Toby Higbie

This Day in Labor History: February 23, 1959. The AFL-CIO Executive Council, meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, passed a resolution to create the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, an early attempt to organize the farmworkers at the bottom of the American labor force. Let's talk about it!!

OpenAI deepens partnerships with consulting giants to push enterprise AI beyond pilot OpenAI is expanding its push into the enterprise market by teaming up with four of the world’s largest consulting firms, betting that a more hands-on approach will help corporate clients move beyond p...

OpenAI, hitting the wall on corporate adoption, will team with consulting giants to ”help corporate clients move beyond pilot projects to full-scale AI deployments.” Same barriers to adoption in higher education, same consulting corps informing management. Heads up, faculty!

Well, I think the author of that article might agree with you that spending on elections isn't the best path to growth

Is your point that the labor movement should invest more in organizing, or that the novel forms of organizing are not delivering proper return on investment?

“America’s labor movement has been going through a transition over the last decade that is far more layered and nuanced — and that holds more potential for future growth — than the BLS annual membership survey reveals.” New leaders & organizational forms having an impact— @lanewindham.bsky.social

Volkswagen Workers Make History, Ratify First Union Contract at Major Southern Auto Plant - UAW | United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America In a historic victory, Volkswagen workers have voted by 96 percent to ratify their first union contract. The deal locks in 20 percent wage increases, healthcare cost reductions, job security guarantee...

In a historic victory, Volkswagen workers have voted by 96 percent to ratify their first union contract. The deal locks in 20 percent wage increases, healthcare cost reductions, job security guarantees, an enforceable grievance procedure, and much more.

📰 uaw.org/volkswagen-w...

This Day in Labor History: February 17, 2000. The AFL-CIO officially changed its stance on immigration. No longer would the labor movement in this nation officially oppose immigration. Instead, it moved to become one of the immigrant rights movement’s major allies in this nation!!!!

New report from UCLA Labor Center, KIWA, and AAPI Data: 40% of supermarket workers in immigrant neighborhoods of LA and Orange Counties experience wage theft. Many have limited access to affordable health insurance despite working long hours. Recommends stronger scheduling rules

Financial mismanagement contributed to $425 million annual deficit, UCLA CFO says - Daily Bruin This post was updated Feb. 16 at 11:34 p.m. University administrators’ financial mismanagement contributed to UCLA’s $425 million annual deficit, UCLA’s chief financial officer alleged. Stephen Agosti...

Today @ucla.edu Chancellor Julio Frenk announced that UCLA CFO Stephen Agostini "will no longer serve in his role, effective immediately." Hard not to believe that the trigger was Agostini telling the @dailybruinan.bsky.social that UCLA had been financially mismanaged:
dailybruin.com/2026/02/13/f...

Returning Through the Door This month marks one hundred years since the first national observance of what we now know as Black History Month.Thanks for reading With Radical Imagination!

I stood at Cape Coast in Ghana, where our ancestors were forced through the “Door of No Return.” This Black History Month, I’m writing about what we carry, what we refuse to forget, and what we build next.

“Returning Through the Door” on Substack.
open.substack.com/pub/aprilver...

Financial mismanagement contributed to $425 million annual deficit, UCLA CFO says - Daily Bruin University administrators’ financial mismanagement contributed to UCLA’s $425 million annual deficit, UCLA’s chief financial officer alleged. Stephen Agostini, who has been UCLA’s CFO since May 2024, ...

UCLA CFO says administrative mismanagement landed the school in debt, spreads the blame around. Previous public financial reports were inaccurate, big accounting project was "terrific waste of resources." But then we knew that.

Believe that they're really ending the surge in Minnesota when people on the ground say it's happened but also *even* if this is nothing but more face saving, it's a huge acknowledgement that they know they're losing and that the people of Minnesota are never going to stop protecting their neighbors

Whether or not Homan is lying here about an imminent end to "the surge" etc, the truth, as Will Stancil writes, is that the people of Minnesota are winning. It is incumbent upon all of us-- particularly Democratic lawmakers in Washington DC-- to follow their lead...

Minnesota organizations have been organizing for years to get to the place where they could pull off a general strike. We don’t have years, but we can learn from them and scale up quickly. We have no choice!

