Health care isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. At least it seems that way right now, as workers in every industry are struggling to maintain their benefits in the face of rising premiums and diminished services...
In 2001, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the government agency charged with overseeing safety on the nation's railroads, gave its wholesale approval for major U.S. railroads to employ remote control operators (RCOs), belt pack devices that move unmanned engines, in switching operations...
Because many low-wage workers today are as likely to be struck by lightning as to be approached to join a union, many community-based efforts around work and wages have organized outside the context of labor unions. Of course some unions, such as the Service Employees with their Justice for Janitors and home health aid campaigns, are targeting low-wage workers. But these drives are still the exception. . . .
"It was at times almost like in a civil war," commented Klaus-Dieter Utoff, an IG Metall union representative from Chemnitz, East Germany. Utoff was not alluding to Cold War hostilities between the two formerly-divided German republics; but rather, to the four-week IG Metall strike over the length of the work week in East Germany...
