Upcoming Events 🗓
Join us for the eighth series of the Workplace Organizer Training Series, starting on Wednesday, August 10, and running weekly on Wednesdays through August 31! In 90-minute sessions over four weeks, we will discuss the problems that workers are facing and how you can come together with your co-workers to address them. Learn some fundamental skills to help defend yourself and your co-workers from unjust working conditions! Register today.
Announcements 🎉
Patrick Cate is joining EWOC as the new organizing team coordinator. Born and raised working-class in rural East Tennessee, Patrick has spent the better part of a decade learning from and building with the best of the rank-and-file labor movement across the country. When he’s not busy organizing, you can find him napping on his couch with his partner Emily and their two puppies Moby and Trout, drinking tea, watching Jeopardy!, or reading.
Daphna Thier is joining EWOC as the new labor education coordinator. She is a worker-organizer and long-time restaurant worker who has volunteered with EWOC since 2020. She has many years of experience with new organizer training and political education, and she’s excited to help build EWOC and contribute to new organizing efforts across the country.
It’s been a hard month. On June 24, the Supreme Court formally overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federal abortion rights and effectively making abortion illegal in several states. If Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion is any indication, they may soon come for other essential rights next. Meanwhile, rampant gun violence continues to claim innocent lives, and COVID cases are once again rapidly increasing in every part of the country. For their part, the Democrats, nominally the party in power, appear to have no real plan for any of these crises.
But in spite of all of this, there is still reason to be hopeful. Last month, Labor Notes held its biennial conference (the first one since 2018, thanks to COVID), drawing over 4,000 union activists from around the country, the largest in Labor Notes’ history. The atmosphere was electric.
There is no question about it. Something is happening in the labor movement: from the wave of strikes last year, to historic new organizing wins, to sweeping reform movements within established unions. As our legal and political order continues to collapse, workers everywhere are rising up, taking matters into their own hands and, most importantly, winning.
The coming weeks, months, and years are likely to be difficult ones, but we cannot give in to despair. We have to continue to organize and continue to fight for each other. If you are a union member who wants your union to do more, the time is now. If you are a worker in an organized workplace who wants a union, the time is now. If you are simply someone who wants a better world and is willing to fight for it, the time is now.
World of Work 🌍
US: The National Labor Relations Board is expected to issue a decision on general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo’s recommendation of readopting the “Joy Silk doctrine” in the coming months. The Joy Silk doctrine, in the absence of a “good faith doubt” about the union’s majority status, obligates employers to recognize it as the workers’ exclusive bargaining agent.
GA: After a two-year-plus drive, and 12 years after a narrow loss under unusual circumstances, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA is trying anew to unionize the 22,000 flight attendants at notoriously hostile Delta Airlines.
US: The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, part of a coalition of rail unions covering 140,000 rail employees, will be taking a national vote on whether or not to strike. This vote comes after a 30-day “cooling off period,” which began when mediation broke down last month and ends this week.
New from Our Blog 📧
Many labor rights are federally protected, but the specific laws can vary from state to state. If you’re a California-based worker interested in organizing your workplace, check out Natalie Robbins’ explainer on your labor rights in the Golden State for the EWOC blog.
Week in Labor History 📚
July 11, 1983: A nine-year strike begins at the Ohio Crankshaft Division of Park-Ohio Industries in Cleveland. Overcoming scabs, arrests, and firings, UAW Local 91 members hung on and approved a contract in 1992 that included company-funded health and retirement benefits, as well as pay increases.
Solidarity,
Team EWOC
