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New Orleans The last day in the office before a combination of the end of the year, vacation, and work that is so different from the normal day-to-day that it seems “vacation-like,” (don’t ask!), is maddening. There’s just not enough time. I had just gotten another reminder of how short time is only hours ago. [...] Philadelphia It was a lot of fun to be the guest speaker at the annual Labor Lawyers reception to support Philadelphia Jobs with Justice. It was a good, there were people, old friends and comrades came out of nowhere, and once we got to the problems of “majority unionism” as discussed in Citizen Wealth, [...] Washington There are few grace notes in the current divisions within the forces of institutional labor, but I happened to experience a small one at Georgetown University in a special ceremony held to honor John Sweeney, retiring President of the AFL-CIO, with an honorary degree. I had been invited by Joe McCartin, an organizer [...] St. Petersburg Meeting with the WARN (Worker Action and Research Network) staff yesterday in St. Pete, we found ourselves talking about Wal-Mart and the organizing challenge represented by huge retail employers like W-M in the US and Canada. All of which brings up the daunting issue of labor law reform and [...] Austin Austin still has the feel of a city on the bright side of the recession. Unemployment has hardly hit 6%. The airport is new and busy. Developers are still trying to build and finish projects, and community fights against them are real and important. I caught up with the fight to [...] Toronto Some of the most interesting meetings in my several days in Toronto were with our friends in the Canadian labor movement in Ontario, especially at the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), SEIU Canada, and the Steelworkers. There’s a hunger to organize in most of these unions even though several of them are getting hammered by [...] Dallas On the ground I know we are beating Wal-Mart! Our WARN project in Florida has prevented the new construction of any Wal-Mart Superstores for the last more than 28 months. We have the bottled up throughout central Florida. We are increasingly optimistic that we can stop them in Merced, California with our coalition [...] Tampa Sitting with the WARN staff in the office here reviewing our work with Wal-Mart throughout central Florida, it was fun to see the Google alerts coming into the blackberry indicating that we were in the news as the company feels the pain. First there [...] |
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Copyright © 2012 Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog - All Rights Reserved |
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