Troublemakers Blog
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 »
December 17, 2010 / Jenny Brown
In what advocates called “a stunning win” for workers across New York state, outgoing Governor David Paterson has signed a law that escalates penalties against thieving employers and protects workers who stand up against wage theft at their jobs.
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December 10, 2010 /
Threatened with pay cuts, tax increases, and a higher retirement age, unions in Portugal called a 24-hour general strike. Two transit workers from New York were there to see the shutdown.
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December 08, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
Would you give up a piece of your pension for a signing bonus? That’s just what President Obama’s proposed “payroll tax holiday” is like (such a jolly name—and just in time for the holidays, too). But the long-term effect is to beggar Social Security, and eventually cut benefits. That $15-a-week bonus now may end up costing you far more in the future.
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December 08, 2010 /
Last month United Electrical Workers Local 204 in Taunton, Massachusetts, called for mass picketing and blockading of entrances to a shuttered factory to stop the auction of its machines. In response, the company has postponed the auction, in a »
December 06, 2010 /
Nearly 4,000 graduate students in the 10-campus University of California system voted to approve a three-year contract with the university last week. This landmark turnout was due primarily to a campaign organized by dozens of rank-and-file members across the state urging their co-workers to reject the contract and send United Auto Workers Local 2865 back to »
December 03, 2010 /
Worker centers and health and safety advocates joined forces on the national level for the first time last month. The Denver gathering brought together worker centers from the Interfaith Worker Justice national network and local coalitions for occupational safety and »
December 02, 2010 / Dan La Botz
They’re calling it Obama’s PATCO—his proposal for a two-year wage freeze for two million federal workers. Just like Reagan, the president has sent a signal to employers: it's open season on unions.
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November 30, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
It's not too late to call. Call today while this issue has your senators' attention.
Don’t want your mom’s Social Security benefits cut next year, or your son’s retirement age raised? Join the big call-in today, promoted by a host of organizations from unions to retiree groups to women’s organizations. »
Don’t want your mom’s Social Security benefits cut next year, or your son’s retirement age raised? Join the big call-in today, promoted by a host of organizations from unions to retiree groups to women’s organizations. »
November 29, 2010 /
In a move to save factory jobs that evokes shades of the ’30s, the United Electrical Workers are asking supporters to block a December 14 auction of presses and equipment from a plant south of Boston. The UE is calling for mass picketing and blockading of entrances to the 80-year-old plant if »