Unionization Archives - Public Seminar

Labor

People Do Not Live with Indignity Forever

June 7, 2022 • by Annelise Orleck

On May 3, I—and about a hundred million other women—was reeling in the aftermath of Associate Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s contemptuous assault on women’s bodily autonomy. We had learned about it that day because of a leaked draft decision that will eliminate the right to safe, legal abortions in ...

People Do Not Live with Indignity Forever

Capitalism

A World Beyond Capitalism

As workers contemplate the post-pandemic world, they know one thing: they need the big changes that mutual aid organizing has already imagined

October 27, 2021 • by Molly Ragan

It has been such a long time since American workers have pressured employers in such large numbers that some are calling this month “Striketober.” More than 10,000 John Deere United Automobile Workers (UAW) are on strike across the country after rejecting a tentative agreement that failed to adequately increase wages, ...

Education

Teacher Insurgency

What Are The Strategic Challenges?

February 23, 2019 • by Leo Casey

The following post was the basis for a talk by Leo Casey, the Executive Director of the Albert Shanker Institute, which was delivered at “The Future of American Labor” conference held February 8th and 9th in Washington, D.C. There is every reason to celebrate the “Teacher Spring” strikes of 2018 and the more ...

Education

Student Workers Ratify A Strong Contract

Worker organizing holds The New School to its foundational values

December 6, 2018 • by Angela Butel

After more than fourteen months and 64 bargaining sessions, Student Employees at The New School -- United Automobile Workers (SENS-UAW), the union for academic student workers, has voted to ratify a contract with the New School administration. This hard-won agreement will provide substantial economic increases and important workplace protections and ...

Student Workers Ratify A Strong Contract

Feature

Others

A reflection on sex work

October 28, 2018 • by Amaya Olivas Díaz

On July 31, 2018, the BOE issued a resolution whereby the Ministry of Labor formalized the constitution of the OTRAS union (Sex Workers Organization), under Art. 28 of the EC, which establishes the fundamental right to unionize freely. In line with this news, many voices put the cry in the sky, ...

Feature

The Scab

One who gives more value for the same price than another.

May 8, 2018 • by Jack London

"Such is the tangle of conflicting interests in a tooth-and-nail society that people cannot avoid being scabs, are often made so against their desires, and unconsciously" [Although the author of this paper has been chiefly known to the readers of the Atlantic as a writer of stories of the Klondike, he has given ...

Education

Why We Strike

An announcement from SENS-UAW Strike Committee

May 7, 2018 • by SENS-UAW Strike Committee

The New School administration has completely abandoned the progressive principles on which it was founded. Sidestepping demands from the community to declare The New School a sanctuary campus, the administration is engaging in widespread union-busting practices while shelling out millions for flagship buildings and fancy new fonts. With an ongoing ...

Feature

Charity Workers, Organize!

A guide for the overworked and underappreciated

April 20, 2018 • by Simon Jones

If you work in a charity, chances are you are not in a union. Which is unfortunate, because you will almost certainly have seen things a union can fix: low morale, poor conditions and pay, infringements of labor rights, discrimination, poor or malicious management, and work-related illness. This is a guide ...

Feature

Free Speech or Free Riding?

Janus v AFSCME before the Supreme Court

March 10, 2018 • by Jo Freeman

A thousand people rallied outside the Supreme Court the morning of January 26 while the Justices heard oral argument on Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 inside. The decision in this case will have profound effects on public service unions. Currently 22 states require employees who do not choose to join a union ...

International Women's Strike NYC

Student Workers on the Line

The New School and its policy regarding student employees

March 8, 2018 • by Louisa Strothman

On the day of the International Women’s Strike, we offer an update on the situation of the student workers union at the New School. We are still here. We are still fighting. We stand strong in our commitment to participatory democracy and collective bargaining. SENS-UAW 7902 and the International Women’s Strike follow the vision ...

Multi Media

Clean In

How Hotel Workers Fought For a Union — And Won

May 30, 2017 • by Julia Ott

Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies and The Nation Magazine present 'What does a feminism for the 99% look like? Ask the hotel housekeepers who unionized a Doubletree hotel owned by Harvard. These women fought the first female president of Harvard to gain a union. They asked Sheryl Sandberg to "lean ...