UAW Reaches Tentative Agreement with Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Marking Historic Breakthrough for Southern Autoworkers - UAW | United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of Americ... Autoworkers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant have won a historic tentative agreement with the company. After making history as the first Southern autoworkers outside the Big Three to join the UAW, th...

After making history as the first Southern autoworkers outside the Big Three to join the UAW, the 3,200 workers at VW Chattanooga have won a tentative agreement that provides 20 percent across-the-board wage increases, affordable health care, real job security, and more.

🔗 uaw.org/uaw-reaches-...

From recovery to rebuilding, UCLA's Labor Occupational Safety and Health (LOSH) program trains workers how to stay safe on the job, supports advocacy organizations, and carries out research on the labor of wildfires and other climate disaster. @uclalosh.bsky.social!

Trying a new music streaming platform, Qobuz, based on @parismarx.com list of alternative platforms, and @bcmerchant.bsky.social’s recommendation that they pay artists more. So far, sound quality seems better than Spotify. Has most of my songs, altho I’m no power user.

Brief 🧵 with some readings related to the fact that these CBP agents are Latinos.

Worst of the worst: “US law enforcement has never experienced a scandal as big, as far-reaching, destructive, and as far-lasting as the wave of corruption and criminality that has overtaken CBP and the Border Patrol since 2005.”

Just saying if I ran the Organizing Department of a major union I'd be pouring resources into Minnesota right now. Tremendous energy, tremendous solidarity. Gotta be a lot of potentially winnable shops here.

This is what democracy sounds like: three Minneapolis organizers chart the process that built an effective multiracial fight back against federal occupation. Moving beyond a brave and nimble minority to a "popular front" majority to beat back fascism and win democratic victories for all

“Minneapolis has resembled a counterinsurgency campaign more than a law enforcement operation because that’s what it is — complete with tactics, equipment and legal authorities derived from the war on terror.”

To regain something like a democracy, we’ll need to dismantle DHS. Start planning now

Chilling account. An indication federal occupation of MN remains the same, or is getting more brazen. But taking these tactics into the countryside didn’t work. Instead, local police intervened in the arrest of citizen-observer. And it’s all recorded on video. Assume we’ll soon see it all

Holy crap. Minnesota police chief tracks down ICE agents in his car and de-arrests a woman who lives in his town.

Over 1,000 demonstrators join on-campus walkout to protest ICE crackdowns - Daily Bruin This post was updated Jan. 28 at 6:53 p.m. More than 1,000 people marched across campus Wednesday afternoon to protest the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

“For every human being that has been hunted based on their skin color, their form of labor, their language and their existence, we claim belonging to the land that we call the U.S.”

Kudos to the organizers who pulled off yesterday's UCLA rally and march, a demonstration of students' potential power

Big anti-ICE rally at UCLA today. Students, staff, faculty in solidarity with the Minnesota fight back, connecting the dots btw many causes

The testing ground for Bovino’s Operation At Large was Los Angeles. A California judge initially prohibited ICE/CBP’s most flagrant constitutional violations. SCOTUS overruled her 6–3, handing Bovino a blank check to inflict unspeakable brutality on Chicago and Minneapolis. The 6 bear so much blame.

Statement on ICE’s killing of AFGE member Alex Jeffrey Pretti Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham made the following statement on ICE’s killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti this morning in Minneapolis:“For the second time in less than three weeks, a Minnesotan…

“Just yesterday, tens of thousands of Minnesotans peacefully exercised our right to free speech without incident. When ICE is involved, nonviolent protesters and legal observers are gassed, assaulted, and shot." aflcio.mn/4abNrfk
#iceoutmn #iceout

Three Times Workers Resisted Fascism in Minnesota History - Workday Magazine Historical examples of workers resisting the oligarchical forces of fascism and authoritarianism.

Minnesota workers and unions drawing on a long history of fighting for a better world—taking on pro-Nazi paramilitaries, organizing immigrant miners, demanding relief for the unemployed, and many other episodes.
workdaymagazine.org/three-times-...

A depiction of Crisps Attucks being killed by agents of the state on the streets of Boston for the crime of protesting.

If only we as a country, as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our independence, had some historical events from our founding era that might help us understand why agents of a distant government shouldn’t murder protesters on the streets of the city where they live.