“Esto no para”: Una perspectiva de base sobre la huelga indefinida por la educación pública en Madrid
Desde el 14 de octubre, las docentes de Madrid, España, se encuentran en huelga indefinida en defensa de la educación pública. Tras años de deterioro de las condiciones laborales y una organización sistemática de las bases, las docentes han inundado las calles de la capital española en una movilización masiva que ha vinculado la lucha por la educación pública con la reciente revuelta en torno a la vivienda.
Since October 14, teachers in Madrid, Spain, have been on an indefinite strike in defense of public education. After years of deteriorating conditions and systematic rank-and-file organizing, teachers have flooded the streets of Spain’s capital in a mass mobilization that has linked the fight for public education with the recent revolt around housing.
The shared struggle for housing and public education in Spain is now heading toward a general strike on November 11 in the midst of a broader uprising spreading throughout Europe.
You’re having a conversation with a co-worker, but inside you’re feeling icy dread. You’re talking through a script that ends with asking them to do a specific thing: sign a union card, wear a button, come to a meeting, vote for a strike. And sure enough, when you ask, a wall comes down.
The co-worker looks away, makes an excuse, and pins you as someone who is after something. You’re disappointed, confused about why it didn’t work, and afraid you’re not going to meet your goal.
A principios de este año, surgió un debate entre miembros de nuestro sindicato, la Unión Nacional de Trabajadores por Aplicación (UNTA), a raíz de un comunicado en redes sociales que condenaba el secuestro por parte de los Estados Unidos, del presidente venezolano Nicolás Maduro y que exigía: “la defensa de la soberanía, la autodeterminación de los pueblos y la paz en América Latina”.
Earlier this year, a debate broke out among members of our union, the National App Workers Union of Mexico (UNTA), after the union’s social media post condemning the U.S. government’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and demanding “the defense of sovereignty, self determination and peace in Latin America.”
In a union that has been headed by one family with no competitive elections since 1984, a group of grocery workers is organizing for change. But this week, they say, union staff who back the incumbent administration went to outrageous lengths in an attempt to make sure there’s no election this year either.
Labor law reform in Mexico has opened up a major opportunity for workers fighting for genuine, independent unions. What can U.S. unions do to support our brothers and sisters there? And how can we build cross-border campaigns to confront our common employers?
Unions asking these questions will find valuable ideas in the e-book International Solidarity in Action: The Relationship Between the United Electrical Workers (UE) and Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT), available for free download here.
Things had been tense for some time inside the leadership of Communications Workers (CWA) Local 1168, a 4,800-member health care union based near Buffalo, New York. Still, it was a high-functioning local with a busy calendar of events, stewards handling grievances, organizers pursuing leads, and leaders organizing at work.
So it was a surprise to members in June when their parent union, CWA, put the local into trusteeship, at the request of the local’s president and seven of the nineteen executive board members.
The first day I showed up on the Marriott construction site in downtown Detroit, everyone warned me about the state of our bathrooms.
You could smell them halfway across most floors. They were full in 24 hours, urinals were often clogged, and some people had taken to using buckets and hiding them in closets.
Every electrician already had the same idea: we wanted the cleaning schedule changed from twice a week to three times.
