Post Tagged with: "unions"

Interview With Ai-jen Poo, Founder Of The National Domestic Workers Alliance

Interview With Ai-jen Poo, Founder Of The National Domestic Workers Alliance

Guernica interviews Ai-jen Poo, founder of the National Domestic Workers Alliance:

The project grew out of work within CAAAV, where many of the Filipina domestic workers who were organizing had worked in Hong Kong as domestic workers before coming to NYC. In Hong Kong, there are domestic workers from all over Asia, there are Indonesian workers, Filipina workers… It’s a multinational situation, and everyone works under a standard contract. There are set hours, guidelines, wages, and standards that are enforced. When the Filipina domestic workers came to the U.S., many were surprised to find so little protection and that in fact, domestic workers are excluded from a lot of labor law protections.

It was obvious to them that they couldn’t win better conditions alone, that they would have to develop a project with all domestic workers in the field. I had experience with multiracial coalition building and our organization already had that ethic, but the workers themselves also felt it was a natural next step to figure out a way to organize together as an entire workforce, which became Domestic Workers United.

Full Story: Guernica: The Caregivers Coalition

Interestingly Poo never uses the word “union” to describe the NDWA.

February 4, 2013 0 comments
New York City Fast Food Workers Go On Strike, Demand $15 An Hour

New York City Fast Food Workers Go On Strike, Demand $15 An Hour

Salon reports on a worker walk-out at McDonalds and chains such as Burger King, Domino’s, KFC, Taco Bell, Wendy’s and Papa John’s in New York City. The workers, organized by New York Communities for Change, are demanding a raise to $15 an hour. Strikes are also being organized in Chicago, organized by Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago. This follows Black Friday strikes at Wal-Marts across the nation.

The article reports the huge challenges that these workers face in bring about change in their working conditions, but notes some interesting trends happening here:

The New York and Chicago campaigns evoke two strategies that have been long debated but infrequently attempted in U.S. labor. First, “minority unionism”: mobilizing workers to take dramatic actions and make demands on management prior to showing support from the majority of employees. Second, “geographic organizing”: collaboration between multiple unions to organize workers at several employers and win public support for raising a region’s standards through unionization. This campaign is also the latest example in which community-based organizing groups, which unions have long leaned on to drum up support for workers, are playing a major role in directly organizing workers to win union recognition.

Full Story: Salon: In rare strike, NYC fast-food workers walk out

November 29, 2012 1 comment
Want To Unionize Developers? Focus On Workplace Democracy

Want To Unionize Developers? Focus On Workplace Democracy

I wrote at TechCrunch:

Despite the efforts of many different organizers over the years software developers have resisted unionization. The relatively high pay and good working conditions of developers, the stereotype of geeks as loners and the general decline of unions in the U.S. are all commonly cited reasons. But maybe unions are failing in tech because they’re not addressing the real issue: giving developers more control over their work life.

Developers want autonomy. They don’t want to be jerked around by stupid managers who impose unrealistic deadlines, make impossible promises to clients and just generally disrespect their employees. Historically developers have had two options for dealing with bad management: find a better job or found a startup. But worker self-management would offer a third options — give the developers control over their own work.

Companies like Valve prove that self-management can work in the software industry. Unionization could potentially provide a path to that sort of workplace structure, if organizers can move up Maslow’s pyramid a bit.

Full Story: TechCrunch: Want To Unionize Developers? Focus On Workplace Democracy

November 1, 2012 0 comments