Chicago, IL—Sarah Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, spoke on a panel with labor negotiator and author Joe Burns. They discussed how to fight the big corporate firms in the transportation sector in talk titled “Using the Railway Labor Act to Our Advantage.” They highlighted how different labor laws for the transportation sector benefit their ability to lead the flight attendant union in struggle with big corporate owners.
Fight Back News Service is circulating the Final Declaration of the Workers’ Summit of the Americas which took place in opposition to the Biden administration’s failed summit in Los Angeles.
Fight Back! interviewed Venezuelan trade union leader Jacobo Torres de Leon, the international coordinator for the Bolivarian Socialist Council of Workers at the Workers’ Summit of the Americas which took place June 10-12 in Tijuana, Mexico.
Chicago, IL – Teaching artists and school office staff at Chicago High School for the Arts (ChiArts) have voted to join the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), June 3. Three office staff voted to join the union, and later in the day, part-time arts teachers – who make up the backbone of the school’s programs in the visual arts, music, theater, dance and creative writing conservatories voted 75% (41 yes to 14 no ) to join the union.
St. Paul, MN – On May 26 at 9:45 a.m., more than 420 Planned Parenthood staff across the five-state North Central States Region of Planned Parenthood filed union cards with the NLRB signed by a majority of their coworkers seeking a union election to become members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa.
Minneapolis, MN – At 6 a.m. Tuesday, May 24, mental health workers at three Minneapolis area hospitals walked off the job and went on a one-day strike. All three groups of workers organized and formed unions with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa (SEIU HCMN&IA) since September of 2021. Now they are fighting for their first contracts. They decided to do a joint one-day strike to show management that they are serious and united and will fight to win real improvements in their first union contract.
Minneapolis, MN – On Tuesday May 24, over 500 mental health workers will walk off the jobs at three hospitals in the Minneapolis metro area. The striking groups include mental health coordinators and psych techs, along with other job classes that perform mental health work.
Rome, Italy – The 18th Congress of the World Federation of Trade Unions is being held in Rome, Italy May 6 – 8. Nearly 500 delegates came from 96 countries, with many more participating online. The WFTU represents 110 million workers in 133 countries, mostly in the global south. For the first time in over 50 years, there were delegates from the United States, with representatives from AFSCME 3800, the University Minnesota clerical workers union, and Roofers Local 36 from Los Angeles. Both unions have affiliated to the WFTU in recent years. Also participating from the U.S. was a leader of the newly-formed Starbucks Workers Union, who attended as an observer.
Milwaukee, WI – Young labor activists in Wisconsin are reading the new book Class Struggle Unionism by veteran labor activist Joe Burns. Two dozen members of the Young Workers Committee (YWC) of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council have been meeting every month to study chapters of the book, which presents the case for a class-struggle based approach to unionism, where democratic, member-led unions vie for more than just better wages and working conditions but for greater control over their workplaces.
Los Angeles, CA – On May 1, dozens of people gathered in Boyle Heights to commemorate the historic International Workers Day. The event was led by Centro CSO, which held a May Day Rally in the Chicano neighborhood for the seventh consecutive year to highlight social issues like police terror, privatization of education, and immigration.
