When Barack Obama backed a Senate health reform plan that differed radically from prior proposals, he ignored the lessons he learned as a young organizer on Chicago's South Side. Obama once knew that it's wrong to bypass the community's agenda to strike a backroom deal, regardless of its potentially superior...

As President Obama quietly watches Senators undermine health care reform, redirects over $30 billion annually from domestic programs to expand the Afghanistan war, and sounds like the Concord Coalition in prioritizing deficit reduction over job creation, we hear little activist protest. Nor have activists publicly mobilized in response...

After seeing the U.S. premiere, I wrote that Michael Moore's Capitalism, A Love Story, is a must-see movie and his most powerful and politically fulfilled work. Moore thought so as well, and engaged in a media blitz to encourage a massive turnout to the 962 theater opening on the October...

Demonstrating his passionate commitment to progressive change and single payer health care, Michael Moore held the U.S. premiere of his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, last night in Pittsburgh in conjunction with the AFL-CIO national convention. Sponsored by the National Nurses Organizing Committee and other unions, Moore gave the...

Has Barack Obama abandoned the populist policies that got him elected, and done nothing for working people? Frank Rich of the New York Times certainly implies this, framing his August 9 column around a claim by a Virginia real estate agent that "Nothing's changed for the common guy. I feel...

SEIU President Andy Stern issued a staff memo last week saying "we are close to putting the dispute with UNITE HERE behind us." Stern said he was optimistic that a settlement was near, and that, "We and the members of Workers United don't want more fights." But Stern's rosy assessment...

In a dramatic blow to SEIU's efforts to raid UNITE HERE members and jurisdictions, 15 of the nation's leading unions pledged Monday to provide UNITE HERE with "material and moral" support. Before a wildly cheering and upbeat crowd of 700, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee denounced SEIU for the "poaching" of...

SEIU defeated NUHW by 233 votes in their bitter election over Fresno's 10,000 home care workers, but now faces a situation analogous to the United States in Vietnam. It took nearly one thousand staffers and an estimated $10 million for SEIU to eke out a victory in Fresno, the labor...

When SEIU announced on June 5 that the Fresno home care worker election was "virtually over" and that it had prevailed, skepticism abounded. After all, balloting continued through for another ten days, hard data from the field was lacking, and the rival National Union of Health Workers (NUHW) was...

After electing the most pro-union president in decades, organized labor is being torn by internal fights. And on different sides of these conflicts are veterans of the United Farmworkers of America (UFW), whose strategic innovations have shaped today's labor movement and whose "Si Se Puede" ("Yes We Can") rallying cry...

Some activists excited about Barack Obama's community organizing background forget what this fully means---namely, that he expects groups seeking progressive measures to mobilize their base. Community organizers do not expect politicians to challenge entrenched interests absent grassroots pressure, and President Obama is not about to spend political capital on...

When Barack Obama adopted "Yes We Can" as his campaign theme, he hearkened back to the "Si Se Puede" rallying cry popularized by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW). As we celebrate Cesar Chavez Day on March 31, the President should consider a more lasting action to honor...

The stimulus vote shows that it will take more than e-mail blitzes, rallies and presidential speeches to enact universal health care, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), or comprehensive immigration reform. Instead, activists must implement a district- by-district, specific targeting strategy that pressures Beltway politicians on their home...

In the 2008 February primary elections, Latinos made up 30% of all total voters in California. Now, for the first time in U.S. history, Latino voters could play a decisive role in the presidential election.

If they do, we can thank Cesar Chavez and UFW alumni... and the city of...