Troublemakers Blog
August 12, 2010 /
Bangladesh’s 3.5 million apparel workers—who are mostly women—left their shops and took to the streets this month to demand that the minimum wage increase to $72 per month. The current wage, the lowest in the world, was boosted to $43 a month, but as protests and strikes continue, the government of Bangladesh and garment companies are attacking unions and non- »
August 11, 2010 / Mischa Gaus
Sunday would have been Sabrina Greenwood’s five-year employment anniversary in New York’s transit system. But she won’t make it: She’ll be laid off Friday. Her union, Transport Workers Local 100, is trying to soften the blow by funding the laid-off workers’ health care with a special $5-a-week assessment from its 35,000 active members.
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August 06, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
The inflatable rat is back, as New York City Teamsters strike to say it’s not fair to pay some movers $16-$22 an hour and others—mostly Black and Latino—just $8.
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August 04, 2010 /
The women at Houston's port have endured disgusting conditions in their bathrooms over three decades, constantly jousting with our ILA officials and management over them—until just this summer, an aggressive campaign was launched and women finally benefited from a little outside help, courtesy of Houston’s new mayor, Annise Parker.
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July 30, 2010 /
When billionaire Meg Whitman, who has never held any political office and seldom even bothers to vote, decided to use her personal fortune to run for California’s highest office, the California Nurses Association challenged her with political satire.
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July 29, 2010 /
A pair of contentious resolutions marked the Communications Workers convention in the capital this week. One highlighted widespread discontent among local leaders and activists over fragmented bargaining and concessions in telecommunications bargaining last year, and the other shifted conventions from every year to every two, reflecting the union’s financial »
July 22, 2010 /
The recession has hammered transit agencies across the country. Some 700 New York City transit workers—mostly bus operators and station agents—have been laid off since May and another 200–300 may be gone by the end of the summer.
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July 21, 2010 / Tiffany Ten Eyck
Twenty-two undocumented students risked deportation at the nation’s Capitol yesterday, staging sit-ins in the offices of five senators. After leaving the offices the group unfurled a banner in the Senate building—considered a felony—and held a second sit-in in the atrium. All were arrested by the time the building closed in the evening.
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July 20, 2010 / Mischa Gaus
Dockers in Montreal were locked out Monday in a dispute over income security for new workers. Longshore workers with the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 375 have refused to work overtime since July 9, telling their employer to call in more help before assigning OT.
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July 15, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
Less than 6 percent of Ascension Health’s 110,000 workers are union members, but apparently that’s 6 percent too many for the country’s largest Catholic health system. Management is on a concerted campaign to bust unions at its hospitals in Michigan, say the Teamsters, the Michigan Nurses Association, and their ally Interfaith Worker Justice, a national »