Labor Notes

Last updated January 13, 2025

Labor Notes is an American non-profit organization and network for rank-and-file union members and grassroots labor activists. Though officially titled the Labor Education and Research Project, the project is best known by the title of its monthly magazine. The magazine reports news and analysis about labor activity or problems facing the labor movement. In its pages it advocates for a revitalization of the labor movement through Social Movement Unionism and union democracy. Labor Notes is based out of Detroit, Michigan, with an East Coast office located in Brooklyn, New York.

Labor Notes is the product of a strategy by labor activists seeking to make grassroots connections across unions and industries. Labor Notes sought to bridge the gap between isolated rank-and-file caucuses and reform groups (the most notable being Teamsters for a Democratic Union) in major unions such as the Teamsters, the Steelworkers, the United Auto Workers, the Communications Workers of America, the American Federation of Teachers, and others.

History

Labor Notes was launched as an attempt to help further those linkages, following the Bituminous Coal Strike of 1977–1978 and the wide-scale cross-union solidarity and energy it produced.

The hope was that these reform efforts would strengthen and consolidate the more widespread waves of union militancy found earlier in the decade. Headlines in the first year of Labor Notes had themes like, "Teamster Steelhaulers Show Muscle in Three Week Wildcat Strike".

The Reagan-era rollbacks on labor law protections put the labor movement on the defensive. Fledgling rank-and-file groups and Labor Notes began to refocus on how labor leaders seemed incapable of addressing the free fall for unions and working people in this decade.

As the fight against the employers’ offensive gathered force, Labor Notes provided information and arguments over concessions. In 1982, the first Labor Notes conference—Organizing Against Concessions—attracted hundreds of activists. Shortly after, in 1983, Labor Notes published one of its first books, Concessions and How to Beat Them by Jane Slaughter.

Though these trends continued in the 1990s, there were also seen some signs of hope for labor. The AFL-CIO’s leadership changed hands and the federation began devoting more resources to organizing new members, including Latino and other immigrant workers that the labor movement had traditionally ignored. Reformers briefly took control of the Teamsters union and led the 1997 strike at UPS, one of the largest and most successful strikes in recent memory.

Throughout the 1990s, Labor Notes focused on issues like cross-border organizing and free trade. Labor Notes came out strongly against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), publishing Unions and Free Trade by Kim Moody and Mary McGinn in 1992.

The year 2000 saw the flowering of the Global Justice Movement at massive protests against corporate globalization in Seattle, Quebec, and around the world. Labor Notes participated in many of these events and supported the union members and global justice activists who formed alliances with these movements. At the same time, Labor Notes was supporting the union victories of the Charleston Five longshore workers and telecommunications workers at Verizon.

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Labor Notes reported on the massive public employee strike in Minnesota, where workers defied those who called them unpatriotic for striking, demanded a fair contract, and won. As immigrant workers centers grew as new forms of worker self-organization, Labor Notes reported on them and brought together the leaders of those centers to share views at its bi-annual conference.

More recently, Labor Notes reported on the massive immigrant demonstrations for immigrant rights and covered the development of U.S. Labor Against the War.

Books

Labor Notes has published a number of books on labor-related themes. Its most well-known book is A Troublemaker’s Handbook: How to Fight Back Where You Work and Win^[1] by Dan La Botz, in 1991 and its sequel in 2005, A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2 by Jane Slaughter. Another popular book is Democracy is Power, by Mike Parker and Martha Gruelle, printed 1999 and re-released in 2005.

Conferences

Every two years, Labor Notes holds a national conference that attracts over a thousand union members and leaders from across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and abroad. The purpose of these conferences is to help activists build networks based on common issues.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AFL-CIO</span> Federation of American trade unions

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 60 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million active and retired workers. The AFL-CIO engages in substantial political spending and activism, typically in support of progressive and pro-labor policies.

The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, and Gilbert Padilla and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by organizer Larry Itliong. They allied and transformed from workers' rights organizations into a union as a result of a series of strikes in 1965, when the Filipino-American and Mexican-American farmworkers of the AWOC in Delano, California, initiated a grape strike, and the NFWA went on strike in support. As a result of the commonality in goals and methods, the NFWA and the AWOC formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966. This organization was accepted into the AFL–CIO in 1972 and changed its name to the United Farm Workers Union.

The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States and southern Ontario, Canada. It was founded as part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s and grew rapidly from 1936 to the 1950s. The union played a major role in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party under the leadership of Walter Reuther. It was known for gaining high wages and pensions for automotive manufacturing workers, but it was unable to unionize auto plants built by foreign-based car makers in the South after the 1970s, and it went into a steady decline in membership; reasons for this included increased automation, decreased use of labor, mismanagement, movements of manufacturing, and increased globalization. After a successful strike at the Big Three in 2023, the union organized its first foreign plant (VW) in 2024.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue- and white-collar workers in both the public and private sectors, totalling about 1.3 million members in 2015. The union was formerly called the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America.

