NET-workers

Today, October 24th, is Take Back Your Time Day! Take Back Your Time is a US/Canadian initative against "overwork, over-scheduling, and time poverty." The theme of this years Take Back Your Time Day is "40 is Enough" because today marks the 65th anniversary of the 40-hour workweek.

To find out more, click here.

Tasini at Working Life opened a post about union democracy (quite a hot topic!) and asked the conversation to "get beyond the usual stuff."

The post and the comments are interesting, but I am going to single out one commenter who seems to hit the nail on the head. He calls the debate over leadership and democracy a "false dichotomy" and states:

My experience with UNITE-HERE and SEIU have taught me that strong leadership and membership involvement are not in conflict with one another--neither can exist without the other. (Ty, of Sindicalista)

Definitely check out his post if you have time -- he makes some very valid points and sets up a really cogent argument. This is a fine balance to strike, no doubt, but if we could just stop debating whether leaders should lead or the movement should be grassroots, then maybe we can start making some headway towards actually striking the balance.

The Labor Project for Working Families released what I think is a pretty novel guide of how to organize around and bargain for work/life issues. I haven't seen the full guide (the Labor Project is selling it for $10), but it includes model contract language and strategies for organizing around these issues. Clearly, unions have been central in getting the limited work/life benefits that some of us do have (i.e. 40 hour work week, paid leave policies), but I think they have a crucially important role in getting better policies both with individual employers and on the state and national level. Child care and paid sick leave are to me, some of the most important issues for unions to face. And, good work/life policies are not just important for people with children, they are important for anyone who wants to have a life outside of work.

In any case, I don't know how widely this guide is being used, but I wanted to highlight it as an important resource for organizers, workers, and anyone else. I think this area touches on Brother Josh's recent post about how labor needs some big national program to rally around, some vision for all workers, not just union workers. The policies that I can think of that fit this bill are health care and work/life policies. Health care doesn't seem to be that promising, so maybe work/life policies are the key!

I just learned that federal workers only gained collective bargaining rights in 1978!! (thanks to the Federal Labor Relations Act). Prior to that, only postal employees had collective bargaining rights, which they won through an illegal strike in 1970.

And what about state workers, you ask? Well, I am looking at a report from 1998 that says only 26 states guarantee collective bargaining rights to state workers. The number is even lower today, as Republican governors keep cutting workers' rights at every turn. Almost immediately after taking office Matt Blunt of Missouri and Mitch Daniels cut their state workers rights to bargain collectively. Ernie Fletcher cut these rights for Kentucky state workers. I have to admit that I took public sector bargaining rights for granted... how much more wrong could I have been!?

Interesting article today in the Korea Times about attempts by workers in Korean Wal-Marts to form a union with Union Network International (UNI) . I had not really heard of the UNI before, so I checked out their website, which states:

After just two years of negotiations a new trade union International was born on January 1 2000.UNI - Union Network International - is the skills and services International for the 21st century with 15.5 million members.UNI was created in response to the huge changes going on in the global economy and because of the impact of technology on increasingly overlapping industries.It brings together about 900 unions, the world’s largest grouping of individual trade unions.

Great mission - I don't know how much success they've had, but I'll definitely keep my eyes open for what they are up to. In any case, the Korea Times story echoes the same concerns that U.S. unions bring up against Wal-Mart (low wages, low benefits, no unions) and say that Wal-Mart is using the same model in Korea. The UNI has an interesting take on how Wal-Mart's practices are especially dangerous in a country like Korea:

"On one side, they are like hedge funds. They try to make fast money (in South Korea) and go away," said Jan Furstenborg, director of UNI’s commerce sector. ``I want to say that Wal-Mart is a modern-day imperialist."

I think this is an important criticism to keep in mind. Of course, Wal-Mart's spokespeople say the workers aren't interested in forming a union and imply that the UNI is a U.S.-led operation (suggesting that the union might really be the imperialistic force, which I doubt.)