Workers in the U.S. have made 2021 a year that ought to panic giant corporations and small store owners alike. The wave of strikes and other job actions this fall have exploded and not just in numbers.
UAW
Volvo workers defy UAW to resume strike
July 5, 2021UAW workers on June 7 resumed their strike at the Volvo Truck Plant in Dublin, Va., the day after rejecting for the second time the tentative agreement that Local 2069 Bargaining Committee presented to them. The vote to reject, like the vote on May 16 to strike, was by more than 90%.
Detroit dispatch #7: art, protests and evictions
June 29, 2020Detroit dispatch #7 saw a multiplicity of daily Black Lives Matter protests, in both city and suburbs, illuminating revelations of and resistance against systemic racism. Art flourishes while evictions loom, Fiat-Chrysler workers walk out while speed-up of workers continues and social distancing and mask wearing fall by the wayside.
Trump aids capitalism’s attack on labor; workers strike back
January 24, 2019A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the state of the U.S. economy and the revolt of labor in the wake of country-wide teachers’ strikes, an historically long government shutdown, and an unsteady, uncertain worldwide economy.
Humanity confronting annihilation
September 3, 2017The peace march on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to commemorate over 70,000 lives lost at the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on Aug. 9 in Livermore, Calif., bring up questions of Marxism, humanism, and the alternative necessary new society.
Which vision for rebuilding Detroit?
June 30, 2017Does housing in Detroit in 2017 mean large tracts of vacant land and substandard houses ripe for development and easy slumlord profit, or a focus for community organizing to take back our city? .
Columbia University stalls union victory
January 30, 2017Graduate workers at Columbia University who won representation with the UAW in an historic August 2016 NLRB election face further delays as Columbia seeks to overturn the results, seeking to stall union certification until after Trump stacks the NLRB with anti-union appointees.
Workers reject Nexteer-UAW deal
March 18, 2016Workers at Nexteer Automotive dealt a blow to the United Auto Workers bureaucracy and the company when 97% of the rank and file rejected the contract the UAW had negotiated, forcing sharp revisions on two-tier wages and healthcare benefits in the contract they ratified.
UAW workers vote down Chrysler deal
December 10, 2015UAW workers reject Chrysler contract and force an improved one, showing the power of their strike.
UAW makes new effort to organize Volkswagen
June 29, 2015The United Auto Workers, claiming to represent over 55% of the workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., has demanded exclusive bargaining rights for the workers. The company, however, is resisting.
UAW to fight two-tier?
April 30, 2015Detroit—Meeting on March 24-25, some 900 delegates from more than 800 local unions representing automotive, aerospace, education, healthcare, public work and other areas of the economy heard reports and discussed strategies for the United Auto Workers (UAW) contract that expires in September 2015.
Will UAW represent rank and file again?
March 8, 2015There will be a laundry list of grievances presented at the United Auto Workers (UAW) union bargaining convention to be held in Detroit, Mich, in March. Many of these grievances have been festering throughout auto plants in the country since 2009, when General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt.
The todayness of Selma, USA, 1965
In acquainting readers with coverage of the forces of revolution in News & Letters over its first 60 years, we present “Continuing Magnolia Jungle terror exposes reality of ‘Great Society,’” written by Charles Denby in February 1965, in the midst of the bloody campaign for voter registration in Selma, Alabama.
Women WorldWide, March-April 2015
March 7, 2015A roundup of short news of women including the death of Geraldine Blankenship, an activist in the 1936-37 Flint, Mich., sit-down strike against General Motors; the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation; and the opening of a Mother Jones Museum in Mt. Olive, Ill., in June 2015.
Detroit developers flee angry homeowners
November 24, 2014Nearly one-third of Detroit’s residential properties are blighted. Participants at an October protest at a Town Hall meeting speak.
UAW shirks campaign at Mercedes-Benz
November 22, 2014Detroit—Instead of holding an election of rank-and-file workers at the Mercedes-Benz auto plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala., the United Auto Workers union (UAW) in October simply declared that Local Union 112 was in existence to represent workers at the plant. UAW officials said they hoped to convince a majority of the 3,400 full-time workers there to join the union, and are seeking to persuade Mercedes-Benz management to accept the union as the sole representative of the workers….
Which side is UAW on?
July 7, 2014From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
Detroit—The United Auto Workers (UAW) union elected Dennis Williams, former UAW secretary-treasurer, as president for a four-year term during the union’s Constitutional Convention held in Detroit on June 4-5. Following his election, Williams pledged to eliminate the existing two-tier wage system that pays new hires [=>]
‘A Dreadful Deceit’ and unceasing rebellion
March 30, 2014Jacqueline Jones’ new book, A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America, is not a call to ignore effects of the concept of race in law and practice. She finds the definition of race repeatedly twisted to suit the needs of the ruling class and wielded as a tool for subjugation of Black and white labor alike.
VW anti-UAW vote
March 27, 2014The shocking defeat of the United Auto Workers in a union election at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, dealt a serious blow to the organizing strategy of the UAW in the South.
Call for News and Letters Committees Convention, 2014
March 11, 2014News and Letters Committees has posted its
OFFICIAL CALL FOR CONVENTION
to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2014-2015
February 23, 2014
To All Members of News and Letters Committees
Dear Friends:
The sharpness of revolution and counter-revolution contending now, while the prolonged global capitalist economic crisis refuses to end, cries out for a philosophical [=>]
Undoing Michigan election
February 6, 2013Editorial
With lightning swiftness a super-majority of Michigan lame-duck Republicans passed a series of oppressive bills at the end of December. Defying voters’ expressed views, they passed an anti-union “right-to-work” law, an anti-abortion bill and a dictatorial emergency manager act. This was accomplished despite a record number–over 12,500–of protestors who stormed and occupied the legislative chamber [=>]
Readers’ Views, September-October 2012, Part 2
October 16, 2012From the September-October 2012 issue of News & Letters:
Readers’ Views, Part 2
REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM DISCUSSION CONTINUES
The discussion article on “Revolutionary Syndicalism” (July-August N&L) reminds me of when it was considered a major force of revolution. There was a syndicalist party, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), that thought we could vote in socialism. [=>]