciousness. In that alone they have one victory in the bank.

In the past Walmart was able to tightly control the narrative told by most of the media. That is not so anymore. OURWalmart and their allies have skillfully put Walmart on the defensive by frontlining the members of OURWalmart rather than staff people as guests on talkshows and in the media and by making sure the workers were able to tell their compelling stories through social media. Labor journalist Josh Eidelson has done a fantastic job chronicling the strikes on his new blog at The Nation.

The strike wave a few weeks ago never really ended. Strikes became more sporadic but continued at stores around the country. Warehouse Workers United called a new strike early last week over management retaliation against organizers. These continuing actions have kept the spotlight on the struggle facing Walmart associates who are raising quite reasonable demands. The fact that the strikes are "Unfair Labor Practice" strikes protects the workers from permanent replacement and any retaliation by Walmart simply creates the basis for valid claims of illegal activity by the Company.

My metric for success is not whether a single Walmart is shut down tonight or tomorrow. I will judge the Black Friday strike by whether the labor movement as a whole comes out of this with with a renewed sense of our own ability to be bold, think big, and to take the fight to the enemy. The question for us all is could this be the "tipping point" that both validates a new model of organizing large service sector employers and leads to a new upsurge in organizing and worker militancy? I can't wait to find out.

So get your ass to a Walmart tomorrow and lets make some history.

If you can't get your ass to a Walmart tomorrow(actually even if you do), you can sponsor a striker HERE.

Labor South: Mississippi students see labor and civil rights as their social justice movement

Another dispatch from the fight in Mississippi.

Labor South: Mississippi students see labor and civil rights as their social justice movement

If You're Not Excited You're Not Paying Attention

I definitely cannot be counted on to deliver up to the minute analysis of huge events in the labor movement. If I counted that as one of my objectives I would be a dismal failure.

Since my last post, we have witnessed a series of events that can only be seen as vindication of those of us who have rejected the notion that the death of the labor movement is a foregone conclusion. Also vindicated is the perspective that labor must begin strategically targeting and organizing in such a way that can shift the balance of power in whole markets in order to win.

It would seem there are more than a few in labor who are determined to turn things around. They are proving the crisis of labor is in fact deep, but not insurmountable.

   The Chicago teachers strike pitted the third largest teachers union in the country, the 25,000 member Chicago Teachers Union (CTU)  against Barack Obama's former chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanual. The stage was set for a confrontation between CTU and their newly elected militant leadership and Chicago's Democratic Party establishment. Known as a ruthless political opponent, Emanuel was outmaneuvered by bold and aggressive organizing that framed the issue successfully and truthfully as a battle to save public education for Chicago's children. The CTU was able to maintain public support throughout the strike and were both aggressive enough to win substantial gains as well as pragmatic and saavy enough not wage an open ended strike, resulting in making concrete improvements both in conditions for Chicago's students as well as working conditions for the Teachers. By rejecting the pro austerity narrative and controlling the framing of the struggle as one for justice and fairness the Teachers defeated attempts to isolate them. All in all, a solid win in an age where strikes are seldom planned and even more seldom won.

The Chicago teachers raised our spirits, got our blood pumping and gave the "screw the unions" wing of the Democratic Party's poster boy a bloody nose.


Unite Here's campaign to organize Las Vegas's third largest private employer Station Casinos received a recent boost when the NLRB denied the Company's appeal of an administrative judges ruling finding Station guilty of 87 Unfair Labor Practices. The violations were so egregious that the NLRB found an additional two charges of Station Casinos violating the workers' right to organize free of intimidation. The ruling came after a dramatic public hunger strike by workers demanding a fair process for an election. 

Groups of warehouse workers who work for Walmart contractors  struck in California's Inland Empire led by Warehouse Workers United and in the Chicago suburbs led by Warehouse Workers for Justice. The Strikers in California organized a "Walmarch" to LA to deliver their demands and the Strikers in Chicago shut down their warehouse with a mass demonstration that culminated in civil disobedience.

Very soon thereafter Wal-Mart store employees (Associates in Wal-Mart Speak) struck over a dozen stores around the country led by OURWalMart an organization led by Wal-Mart Associates. 
The strikes culminated with Warehouse workers from Chicago and California linking up with OURWalmart strikers in Walmart's hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas and where there were joint actions at the first Walmart store and Walmart's headquarters.



