The Service Employees’ internal battle broke wide open late Tuesday when International President Andy Stern put the dissident United Healthcare Workers-West into emergency trusteeship. Financial assets for the 150,000-member local were immediately seized, the executive board was dissolved, and full-time officers were removed from payroll.

Labor activists from 31 states gathered in St. Louis, solidifying their strategies to push “Medicare for all”—and to oppose the half-hearted health care plans circulating in Washington. The meeting launched Labor for Single-Payer Healthcare, a campaign to cut the insurance industry out of health care and expand an improved Medicare system to everyone. . . .

More than 150 auto workers and supporters picketed outside the International Auto Show in Detroit January 11, protesting the strings attached to government loans to GM and Chrysler. President Bush’s loan package would wring more concessions out of a union that’s already accepted deep cuts. . . .

As the CEO of Chicago Public Schools heads to Washington to run the nation’s schools policy, a new reform caucus of Chicago teachers is glad to see him go. But with their union in chaos, and city leaders hell-bent on privatizing schools, what’s a teacher to do? . . .

The decision by some big unions to split from the AFL-CIO and form Change to Win in 2005 was top-down. Local union leaders were not consulted, much less rank-and-file union members. Now leaders at the top appear to be moving toward reunification—again with no involvement of local leaders or members. But neither decision has had much effect on the working men and women who pay the dues. . . .

Detroit’s UNITE HERE Local 24 was padlocked in January after the union’s regional board took over the local’s office and removed the appointed state director. The takeover was the opening salvo in a leadership struggle developing ahead of the national union’s June convention...

December 5 was to be the last day of work at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. But managers soon realized that workers would not go quietly: they had voted to occupy the factory. . . .

December 5 was to be the last day of work at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. But managers soon realized that workers would not go quietly: they had voted to occupy the factory.

Members of United Electrical Workers (UE) Local 1110, they’d made plans to scatter throughout the plant, chain themselves to machines, and risk arrest. This is the story of how they did it.

The occupation that won workers their back pay and the admiration of union members around the world didn’t happen out of the blue. It was the culmination of years of struggle to build a democratic, fighting union able to take on the boss.

Close to 4,000 Vietnamese garment workers went on strike in northern Vietnam in early January. The workers protested mistreatment by management at the Taiwanese-owned Sun Jade Company shoe factory in the province of Thanh Hoa.

Workers claim management has routinely dealt physical abuse and humiliation to workers, a majority of whom are women. Sun Jade management often punished workers for arriving late by refusing to pay the day’s wages, barring entry to the cafeteria for company-provided lunch, and cutting their entry cards in half. They have also been denied leave for an illness or death in the family, losing up to a month’s pay when these situations prevent them from working.

Konstantina Kuneva, a Bulgarian immigrant employed in Greece, was attacked outside her home in Athens with sulfuric acid in late December. Kuneva is secretary of the Panattic Union of Cleaners and Domestic Personnel and a cleaner in the Athens metro system. She is employed by OIKMET, a contractor.

The attack is thought to be motivated by Kuneva’s activities in her union and devotion to protecting the rights of cleaners and housekeepers in Greece. Since becoming an active voice in her union, she has faced pressure to quit her job and threats on her life. The acid attack has left Kuneva blind in one eye and with only partial sight in the other.