Labor Notes
| Editor | Mischa Gaus |
|---|---|
| Former editors | Jane Slaughter, Chris Kutalik |
| First issue | March 1979 |
| Country | US |
| Based in | Detroit, Michigan |
| Language | English |
| ISSN | 0275-4452 |
Labor Notes is a non-profit organization and network for union members and grassroots labor activists. Though officially titled the Labor Education and Research Project, the project is best known by the title of its monthly magazine. The magazine reports news and analysis about labor activity or problems facing the labor movement. In its pages it advocates for a revitalization of the labor movement through Social Movement Unionism and union democracy. Labor Notes is based out of Detroit, Michigan with an East Coast office located in Brooklyn, New York.
Labor Notes is the product of a strategy by labor activists seeking to make grassroots connections across unions and industries. Labor Notes sought to bridge the gap between isolated rank-and-file caucuses and reform groups (the most notable being Teamsters for a Democratic Union) in major unions such as the Teamsters, the Steelworkers, the United Auto Workers, the Communications Workers of America, the American Federation of Teachers, and others.
Labor Notes was launched as an attempt to help further those linkages, following the Bituminous Coal Strike of 1977-1978 and the wide-scale cross-union solidarity and energy it produced.
The hope was that these reform efforts would strengthen and consolidate the more widespread waves of union militancy found earlier in the decade. Headlines in the first year of Labor Notes had themes like, "Teamster Steelhaulers Show Muscle in Three Week Wildcat Strike."
The Reagan-era rollbacks on labor law protections put the labor movement on the defensive. Fledgling rank-and-file groups and Labor Notes began to refocus on how labor leaders seemed incapable of addressing the free fall for unions and working people in this decade.
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