Upcoming Events 🗓
Are you interested in facilitating trainings for EWOC? Or running trainings in your community? Sign up for “train the trainers” on Saturday, April 22 at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT)!
The training is recommended for those who have been through the EWOC Foundational Series. You can review the session presentations online, on leadership building, organizing conversations, collective action, and inoculation.
The course will cover the principles of EWOC’s Foundational Training series, as well as adult learning and popular education methodology. We will work on our facilitation skills with some of the most experienced EWOC facilitators, learn how to talk through organizing skills and worker rights, and cover how to lead powerful group discussions.
The session is four hours long, all on Zoom, with a 30-minute break in the middle. Spots are limited, so sign up today!
As a new movement of workers emerges, so does a new generation of militant leaders. This is reflected in shops large and small, organizing in every corner of the country.
It’s also reflected in America’s largest and most powerful legacy unions. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), for one example, appears newly invigorated; the election of IBT president Sean O’Brien, leader of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union reform caucus, has been followed by new investments in internal and external organizing. The impact of new leadership has been evident as the 350,000 UPS Teamsters prepare for contract negotiations, promising to strike this August if their demands are not met. And: if you want to see the class war erupt explicitly into the halls of Congress — not a place such a thing is usually permitted — watch this video of O’Brien sparring with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) last week.
The changes within the IBT are mirrored by ongoing developments in the United Auto Workers (UAW), which has just held its first direct election of senior officers, a priority won by the UAW reform caucus Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) in the aftermath of a massive corruption scandal. The UAWD reform slate achieved exceptional results in regional races, and as the process of reviewing challenged ballots winds down, it appears poised to win the presidency and take control of the UAW International Executive Board. Whatever the full and final results, the composition of UAW leadership will look very different ahead of negotiations with the Big Three automakers this fall.
Here’s to hoping that the new leadership of the UAW fully understands the value of the labor of its members. We as workers know our worth; to win what we deserve, our leaders must, as well.
We will organize until our voices carry clearly and our power is returned to us, as that is what this movement is about. Whether we’re organizing in the workplace against an employer, or within our union against leadership which isn’t winning for us, we’re joining in solidarity to get what’s ours.
World of Work 🌍
U.S.: Employees at Bandcamp, an online music and audio streaming platform, are unionizing in affiliation with the Office and Professional Employees International Union. Bandcamp is a subsidiary of Epic Games, the multibillion-dollar company behind Fortnite.
Michigan: In a victory for workers and organized labor, the Michigan Senate voted to repeal a 2012 right-to-work law and re-establish a prevailing wage standard for state projects.
France: Protests continued in parliament and on the streets against President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to increase the pension age. In a speech reprinted here, France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon emphasizes that popular mobilization must persist to build pressure for a no-confidence vote and beat back the attempted increase.
Week in Labor History 📚
March 10, 1941: New York bus drivers of the Transport Workers Union went on strike, seeking improvements to wages, hours, working conditions, and benefits. Most Manhattan bus services were halted for 12 days, at which point the bosses caved to workers’ demands.
Solidarity,
Team EWOC
