The Clock is Ticking

We returned to the bargaining table several days later and began by telling management we had nothing further to discuss until they withdrew three additional proposals:

Deleting the guarantee of two Sundays off per month

Forfeiting the right to argue grievances based on past practice

Permitting management to drug test at will without probable cause

By Phil Cohen

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy – William Shakespeare

During the spring of 1995, ACTWU (now Workers United) scheduled a blitz of nonmembers at the unionized Cone Mills textile plant in Greensboro, North Carolina. Organizers, accompanied by an activist from one of Cone’s three union shops, would be issued house-call packets containing addresses and information regarding workers that would be visited in specified neighborhoods.

Dear President Biden,

My name is Marianne Pizzitola. I am a retired member of the FDNY EMS and participant in the 9/11 World Trade Center Health Program. For the last few years, I have been president of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees that we organized when New York City’s Municipal Labor Committee and then Mayor Bill de Blasio decided to force 250,000 retired civil servants off of our traditional Medicare and onto a predatory for-profit Medicare Advantage Plan.

By Ryn Gargulinski

It starts by pretending to be your friend, seeming to make your life seem easier, less stressful and way more fun. In fact, you’re having such a blast that you start to hang out with it more and more. And then some more…

By Joe Maniscalco

Right now, there are people in industries across the United States working very hard to raise their families, but who are openly worrying they have…maybe…one year left before AI takes their jobs. 

By Phil Cohen

During 1993, the Kmart Distribution Center in Greensboro, North Carolina became the company’s first hard goods warehouse to be organized. The newly-opened facility offered lower wages and benefits than its Northern counterparts and unlike them, the majority of workers were nonwhite. Focusing on economics and racism had given ACTWU (now Workers United) a decisive organizing victory, led by Assistant Southern Director Ernest Bennett.

By Joe Maniscalco

What do you make of two of the most powerful union leaders in the country when one of them essentially tells Donald Trump to go pound sand — and the other one basically goes to Mar-a-Lago and kisses his big fat fascist ass?

By Ryn Gargulinski

Since language is supposedly what sets people apart from animals, you’d think we’d be ideal specimens for exceptional communication. But we’re largely not.

In fact, lack of communication is a common enough bother in the workplace to rank as one of the top reasons people hate their job.

By Phil Cohen

During the 1980’s, Cone Mills was one of America’s largest textile corporations with plants sprawled across the Carolinas, manufacturing denim for Levis and other jean companies. In 1984, a hostile takeover by Western Pacific was thwarted through a leveraged buyout by 47 Cone executives who acquired all shares of stock and took the company private.

By Joe Maniscalco

Between trying to chase down cagey MTA spokespeople to quiz them on potentially deadly working conditions in the subways, and various local elected officials on why they seem all too happy to sell out New York City municipal retirees and steal their healthcare — I lean back, pick up my cheap Squier Mustang, and appreciate a little band from Seattle playing through the laptop speakers.

Mudhoney. Great stuff.

By Joe Maniscalco

It’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day again, and what’s uppermost in my mind right now is how he’s not here. He could be. Sure, he’d be 95, but Martin Luther King, Jr. could still be around walking the earth today. Instead, he’s long since dead — gunned down — murdered before even making it to 40.

By Bob Hennelly

This Martin Luther King Day comes just weeks after a year that’s been dubbed “the year of the strike” because in 2023 there were well over 300 such work stoppages involving 450,000 union workers willing to take the risk of walking out on their employer, a 900 percent increase from just a few years earlier.

By Robert Ovetz

Although I do not make new year’s resolutions, I do set goals. My goals this year are focused on the workers movement. If we are going to build on the momentum of the labor movement over the past two years and bring about real change, we need to radically alter our perspective.

By Joe Maniscalco

Imagine watching an affluent white lady so giddy about the shipment of legal cannabis she just ordered online that she immediately empties every bottle of red wine in the house down the Kitchen sink, and the next second is on the phone inviting the rest of the gals over because — woohoo — they’re gonna be getting high without the hangover!

By Phil Cohen

Cornelius, North Carolina is located between Statesville and Charlotte. The small towns in this region have long been a Klan stronghold. During 1987, a Foamex plant in Cornelius signed a union contract with ACTWU (currently named Workers United.) The driving force among employees throughout the organizing campaign had been three Klansmen who worked as mechanics.

By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: In case you missed it, here’s Part I and Part II of this special “War Stories” series.

On February 21, I attended a labor management meeting with plant manager Justin Scarbrough and the Local 294-T committee to discuss Jessie’s situation. Sometimes, it’s easier to resolve certain issues during an informal meeting before the polarizing impact of a grievance hearing.

By Phil Cohen

Jessie called during December, 2019. “I got notified I got to go see Dr. Yates, who did my surgery. I was wondering if you could come with me.”

I asked why and she said, “There’s things I need you to see.”

I agreed to the unusual request and the appointment was scheduled for January 2. I told her to present me as an old friend, accompanying her for moral support. The doctor would be on his best behavior if he even suspected I was her union rep.

By Phil Cohen

Editor’s Note: Phil Cohen is a union organizer and author who’s seen a lot during his many years in the labor movement. He has graciously agreed to share some of his “War Stories” with Work-Bites. Here is the first installment in an ongoing series…

On August 11, 2018, I attended a victory picnic in Eden, North Carolina with members of Workers United Local 294-T. We were celebrating the defeat of their employer’s illegal union busting plot at the Mohawk Industries plant where they worked. Committee members tended the grills. Some brought side dishes.

By Ryn Gargulinski

The day came when I absolutely, positively, no-bones-about-it hated my desk. I hated it so much I could no longer even sit there. That day arrived after I parted ways with a work-from-home job that had kept me chained to that desk for 10-hour days with tracking software — for two years straight.

Ugh. My mind was numb. My body was probably showing signs of that sitting disease thing. And my soul rebelled in a big way, refusing to sit at that desk for even a minute!

By Ryn Gargulinski

“Deck the halls, my ass.” That used to be my attitude toward the holidays, and I was lucky enough to find another person who felt that way. So we’d get together in December and mope.

Then she mentioned how the thought of moping all December made her depression creep into November. So we started commiserating even earlier.