The following statement was released today and posted on the AAUP website: Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a case which threatens to reverse decades-old decisions allowing for the collection of fair share fees from public employees. The case has far-reaching consequences for American workers, students and the…
The “right-to-work” states are indicated in red, and the pro-labor states in white: Compare that map with the following maps: __________________________ Previous posts in this series have included: Right to Work by the Numbers, Part 1: Population Growth and Movement: https://academeblog.org/2013/04/03/2666/. Right to Work by the Numbers, Part 2: Immigration: https://academeblog.org/2013/04/21/right-to-work-by-the-numbers-part-2/. Right to Work by…
Each year the University of Cincinnati chapter holds a Solidarity Lunch to which it invites not only its own members but also the members of all of the other unions that represent university employees. At my own university, only the maintenance workers are also unionized, but I think that this sort of “solidarity” event is…
Dear Fellow Workers, Compatriots, and Friends from around the World: Happy New Year! Toward the end of 2015, the labor community in China experienced an unprecedented attack. A group of activists who have dedicated years to defending the rights and interests of workers were detained, monitored and interrogated by the police. It could have been…
The following item was written by Peter Dreier for the blog Talking Union: “Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post’s editorial page editor, has fired columnist Harold Meyerson, one of the nation’s finest journalists and perhaps the only self-proclaimed socialist to write a weekly column for a major American newspaper during the past decade or two. “At…
I recently re-posted a piece by Paul Garver on the detention of labor activists in China. Paul edits the Talking Union blog of the Democratic Socialists of America, and I included the re-post of his piece in a somewhat broader article on labor activism in China: https://academeblog.org/2015/12/10/supporting-the-emerging-chinese-labor-movement-on-international-human-rights-day/. That post was then re-posted on the Facebook…
The “right-to-work” states are indicated in red, and the pro-labor states in white: Compare that map with this map indicating the state unemployment rates reported on December 18, 2015: In the Ohio House, legislation has been introduced to impose “right-to-work” restrictions on private-sector unions, with the primary argument for the measure being the…
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, the union announced today. If that happens it would be the union’s second walkout in four years. “Chicago Teachers Union members do not want to strike, but we do demand that you listen to us,” Jesse Sharkey, the vice president of the union,…
The following statement was released today by the AAUP: On Friday, 22 part-time faculty at the Los Angeles campus of Emerson College overwhelmingly won a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election for union representation, choosing to be represented by the American Association of University Professors. The vote was 16-0. “We decided to form a union because…