January 2019 — Los Angeles teachers walk. On Jan. 14, Los Angeles teachers walked out for the first time in thirty years. Class sizes, wages, charter schools, standardized testing, closed libraries, and insufficient staff are all in dispute. Most schools in the country’s second largest district also have no regular nurses. The corporate-controlled school board failed to win anti-strike injunctions. As the FS goes to press, the strike continues.
January 2019 — Amazon faces union drive. Amazon employees, sick of speed up, disrespect, and poverty pay, are increasingly confronting the goliath’s rotten labor practices. In Minneapolis, the Awood Center is giving voice to immigrant and refugee workers from East Africa. In Staten Island, a union drive is tackling issues like insufficient breaks, safety, and low wages. Said one warehouse worker, “they talk to you like you’re a robot.”
January 2019 — Indian general strike.Over 150 million workers joined a general strike on Jan. 8 and 9, paralyzing cities across India. Trade unions called the action to oppose their right-wing government’s neoliberal programs and Hindu supremacist policies. Strikers braved threats of firing and arrest to demand mandatory living wages and universal free education with no discrimination based on caste, religion or gender.
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