James Phillip Hoffa, also known as James Hoffa Jr. or Jim Hoffa, is an American labor leader and attorney who was the tenth General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He is the son of Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa was first elected in 1998, and re-elected in 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016 to five-year terms. In 2018, Hoffa was elected chair of the Road Transport Section of the International Transport Workers' Federation at its quadrennial Congress in Singapore. Hoffa is the second-longest serving General President of the Teamsters Union, after Dan Tobin, who served from 1907 to 1952. Hoffa's final term as General President ended in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's Trade Union League</span> U.S. labor rights organization (1903–1950)

The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) (1903–1950) was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL played an important role in supporting the massive strikes in the first two decades of the twentieth century that established the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and in campaigning for women's suffrage among men and women workers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Slaughter (journalist)</span> American journalist (born 1949)

Jane Slaughter is an American journalist who writes frequently on labor affairs. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, The Progressive, Monthly Review, and In These Times. She is based in Detroit.

Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) is a grassroots rank and file organization whose goal is to reform the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), or Teamsters Union. The organization has chapters nationwide in the United States and Canada.

A comprehensive campaign is labor union organizing or a collective bargaining campaign with a heavy focus on research, the use of community coalition-building, publicity and public pressure, political and regulatory pressure, and economic and legal pressure in addition to traditional organizing tactics.

Eliseo Vasquez Medina is a Mexican-American labor union activist and leader, and advocate for immigration reform in the United States. From 1973 to 1978, he was a board member of the United Farm Workers. He is currently secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union. He was previously an international executive vice president, the first Mexican American to serve on the union's executive board. Medina announced his resignation as an SEIU executive vice president effective October 1, 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Union organizer</span> Specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official

A union organizer is a specific type of trade union member or an appointed union official.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is a union of wage workers which was formed in Chicago in 1905 by militant unionists and their supporters due to anger over the conservatism, philosophy, and craft-based structure of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Throughout the early part of the 20th century, the philosophy and tactics of the IWW were frequently in direct conflict with those of the AFL concerning the best ways to organize workers, and how to best improve the society in which they toiled. The AFL had one guiding principle—"pure and simple trade unionism", often summarized with the slogan "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work." The IWW embraced two guiding principles, fighting like the AFL for better wages, hours, and conditions, but also promoting an eventual, permanent solution to the problems of strikes, injunctions, bull pens, and union scabbing.

Kenneth T. Paff is one of the founders and current National Organizer of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a rank-and-file union democracy movement organizing to reform the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), or Teamsters.

SEIU Member Activists for Reform Today (SMART) is a national organization of rank-and-file union members working for the democratic reform of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). SEIU primarily represents workers in the public sector, healthcare industry, and property services. Today it is America's largest and fastest growing union with 2 million members, many of whom are minorities, immigrants, and women.

Daniel H. La Botz is an American labor union activist, academic, journalist, and author. He was a co-founder of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) and has written extensively on worker rights in the United States and Mexico. He is a member of the socialist organization Solidarity, which describes itself as "a democratic, revolutionary socialist, feminist, anti-racist organization," which comes out of the Trotskyist tradition. La Botz ran in 2010 for a seat in the United States Senate for the Socialist Party. He is also a member of the Brooklyn branch of the Democratic Socialists of America and a co-editor of the socialist journal New Politics.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. County Labor Council (MLKCLC) is the central body of labor organizations in King County, Washington. The MLKCLC is affiliated with the national AFL–CIO, the central labor organization in the United States, which represents more than 13 million working people. Over 125 organizations are affiliated with the MLKCLC, and more than 75,000 workers belong to Council-affiliated organizations. In addition to supporting labor organizations, it acts as a voice for the interests and needs of the working people in King County, WA.

The United Parcel Service strike of 1997, led by International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) President Ron Carey, started on August 4, 1997, and involved over 185,000 Teamsters. The strike effectively shut down United Parcel Service (UPS) operations for 15 days and costs UPS hundreds of millions of dollars. The strike was a victory for the union, resulting in a new contract that increased their wages, secured their existing benefits and gave increased job security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coors strike and boycott</span> 20th century labor action against Coors Brewing Company

The Coors strike and boycott was a series of boycotts and strike action against the Coors Brewing Company, based in Golden, Colorado, United States. Initially local, the boycott started in the late 1960s and continued through the 1970s, coinciding with a labor strike at the company's brewery in 1977. The strike ended the following year in failure for the union, which Coors forced to dissolve. The boycott, however, lasted until the mid-1980s, when it was more or less ended.

The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) is a labor union specifically for Amazon workers, created on April 20, 2021. On April 1, 2022, the Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staten Island, JFK8, backed by the ALU became the first unionized Amazon workers recognized by the National Labor Relations Board. In June 2024 the union became affiliated with Teamsters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Association for Union Democracy</span> American labor organization

The Association for Union Democracy (AUD) is a non-profit organization based in Brooklyn, New York, which advocates for union democracy. Founded in 1969 by union reformer Herman Benson and Yale law professor Clyde Summers, the AUD has been called "labor's leading voice on democracy issues" by Labor Studies Journal.

References

↑ A Troublemakers' Handbook: How to Fight Back Where You Work and Win!. Labor Notes. 1991. p. 262. ISBN 0-914093-04-5.

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] A Troublemakers' Handbook: How to Fight Back Where You Work and Win!. Labor Notes. 1991. p. 262. ISBN 0-914093-04-5.

[1]