Troublemakers Blog

February 18, 2015 /
Sociology professor and unionist Stanley Aronowitz challenges the labor movement to decide what it wants to be. Could we once again lead the way to transforming our whole society? »
February 13, 2015 /
Graduate workers' teaching and research helps generate tens of millions of dollars for UConn each year. Yet they're paid meager stipends—and forced to hand 10 to 22 percent of their incomes back to the university in student fees. »
February 12, 2015 /
A six-day strike last week closed down 10 of Kaiser Permanente’s 22 Hawai’i clinics. The sticking point in negotiations is staffing. »
February 05, 2015 /
China's official union federation has taken the unusual step of publicly criticizing the country's largest private employer. Foxconn worker deaths continue, though the company has gotten better at covering them up. »
February 04, 2015 /
What about the nights I moved humongous, unsteady cargo like coils, pipes, plates, and tires across uneven terrain and stacked them perfectly in the dark, with nothing but the dim light of my heavy lift to guide me? Was I a thief then? »
January 30, 2015 / Jenny Brown
Tipping raises the stakes on sexual harassment in restaurants. With co-workers, “I have more freedom to be like, ‘okay, stop it,’” said one server. “But when a guest does it, then I feel a lot more powerless." »
January 27, 2015 /
As the cries of “what part of illegal don’t you understand” escalate, Aviva Chomsky reminds us that the concept of illegal immigration only came into existence 50 years ago. »
January 21, 2015 /
With unusual public attention focused on coal and oil trains, a railroad workers group is seizing the opportunity to teach the general public “railroading 101”—and rail workers “environmental politics 101.” »
January 17, 2015 /
On a windblown, gray Chicago day 100 years ago, January 17, 1915, Ralph Chaplin left his home on the South Side for a raucous, poor person’s rally at the city’s famous women’s center, Hull House. He asked a visiting friend he’d met organizing coal miners with Mother Jones to listen to the lyrics of a new tune he had been working on: »
January 15, 2015 /
Imagine you’re trapped at the bottom of a mine, 2,000 feet belowground. It is dark, dirty, wet; you have very little food; the water is tinged with oil. And you share this predicament with 32 of your co-workers. »

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