UPDATE 1:10PM EST: There has been a 30 day extension to the ILA contract postponing the strike. The deadline is December 29th. Tomorrow. At 12:01 am on December 30th 14 ports from Boston to Houston will close as members of the International Longshoremen Association (ILA) covering the the East and Gulf coasts go on strike. [...]

Labor has not really attempted to overturn the Indiana “right to work” law, where they had less options at their disposal. But there are tools available in Michigan, as well as a relatively dense unionized labor force ready to fight back.

Despite large protests and thousands of demonstrators, lawmakers in Michigan, as expected, granted final approval to right to work legislation, which will ban closed shop unions and allow workers to opt out of union dues despite having their employment covered by a collective bargaining agreement. The first of two bills, which installs right to work [...]

According to folks on the ground in Lansing, Michigan, today, the scene looks quite like Madison, Wisconsin from winter 2011. AFSCME reports over 10,000 protesters both outside and inside the capital right now. The state government has arrayed the normal series of law enforcement and security personnelthat seem to spring up whenever anyone wants to use their First Amendment rights to protest in 21st-century America.

The Democratic Congressional delegation in the state of Michigan met with Governor Rick Snyder for an hour today, calling on him to either veto right to work legislation making its way through a lame duck session, or to ask for a delay in the vote until the next general session, or to allow a vote [...]

Within a matter of hours, both houses of the Michigan legislature passed right to work legislation, while arrests and lockdowns occurred inside and outside the chamber. In the end, Michigan Democrats staged a walkout to protest the closed Capitol. But eventually, the votes were taken, through a gut-and-amend process with a substitute bill that was [...]

As expected, Michigan Republicans rolled out right to work legislation today, which Governor Rick Snyder, previously seen trying to court a moderate pose, said he would sign into law. The legislation would impact public and private employees except for police and fire unions. Republicans will attempt to pass it by the end of the month [...]

Looks like someone’s going to have to construct more protest signs. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, who previously said he would not take on the challenge of turning the home of the auto industry into a right to work state, now says it’s “on the agenda,” a passive statement that doesn’t actually make a determination as [...]

Ryan Grim has some backstory on the White House’s aggressive opening bid last night. It turns out that President Obama offered this same deal to Republicans earlier this month at the White House. Republicans expected that Tim Geithner would bring a softer offer with him, part of the trend verified by recent history of the [...]

I guess worker-led revolts are catching. After a successful set of Black Friday protests at Walmart stores nationwide, New York City will see walkouts at dozens of fast-food restaurants today, part of a more explicit effort to unionize the sector with the slogan Fast Food Forward. After three years of working at the McDonald’s restaurant [...]

Walmart workers staged their historic strike on Black Friday. Management tried to downplay it, and given how massive Walmart is, the relative strength of the strike was small in real terms compared to the company’s 1.4 million workers. But it would be silly to just leave it at that without the context of the company [...]