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Double Lives: The Dilemma of Education and Work under Capitalism

"Whatever you do, just don't get stuck in a dead-end job." These words had a powerful effect on me and have occupied my consciousness over the past seven years. It was the summer after my high school graduation and this advice was given to me while I was working in the mechanized bakery of a large grocery store chain. My coworker had been there for over 20 years and now, in the midst of back problems and middle-age, she was unhappy with her life and urged me not to make the same mistake.

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MTA Strike: Players and Movers

To say that New Yorkers are a resilient bunch is an understatement. And thankfully, as well, New Yorkers are a pretty bright crowd, and not easily intimidated or led astray by everything they see on TV or read in the papers. They are mostly a liberal group, but have conservative perspectives as well. And most important of all, they know their history -- especially the history of the working people who built this country, and their struggle against the gangsters who wanted control of the action -- the players in politics and the movers of money.

Zanon Workers

An Agreement to Live: From Zanón to FaSinPat

Zanon Workers
It is one of the biggest "recuperated factories" in Argentina with exemplary worker management. It has created jobs, conquered the market, and managed to involve a whole community in its defense against repeated threats of eviction. After long legal maneuvering, a bankruptcy judge decided to hand the factory over to the Fasinpat cooperative in exchange for payment of 30,000 pesos (about $10,000) a month in taxes. It was a big step toward final expropriation and a recognition of the solid work of its 470 workers. Here is the story of this struggle, as told in La Vaca's book, "Sin Patrón" ("Without a Boss").

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Labor and the Iraq War

There's an old adage among investigative journalists: if you want to know what's really going on, ask the workers.

If you want to know what's really going on in Iraq - to American soldiers, to their families back home, to Iraqi women - read this column, and learn what I did at the historic AFL-CIO convention held this summer in Chicago.

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Shortening the Work Week (3/00)

A century after launching the campaign for an eight-hour workday, the US labor movement faces challenges that may well determine its long-term survival. While automation and globalization threatens massive displacement, and employer resistance to aggressive organizing meanwhile turns union-busting into a growth industry, business pushes new schemes to limit the basic right to organize.

One of the more insidious is so-called "paycheck protection," being aggressively hawked by GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush as a way to neutralize the movement for campaign finance reform. Without it, he claims, any reform would be like "unilateral disarmament" for Republicans. The idea is to require unions to get permission from each member before using any dues for political purposes. Unions would be effectively muzzled while corporations remained free to influence elections in many other ways. read more

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Sharing the Work (Edit: 6/98)

A century after launching the campaign for an eight-hour workday, the US labor movement faces challenges that could determine its long-term survival. While automation threatens massive displacement and employer resistance to aggressive organizing turns union-busting into a growth industry, business pushes new schemes to limit the basic right to organize. One of the most insidious is the so-called "paycheck protection" initiative. Being introduced into state legislatures, it would require unions to get permission from each member before using any dues for political purposes. If the strategy succeeds, unions could be effectively muzzled while corporations remain free to influence elections. read more