Troublemakers Blog

January 14, 2011 / Mischa Gaus
California is at the forefront of a national push by worker advocates to take some of the fear out of a family member getting sick. New research shows that the state’s path-breaking paid family leave policy, which came into effect seven years ago, has produced gains for workers—while barely affecting employers. »
January 13, 2011 / Jane Slaughter
UPDATE: The auction action has been canceled. Esterline Technologies improved its severance offer--on the condition that UE Local 204 not attempt to stop the auction. The local said that more than $600,000 for 85 members is at stake. More information will be forthcoming. »
January 12, 2011 /
With patience wearing thin after 18 months of bargaining, the nurses at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in Pennsylvania chose a one-day strike December 23. We wanted to show our for-profit employer that our solidarity is still as strong as ever and that we will stand up and fight for serious bargaining. »
January 07, 2011 /
The 30,000-member Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) passed a resolution Wednesday calling on the FBI to “stop using the national security laws to intimidate people from using their First Amendment rights.” The resolution arose because of FBI raids last September in Chicago and the Twin Cities on the homes of 14 anti-war activists, 10 of whom are also union members. »
January 06, 2011 /
As the Detroit International Auto Show opens January 9 and PR glitz is sprinkled everywhere, auto workers will be demonstrating against two-tier wages and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. They’ll say what auto workers and the whole economy need is a strong union, and retooled plants that can put the unemployed back to work building mass transit and »
January 04, 2011 / Dan La Botz
Ohio activists will protest at Republican Governor-elect John Kasich’s inauguration events this Saturday. Backers of the “Defend Ohio” campaign will march to the Statehouse in Columbus with signs and slogans in support of public employees and public services. »
January 03, 2011 / Dan La Botz
Mexico’s drug war—with a total of 31,000 deaths since December 2006—has wreaked havoc on workers, their communities, and their workplaces. While the victims are principally drug dealers, police, and soldiers, others include farmers, factory workers, migrant workers, teachers, doctors, and reporters. »
December 30, 2010 / Steve Early
In 1968 women auto workers in their own sex-segregated department at Ford's Dagenham, England, plant shut down their sewing machines and showed the lads how union solidarity was done. "Made in Dagenham" is their story. »
December 23, 2010 /
During this holiday break it’s inspiring to remember that sometimes it’s those with least who are doing the most to fight for the ideals that many of us will celebrate in the coming days. »
December 21, 2010 /
A billionaire gang headed by Bill Gates and Eli Broad wants to convert America’s public schools, with its $600 billion in annual public expenditures according to the Department of Education, into a corporate-owned test-score factory. Their plan faces teacher resistance, and nowhere more so than in Chicago, where a feisty new leadership is making the Chicago »

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