Things have pretty quiet on this site, obviously.
It’s been a busy summer, with 12,000 health care workers from my local union bargaining new contracts and getting ready to work to help elect a health care governor in Washington and a health care president in the other Washington.
The issues at stake for this bargaining are spelled out here.
At the same time, UFCW grocery store workers in Puget Sound area are fighting to hold on to their affordable health care. Their campaign has a blog here.
Until I have time to post again, here’s some big picture good news for the union movement: people like unions.
That’s the upshot of a national poll in Mother Jones. The public has strikingly “warm” feelings about the labor movement. (Prompting polling guru Ruy Texiera to joke that perhaps Sweeney-McCain would be a dream ticket.)
And as much as they don’t like it, that was also the result of a poll conducted by an anti-union group called the Public Service Research Foundation. If you read this article on the poll here, their director is forced to spend a lot of time wondering why Americans still think unions are a good idea.