Just a few short days after the United States launched its invasion of Iraq, United Airlines announced that 2,000 flight attendants, 1,148 mechanics, and thousands more non-union salaried employees would be forced to take time off with no pay as a direct result of the war.

Teachers in Oregon's largest district took two historic votes within a week of each other, first to authorize a strike, then days later to approve a contract with huge concessions. Portland teachers, who have never gone on strike, overwhelmingly approved a new contract that requires teachers to work two weeks this year without pay.

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"Se puede?" (Can we?) "Sí, se puede!"
United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez, left, joined hundreds of demonstrators in support of the Farm Labor Organizing committee's boycott of Mt. Olive Pickles. Photo: Rico de La Prensa Newspaper.
(Yes, we can!) Over 600 demonstrators took up this chant at a boisterous rally outside the Toledo, Ohio headquarters of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee on March 26. Held on the third anniversary of FLOC's boycott against the Mt. Olive Pickle Company, the event reflected the union's resolve to sustain and escalate the boycott......

Some dockworkers on both coasts have been working double shifts, often in back-breaking jobs, due to the war in Iraq......

Thirty years ago this winter, I was welcomed into the labor movement while watching retired miners, stoop-shouldered and short of breath, trudge through a gauntlet of union goons to get into the American Legion hall in Tamaqua, Pa. It wasn't a pretty sight--or a warm welcome.

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Over the past few years, the labor movement in the U.S. may have turned a very important corner. Finally, two decades after a series of disastrous setbacks made strikes taboo in union circles, we may be recovering our most important weapon......

George W. Bush has now taken the first step in the invasion of Iraq. This is his response to a failing economy, massive job losses, and unfair trade practices that have, for the year 2002, the largest U.S. Trade deficit imbalance in history.

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