LabourStart and the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) have launched McJobs.org, a website intended to connect McDonald's workers from around the world.

There has been controversy over the term "McJob", which refers to low-paying, contingent work in the service industry. McDonald's objected when Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary added the term in 2003.Read more.

A new EPI report show that one in four African American and Latino workers are currently underemployed compared to 14% of white workers. Those numbers include not only the government's official unemployment figures, but also account for discouraged and "involuntary part-time" workers.Read more.

“Just remember, if you’re not stealing from work, you’re stealing from your family,” a young woman declares in a video promoting Steal Something From Work Day.  The April 15th event encourages stealing from work as a protest against capitalism as a system that derives profit from unpaid labor, which itself is “stolen” from workers.

Whether or not it represents a comprehensive anti-capitalist strategy, history has shown theft to be tactic widely utilized by workers and consumers during economic crisis.  In the 1970s, radical economics professor Harry Cleaver noted that workers in the US practiced widespread “self-reduction” of rising prices by refusing to pay for food, gas and utilities.Read more.

Raw story reports that former Colorado congressman and anti-immigrant ideologue Tom Tancredo lamented Barack Obama's election victory as a result of not having "a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country."

Literacy tests were part of an elaborate, racist system used by States to target and deny voting rights to African Americans.

The Tea Party Convention is taking place this weekend in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Washington Post reports that:

Joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions -- 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population.

Read more...

In Philadelphia, thousands of striking SEPTA transportation workers and members of the Transport Workers Union Local 234 are facing persistent attacks by politicians and the media. NPR’s initial coverage of the strike seemed largely aimed at inciting tension between commuters and the striking workers. It even gave credence to Mayor Michael Nutter’s absurd criticism:

“To decide at midnight or so to go out on strike at 3 a.m. is, I think, the height of insensitivity and disruption to people and their lives.”

Since striking is a fundamental weapon that workers have to defend and advance their interests, Nutter’s comment would be analogous to criticizing the Phillies pitchers for refusing to announce to Yankees batters beforehand, the type of pitches they'd throw during the World Series. That is, a World Series where all the games are played in New York and the umpires are legally employed by the Yankees who begin each game with a 5 run lead.Read more.

On October 29th, two French workers were detained at Chicago's O'Hare airport, as a part of the French General Confederation of Labor (CGT) struggle against plant closures. The International Metalworkers Federation reports:

The two unionists, who were detained for four hours, were part of a delegation of CGT members who traveled to Chicago to take part in an action at the company's shareholder meeting on October 30.Read more.

Early this morning, Philadelphia transit workers struck SEPTA, halting all bus, subway and trolley service.

The workers are in defiance of both the Mayor of Philadelphia and the Governor of Pennsylvania, who have respectively called the strike "outrageous" and "irresponsible".Read more.

The Texas Observer has a feature story about December and January uprisings and takeovers by detainees of an privately run-immigrant detention facility in Pecos, Tx.

The evening of the uprising, the inmates sent a delegation of seven men—a Venezuelan, a Cuban, a Nigerian, and four Mexicans—to meet with the authorities.Read more.

Indigenous groups in the Americas have taken to the streets in protest of Columbus' legacy of genocide and colonialism:

In Guatemala City, 19-year-old demonstrator Imer Boror was killed and two were wounded as Maya Indians blocked entry points into the capital to protest their government's mining policies.Read more.