Troublemakers Blog
May 24, 2012 / Mischa Gaus
The Chicago Teachers Union filled an auditorium with 4,000 teachers yesterday, in a show of numbers marking the next step in the union’s struggle for educational justice.
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May 22, 2012 /
Do workers need a union to negotiate “market-based” wages? Machinists at a Caterpillar hydraulic parts factory in Joliet, Illinois, struck May 1 to tell the heavy-equipment giant they deserve better. They're hampered by the fact that Cat workers represented by the United Auto Workers accepted wages pegged to an annual employer survey back in 2004.
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May 17, 2012 /
Lockheed Martin has seen fit to distribute nearly $20 million annually to politicians in Washington, and to pay its CEO nearly $150 million in the last five years. But executives can’t seem to find the money to pay for new hires' pensions or to maintain comprehensive health coverage at its F-35 jet plant in Fort Worth, Texas.
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May 16, 2012 / Mischa Gaus
When Chicago’s “Mayor 1%” Rahm Emanuel threatened to derail the National Nurses United rally this Friday, NNU didn’t back down. Chicago nurse Martese Chism tells why.
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May 09, 2012 / Mischa Gaus
Wisconsin voters chose Tom Barrett yesterday as the Democrat to face Republican Scott Walker in the June 5 vote for governor. Barrett won the Democratic primary handily, defeating Kathleen Falk, the candidate endorsed by most major unions in the state, by 22 points.
Barrett, the preferred choice of the state's Democratic establishment, has hinged his campaign »
May 03, 2012 /
A new how-to handbook makes the case that women and people of color can benefit from formal mentoring programs that encourage their development as union leaders. The programs are most effective when paired with a broader education program, but they need to express a shared commitment to democracy—or they could simply recreate a new group of business unionists.
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May 01, 2012 /
Hundreds of Vermonters took to the streets of the capital Montpelier on May 1 to demonstrate, rally, and celebrate the victories of working people.
Advocates, organizers, and working people from across the state came together to show their solidarity with the struggles of all working people.
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April 26, 2012 /
Communications Workers at AT&T are back in bargaining just 18 months after the last group of workers settled a contract. Once again the company is proving to be difficult to deal with, spurring the union to forge unity across regions and between AT&T and Verizon workers.
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April 20, 2012 /
Organizing the union at the Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, was a bruising 16-year battle, the fight brought together African American, white, and Mexican immigrant workers, who were able to find common ground despite the company’s attempts to use racial division and immigration enforcement to try to defeat them.
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April 18, 2012 /
The blockheads we curse daily on the factory floor are transformed by Gregg Shotwell's “large-caliber pen” into a bureaucracy “organized like a totem pole—one empty wooden head on top of another.” Such gems are found on every page of this selection of Shotwell’s Live Bait & Ammo shop floor papers.
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