Troublemakers Blog

May 29, 2014 /
A mail carrier found out through a manager’s slip of the tongue that the Postal Service was trying to force seniors in a local retirement community to walk to the corner for their mail. »
May 21, 2014 /
Retail sales and customer service reps voted 2 to 1 to join the Communications Workers at six Brooklyn Verizon stores. The wireless side of telecom has remained largely unorganized, but these new unionists hope to cause a ripple effect. »
May 19, 2014 /
Mother Jones once proclaimed Illinois to be “the best-organized labor state in America,” and the people of the Illinois coalfields—where Kevin Corley’s new novel Sixteen Tons takes place—were always at the center of the action. »
May 14, 2014 /
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe is downplaying financial gains at the Postal Service, which has been reporting revenue increases for five straight quarters. Why is Donahoe minimizing the winning streak? »
May 08, 2014 /
University of California executives hoped this round of bargaining would extract deep concessions on benefits from 22,000 hospital and campus workers. And like many large university and health care employers, UC wanted to replace full-time work with contingent work by expanding the use of temps and private contractors. »
May 07, 2014 /
In May of last year I answered my phone, at work in Seattle, and found myself talking to a union organizer in Texas. »
May 02, 2014 / Samantha Winslow
Charter school teachers in Philadelphia are speaking out against their employer taking over another school while ignoring teachers at existing schools. Instead of supporting management’s expansion plans, they’re making common cause with parents at the targeted school, Luis Muñoz-Marín Elementary. The teachers want to unionize in the charter teacher local of the »
May 01, 2014 / Samantha Winslow
On one side of town, tourists and young professionals head downtown on light rail: clean, air-conditioned, fast. If there’s a problem with service, the city diverts buses to help. On the other side of town, workers wait at bus stops. The buses that carry them to work come less and less frequently, thanks to service cuts. Drivers struggle to get through their »
April 29, 2014 /
Plan A has left us with a deep well of anger. I am longing and raging for a different direction. »
April 24, 2014 /
Imagine every municipal worker in New York City—more than 300,000, in 152 unions—negotiating contracts simultaneously. It's happening now. But without synchronization. »

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