Both the warehouse and store Associate strikes "changed the game" and were remarkable in a number of ways:

Warehouse workers and store Associates in Bentonville.

• Non Majority Strikes- Both the warehouse workers and OURWalmart called strikes where the majority of workers did not participate.The actions rested rested on workers' rights under the  section 7 of the NLRA to organize in the workplace regardless of whether they had majority status. 
• Strategic Use of Unfair Labor Practice strikes- The strikes were called to protest Walmart's acts of intimidation and harassment of activists making it an unfair labor practice strike. This gave the strikers protection against permanent replacement and allowed them to return to work once they ended the strike.
• Non traditional Organizing- None of the organizations mentioned regard themselves as unions in the traditional sense, that is none of them are working towards an NLRB election for union recognition nor do they define their goals as ending with a collective bargaining agreement but rather a stated goal to simply improve working conditions.
• Coordination and solidarity- The warehouse workers and store employees coordinated  in order to build off of and support each others struggle

OURWalmart has announced that they will strike again on Black Friday to protest Walmart's acts of intimidation and retaliation against workers who are organizing for change in their workplace. Making Change at Walmart is organizing solidarity with the workers.  This could well be a watershed moment in contemporary labor history and if there ever was a moment to think in a dynamic way about how we can work along side these incredibly brave workers in their struggle this is it. At a bare minimum, you can sponsor a worker here.

  All of these struggles illustrated the validity of approaches that include boldness, strategic planning, messaging and actions designed to draw public sympathy by emphasizing basic principles of fairness, and organizing that targets building density and power in entire industries and markets. 

Maximizing how the rest of the labor movement learns the positive lessons of the recent actions as well as continues to look to using the same guiding principles in our own efforts at building power for workers.


I would be remiss if I did not touch on the 2012 election. With no exaggeration whatsoever, we face the starkest choice of any election in my lifetime. Mitt Romney poses a mortal threat to American working families. There is no debate that he intends to take measures designed to mortally cripple the American labor movement and roll back every gain of the new Deal.

In addition to supporting candidates, Labor is faced with a number of critical ballot initiatives around the country. From fighting an aggressive attempts to politically neuter labor like Proposition 32 in California to the ambitious campaign to enshrine collective bargaining into Michigan's constitution through Prop 2.

Labor has responded to this threat with the largest independent field mobilization in it's history. Banking on our capacity to mobilize and the newfound ability to directly communicate to the public through community affiliates like Working America or independent committees like Workers Voice , tens of thousands of volunteers and staff have supplemented the massive ground campaign of the Obama campaign and criticial Senate, House, and Gubenatorial races around the country.

All of this is in addition to the traditional member to member campaigns of direct contact at worksites and directly volunteering for campaigns in battleground states. Labor's campaign is now being credited with providing the key firewall in the key swingstate Ohio. When all is said and done, there will be no doubt of labor's key role in every major victory in 2012.

This is no time to be agnostic on elections nor is it a time to turn our backs on our own critical struggles in favor of electoral work. For the first time in our history it looks like that we might actually pull both off.

I am positively thrilled. How about you?

 Now back to the trenches.

Labor Day: Time to Think Big

Ok, so I'm a bit late. I spent most of my Labor Day celebrating my son's birthday and fighting the urge to think about what to write about not only today but the past few weeks and the next few months to come.

So much of our future hangs in the balance it is difficult not to offer up a set of opinions of what I think we should be doing to reverse the decline of unions and thus reverse the decline in wages, benefits and working conditions for millions of American workers. Literally dozens of Newspapers, Blogs, and more than a few TV shows today highlighted the fact that unions are singularly responsible for the creation of the American middle-class and with the weakening of unions that same middle-class living standard is disappearing.

It is always good to hear our leaders state in so many different ways that we are going to fight like hell to win this years election. Regardless of anyone's opinion of President Obama's record on delivering on his commitments to labor, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and the cabal of reactionary operatives like Karl Rove and Grover Norquist represent an existential threat to unions. They are committed to waging war on our ability to fight for a fair economy that works for all of us.

