The features
Starting on the Shop Floor
UAW membership is now below 600,000; Chrysler has been acquired by a private-equity firm; parts manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy protection. In this context of turmoil and loss of labor power, we turned to economist Sue Helper for an in-depth perspective on the industry and its workers. | Read more »
Iraqi Workers Strike to Keep their Oil
The Bush administration has no love for unions anywhere, but in Iraq it has a special reason for hating them. They are the main opposition to the occupation's economic agenda, and the biggest obstacle to that agenda’s centerpiece—the privatization of Iraq's oil. | Read more »
Dropkick Murphys: Friends to the Working Class
Smart. Aggressive. In your face. Committed to economic justice. These words describe an effective union organizer; they also describe the no-nonsense punk rock band Dropkick Murphys, a true friend of organized labor. | Read more »
The KatrinaRitaVille Express Tour
Activists take a FEMA trailer on the road—toxins and all—in a novel campaign to reframe the public discussion of Gulf Coast reconstruction by amplifying the voices of survivors. | Read more »
Access to Paid Sick Days
Workers at the bottom of the wage scale, those making less than $7.38 an hour, are five times less likely to have sick days than workers at the top of the scale. | Read more »
Available only in the print edition:
Lazy Man's Labor Policy
- By Larry Peterson
- September/October 2007
- Issue 272
U.S. labor law had been largely
gutted long before Bush ever took office, under both Democratic
and Republican administrations. So labor issues were
never high on this administration's agenda; the administration
has not had to be proactive in getting its way in this area
precisely because enforceable labor law effectively ceased to
function some time ago. |
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or subscribe
Up Against the Charros and the Changarros
- By Chris Tilly and Marie Kennedy
- September/October 2007
- Issue 272
Despite labor laws that look great on paper, job quality in Mexico has stagnated and
in some ways worsened. The charro (cowboy) unions, as
critics dub the "official," government-linked labor associations, deliver little for workers. And increasing numbers of
Mexicans fall outside the scope of the law altogether, because
instead of having chambas (jobs), they have changarros
(self-employment or marginal employment in a kaleidoscopic
range of microbusinesses and hustles). |
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or subscribe
Women of NAFTA
- By Martha A. Ojeda, Felicitas Contreras, and Yolanda Treviño
- September/October 2007
- Issue 272
Excerpts from the outstanding collection NAFTA From Below: Maquiladora
Workers, Farmers, and Indigenous Communities
Speak Out on the Impact of Free Trade in
Mexico. |
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or subscribe
Outsized Offshore Outsourcing
- By John Miller
- September/October 2007
- Issue 272
Accelerated offshore outsourcing, the shipping of jobs overseas
to take advantage of low wages, has forced some mainstream
economists and some elements of the business press
to have second thoughts about "free trade." |
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or subscribe
