It seems every talking head in Washington has been in a frenzy recently, rushing to either glorify or condemn the new North American Free Trade Agreement, known as the United States Mexico Canada Agreement. But the truth is that it is still too early to pass any final judgment.
Richard Trumka came to Milwaukee Tuesday to fire up labor activists and tear into Gov. Scott Walker.
The national president of the AFL-CIO used his address at the group's state convention to portray Walker as a "little puppet" of the billionaire Koch brothers.
Walker, the two-term Republican governor whose Act 10 crippled organized labor in 2011, faces Democrat Tony Evers in the fall.
"On November 6 we’re going to have one hell of a party — a Scott Walker retirement party," Trumka said.
Labor has always held electoral power, especially when wielded by women. Former Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins’s lifelong dedication to workers’ rights was sparked by witnessing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, in which 146 people — predominantly young Jewish immigrant women — died, most as a result of locked factory doors. Though they shunned the ballot box, legendary political radicals like Lucy Parsons, Emma Goldman, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn were all labor organizers.
Labor union leaders Liz Shuler and Mary Kay Henry discuss how they rose up through the union ranks and what they’re trying to do to increase the number of women in the labor movement. Shuler, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, and Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, also weigh in on recent Supreme Court decisions, Brett Kavanaugh's nomination, and what that all means for the future of the labor movement.
As Labor Day approached, the movement that created the holiday flexed its muscle in Seattle, where the landscape has been transformed in the last few years by labor-backed measures protecting and compensating people like in few other places across the country.
For generations America’s promise has been that opportunity to create a better life for your family awaits if you work hard and play by the rules. But this Labor Day, that promise is more out of reach than ever for an increasing number of people.
It's 1929, and workers in the Loray Mill in Gastonia have unanimously decided to strike after work conditions in the mill have gotten worse over time, thanks to management's efforts to reduce operating costs.
Wanting livable wages, better hours, union recognition and to rid the mill of the stretch-out system that was crushing their ability to effectively complete their jobs, 1,800 workers walked out on their jobs on April 1.
