Troublemakers Blog
May 04, 2020 /
This is an excerpt from the forthcoming revised and expanded 50th anniversary edition of Strike! by Jeremy Brecher, PM Press, June 2020. The publisher is raising funds on Kickstarter to bring the book to new audiences; give here. Also, today at »
May 01, 2020 /
In a cataclysmic health crisis, it’s plain to see how essential the work of journalists has become. The public is turning to news media sources in record numbers, particularly online, to answer burning questions: »
April 29, 2020 /
In United Teachers Los Angeles, our 34,000-member union, we used Contract Action Teams (CAT) in every school to build up to our winning strike in January 2019. »
April 29, 2020 /
My first teaching assignment was in a special education classroom in an elementary school basement; above the door in red were the words “Shelter Inside.”
I read those words every morning on my way in. The relationships inside the classroom were our shelter, and the community we built together made learning possible. »
April 28, 2020 /
For most nurses and other health care workers it's been the most traumatic month of our careers. We knew we were going into this world-historic challenge with a crippled, fractured, understaffed, and under-capacity health care system. What we didn't quite realize was that there would be no real plan to protect us. »
April 28, 2020 /
UPDATE: On May 1 graduate employees won free summer 2020 housing in the dorms for all international students who need it. The union continued to pressure the university administration after winning its MOU earlier. »
April 27, 2020 /
Unions at the three hospitals on the University of Washington campus asked management for protective Plexiglas barriers similar to what we are seeing at grocery stores. When management said no, we built them ourselves. »
April 27, 2020 /
Libraries are one of the last social services to normally be open to all. Our labor affects the community health in many ways. But New Orleans library workers understood that our workplaces’ social role also made libraries a potentially massive infection site for the at-risk populations we overwhelmingly serve. »
April 24, 2020 /
More than 50 health care workers and supporters held a socially distanced rally in front of Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center on April 15 as part of a national day of action for healthcare workers. »
April 24, 2020 /
Workers injured or killed by their jobs are honored every year on April 28, Workers’ Memorial Day. (It’s the anniversary of the date the Occupational Safety and Health Act went into effect in 1971.) This year the somber occasion is especially urgent, in the midst of the biggest workplace safety disaster this country has seen in decades. »