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Labor's Edge Articles by Carl Finamore
1/11/11
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly in San Francisco Hotel Dispute
by Carl Finamore
For a few hours on Friday, January 7, San Francisco’s most contentious and longest-running labor dispute recalled scenes straight out of Hollywood, at least that’s how distinguished law professor Jack Getman saw it.
Speaking from a flat-bed truck parked in front of the city’s one-square block premier downtown Hilton hotel, the Earl E. Sheffield Regents Chair Professor at the University of Texas, fired away: “This is like an old western movie where there are good guys and bad guys, and,” pointing his finger toward the hotel doorway entrance, “here in San Francisco, clearly, Hilton management are the bad guys and hotel workers are the good guys.” The sidewalk picket audience of around 100 laughed and cheered, including Getman’s numerous colleagues from the most prominent law schools in the nation.
2/13/10
Teamsters Victory at Continental Airlines Underscores Need to Reform RLA Union Elections Process
by Carl Finamore
While air transportation remains among the most heavily unionized industries in the country, Continental ramp agents were also among the largest single group of non-union employees. Now they have made the nation’s fourth-largest airline a union shop from top to bottom.
Workers at Continental spoke for millions who so desperately need collective bargaining rights. Modernizing and democratizing RLA election rights for rail and air transportation workers will greatly advance opportunities for working people to organize themselves and to express their demands and desires for a better life.