At In These Times:

Wracked by weeks of bad press over the conditions under which its products are made, this month Apple called in the Fair Labor Association. “We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a February 13 release, “which is why we’ve asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers.”

Cook promised inspections “unprecedented in the electronics industry, both in size and scope…” Two days later, FLA President Auren van Heerden told Reuters that so far he had found the FoxConn facilities—where workers had recently threatened mass suicide —“first class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm.”

Perhaps this should not have been a surprise. Corporations turn to the FLA during scandals for the same reasons celebrities turn to Larry King: it’s high-profile, it’s establishment-approved, and it won’t press as hard as the alternatives.

Check it out.

I was on The Rick Smith Show yesterday talking about my In These Times piece on the injustice of letting right-wingers boycott or picket freely, but not unions.  You can listen here.

At Salon:

Earlier this month longshore workers in Washington state reached a contract with a boss that has spent the past year fighting to keep their union out. That company, the multinational EGT, sought to run its new grain terminal in the town of Longview, as the only facility on the West Coast without the famously militant International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). A victory by EGT would have emboldened employers up and down the coast to seek to free themselves of ILWU influence. And if the union — with the help of the Occupy movement — had not defied the law, EGT would have succeeded.

Check it out.

In These Times:

When news broke that the Susan G. Komen Foundation would cease funding Planned Parenthood, the backlash was fast, furious, and gratifying. Within days, Komen apologized and promised that Planned Parenthood could receive future funds. But some commentators were angry at Komen for all the wrong reasons: for “politicizing” women’s health, for failing to distinguish vanilla health services from the abortion “controversy,” or for dragging an avowedly apolitical organization into the muck of politics.

Contrary to those critics’ claims, women’s health is political, as the past weeks’ contraception conflicts have reminded us. As Amy Schiller wrote in The Nation, one of the virtues of the Komen controversy was the way it brought those politics—and Komen’s contradictions—to the surface. As Barbara Ehrenreich has written, Komen’s role in America’s breast cancer discourse has gotten worse as the culture around it has gotten better: When breast cancer was shrouded by silence, open, unapologetic conversation was a feminist feat. Now Komen hurts that conversation, contributing to a culture of cute and optimistic cancer that silences many women while letting corporations brand themselves conscientious on the cheap.

Here’s the rest.
Check it out.

Here’s the audio of Saturday’s RebLaw Conference panel at Yale Law School, on which Stephen Lerner, Dora Chen and I discussed the relationship between law and union organizing.

You can find my reporting on the examples I raised here.

At Alternet:

On December 12, as Occupy activists were preparing to shut down ports across the West Coast, five port truck drivers wrote them a letter. The drivers, elected by committees of their co-workers at seven ports, declined to take a stance on that week’s controversy: whether dock workers and their unions should join the attempted shutdowns. But they praised the Occupy movement’s vision and leadership, and asked for its help in publicizing their own terrible working conditions. And the port truckers made a promise; that they and their co-workers would “organize ourselves and do what is needed to win dignity, respect, and justice.”

Two months later, one group of port workers has filed for a rare union election, backed by international solidarity. Another just ended a two-week strike that brought the Port of Seattle to a near standstill.

Here’s the rest.

At Salon:

On Tuesday President Obama signed a bill that will make it harder for workers to form a union. This bill, the FAA Reauthorization Act, passed Congress last week despite an outcry from major unions. Dozens of House Democrats voted for it, as did most Democratic Senators.

To appreciate what that means, try to imagine a Republican president and Republican Senate Majority Leader signing off on a bill with pro-union language despite thundering objections from most big businesses. Your imagination may not be good enough to picture that – which tells you everything you need to know about the asymmetry between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to labor.

Check it out.

At the American Prospect:

History’s most famous Google prank just received the sincerest form of flattery. A new website, “Spreading Romney,” is now one of the GOP frontrunner’s top online search results. The new site defines “Romney” as “to defecate in terror,” commemorating the miserable 12 hours the Romney family dog spent riding on top of the car during a family trip to Canada. “Spreading Romney’s” emergence is the latest tribute to the success of sex columnist Dan Savage’s “Spreading Santorum” site, whose profile has risen with each Santorum victory. Savage created the website in 2003, when Santorum was a right-wing senator and culture warrior who distinguished himself by comparing homosexuality to “man on boy, man on dog” sex before suffering a humiliating election defeat in 2006. But even as Santorum has risen from obscurity to presidential contention, he still can’t shake “Santorum.”

Check it out.

At Salon:

The Scott Walker recall is already historic. Last month, organizers submitted signatures from over a million Wisconsinites, the largest portion of an electorate to ever petition for recall of a United States governor. The total – nearly double the number required – means near-certain certification by the state’s election board of what will be the third gubernatorial recall in American history. This week’s $700,000 pro-Walker ad buy by the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity was the latest confirmation that the Walker recall will be a marquee race. But what kind of race will Walker’s opponents seek: a battle of competing centrist appeals, like the fall presidential election, or something very different?

Check it out.

At In These Times:

On Thursday, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers announced it had signed a Fair Food Agreement with Trader Joe’s, a significant step forward its efforts to bring fairness and accountability to the food industry. “We are truly happy today to welcome Trader Joe’s aboard the Fair Food Program,” CIW’s Gerardo Reyes said in a joint statement issued by CIW and Trader Joe’s. “Trader Joe’s is cherished by its customers for a number of reasons, but high on that list is the company’s commitment to ethical purchasing practices.”

The same statement, which the company has posted as a letter to customers on its website, hails Fair Food as “a groundbreaking approach to social responsibility in the U.S. produce industry that combines the Fair Food Code of Conduct…with a small price premium to help improve harvesters’ wages.” Trader Joe’s did not respond to a request for further comment.

But it wasn’t long ago that activists were carrying “Traitor Joe’s” banners, and Trader Joe’s was condemning Fair Food Agreements as “overreaching, ambiguous, and improper.”

Here’s the rest.

At In These Times:

In a unanimous ruling last month, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld for the first time a “ministerial exception” limiting the rights of some employees under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In the case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a church-run elementary school asserted that such an exception protected its decision to fire “called teacher” Cheryl Perich following her medical leave and threat to file an ADA lawsuit. Prominent organizations weighed in on both sides: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the American Jewish Committee, and the Muslim-American Public Affairs Council were among those filing briefs backing Hosanna-Tabor; the NAACP, People for the American Way, and the Anti-Defamation League backed Perich.

More here.

At Salon:

On Wednesday Gov. Mitch Daniels delivered a body blow to organized labor, signing a bill making Indiana the 23rd “Right to Work” state. Daniels’ law, which unions will protest during Sunday’s Super Bowl in Indianapolis, poses a major test for Indiana’s labor movement. To survive “Right to Work,” Indiana unions will have to disregard one of the most popular arguments made recently by their supporters: that a union is a business.

Here’s the rest.