A key question in this years election will be whether labor's increased emphasis on diverting resources away from Democratic Party structures toward membership mobilization and messaging as well as direct contact with non-union voters will be sufficiently robust to counter the tsunami of corporate money that will bombard voters with billions of dollars in negative advertising.

The spike in corporate money entering elections and the corresponding uptick in right-wing independent expenditures in 2010 caught labor by surprise. That unexpected infusion of corporate cash along with substantial cynicism among union and progressive voters (the "enthusiasm gap") led to the shellacking we took in 2010. After much hand wringing and exhaustive analysis labor has hopefully developed a ground game that can play a key role in delivering a defeat to Mitt Romney.

I accept that most discussion between now and Nov. 6th will be focused on beating our blood enemies. I don't often use the term "our only hope", but this comes about as close as you get to a life or death election for labor.

But aside from the fiery speeches about kicking Mr 1%'s ass, Labor Day allows us to also take a few stabs at thinking about strategies for not only our immediate survival but also turning our current defensive posture into one of offense.Labor Day is a day to think big and dig deep. It is a day to look back in reverence and to look forward with renewed determination.

Thinking beyond Nov.6 is critical. If Obama wins or loses, there are dozens of state houses and Governors now in the hands of people committed to our destruction who will open up legislative sessions next year with a whole new set of attacks on workers.

The same quandary over growth and renewed power for unions in America continues to elude us. Commentary from scores of radical pundits notwithstanding, serious and deliberate action is required to begin retooling the labor movement to meet the challenges ahead:

• Unions must be willing to restructure to and do away with redundancy, waste and any structure that does not serve the immediate need to grow and raise living standards for our members and the millions  we must organize to maintain those standards. Serious thought has to be put into consolidating organizational bodies, pooling resources, and where possible mergers of entire unions. I say this not to rehash the debate that Stephen Lerner initiated, but because I see that perspective vindicated every day when I see local unions who have jurisdictions ripe for organizing in their cities with no ability to grow because they lack resources or when I see entire International unions with less than five organizers on staff. Fetshizing tiny fiefdoms where we negotiate increasingly marginally better contracts for smaller and smaller groups of workers is a notion that must rejected and vilified. Clinging to standards that no longer determine the wage scale in an industry simply represents impending death for any organization unless we are aggressively working to rebuild density.
• Make the "Second Bill of Rights" campaign real. The recent trend towards independent political activity should be expanded into a focus on mobilizing our members in state house legislative sessions around the country. We should also be willing to learn from our enemies and make our presence felt whenever town hall meetings are called as congressional representatives come home to their districts during recesses as either confrontation or positive reinforcement whichever is appropriate. 
• More and more we must renew the idea of looking at organizing entire markets with campaigns that capture the imagination and/or demand the attention of the surrounding community.The increased use of strategic researchers and campaign staff can and should be used to great effect in these campaigns to piece together comprehensive campaigns that use maximum leverage to achieve employer neutrality or at least muted objection to being organized. Where we choose to continue utilizing the NLRB to organize, we must be crystal clear with companies that we are organizing that there will be a political price paid for aggressive anti-union campaigns. Whenever there is a point of vulnerability, coercive anti-union campaigns should be met with public campaigns of equal strength that expose their coercive nature, rally community allies, and bring public pressure to their doorstep.
• We have to develop alternate or parallel forms of organization for workers who are either not afforded the right to organize or whose employment structures make it all but impossible to organize through traditional means. Structures for misclassified workers, workers excluded from the NLRA, temporary and contingent workers, as well as public sector workers in states that prohibit collective bargaining can and should be developed that allow these workers to build organizations that will allow these workers the ability to collectively fight back. These could take the form of associate member programs, paralleled associations or membership based 501c4's based on the concrete circumstances.

Finally we have to renew the spirit of discussion that can help us flesh out the details. I realize that what I am writing here is just the opinion of one union staffer who has a very limited ability to implement any of what I am writing about. But I also know that many labor leaders I speak with grapple with these exact questions. The main obstacle that seems to be present is a clear method of overcoming the various obstacles both human and material to rebuilding our movement. Happy Labor Day.

Labor South: UAW vs. Nissan in Mississippi: Operation Dixie Revised? An in-depth look

A great article on the UAW organizing drive at Nissan in Mississippi.

Labor South: UAW vs. Nissan in Mississippi: Operation Dixie Revised? An in-depth look