The Workplace

  • Hyatt Housekeepers: This Job Hurts!
    Jenny Brown
    Dec 6 2010 - 10:05am

    Ailing housekeepers from 12 Hyatt hotels called on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to respond to an alarming pattern of injuries. Workload pressures bring lifting strains and repetitive-motion problems, but OSHA has no standards for cleaners.

  • U.S. Steel Tries to Divide Generations as Lockout in Ontario Targets Pensions
    Mischa Gaus
    Nov 29 2010 - 10:04am

    U.S. Steel is trying to drive a wedge between generations, locking out steelworkers in Hamilton, Ontario, when union negotiators would not take a deal that sold out past and future workers.

  • Hotel Workers Wildcat in Southern California
    Andrew Cohen and Joseph Murphy
    Aug 19 2010 - 11:58am

    Hotel workers in Irvine, California, did something August 9 almost unheard of recently—they struck a non-union shop. A daylong picket demanded bosses stop denying breaks and pay for years of missed breaktime.

  • Immigrant Workers at Non-Union Chicken Plant Stop Work over Dangerous Conditions
    Francisco Risso
    Jul 15 2010 - 8:13am

    Chicken processing workers stopped the line for an hour at the Case Farms plant in Morganton, North Carolina, over dangerous and abusive conditions. The remarkable wildcat action won the non-union and largely immigrant workforce several gains.

  • 12,000 Minnesota Nurses Ready for Strike
    Nellie Munn
    Jun 22 2010 - 8:05am

    Twelve thousand Twin Cities nurses are facing off against corporate health care, taking a one-day strike June 10 and authorizing an open-ended strike Monday. Like every state without nurse-to-patient ratios, staffing is the key issue.

  • Behind the Headlines: The Workplace Kills 14 Per Day—One by One
    Tom O’Connor
    Jun 14 2010 - 8:40pm

    It’s been a very bad couple of months for worker safety, as deaths mount in horrific disasters from Connecticut to the Gulf Coast. But behind the headlines is a far quieter but equally disturbing story of entirely preventable daily carnage.

  • How Do We Win Strikes Again?
    Peter Olney
    Jun 4 2010 - 1:00pm

    Clearly, unions avoid strikes because they fear they can’t win them. How do we break this mold? We brought the question to Peter Olney, organizing director of the Longshore and Warehouse Union. In Boron, California, 560 borax miners—ILWU members—just won a 15-week lockout by their multinational employer, Rio Tinto.

  • Football Stadium Workers Fight Deportation After ICE Raid
    Sally Kim
    Apr 20 2010 - 12:00pm

    Immigrant workers are fighting deportation after ICE officials raided their vans en route to work at Massachusetts' Gillette Stadium. “They told us they were just looking for people with criminal backgrounds,” an organizer said. “Now they’re criminalizing them all.”

  • Philadelphia Hospital Workers Walk Out
    By Marty Harrison
    Apr 1 2010 - 1:09am

    Health care workers at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia went on strike Wednesday, holding out against demands to give up free-speech rights, explode health care costs, and hobble the union's power. A rally of 1,200 cheered their resolve.

  • Baltimore Worker Center Says Tourist District Shouldn't Grow on Poverty Jobs
    Tom Kertes
    Mar 12 2010 - 4:51am

    Poverty conditions for workers in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor are threatening to become routine. That doesn't make them tolerable, said a worker center. They're pursuing living-wage agreements by targeting developers.