budget crisis

  • Toronto Mayor Set to Lock Out City Workers
    Jane Slaughter
    Jan 24 2012 - 12:30pm

    Toronto’s mayor wants to privatize a raft of city services and to clear the way, he's taking on the largest public sector locals in Canada. Counting down to what looks like a lockout February 5, unions are scrambling to make their case to city residents.

  • Postal Workers Need Support from the 99%
    Paul Felton
    Jan 19 2012 - 1:25pm
    ** Print only

    On December 19 Oregonians occupied post offices that were slated to close in 17 rural communities. Carrying Christmas cards, cookies, and gifts of appreciation for postal workers, the occupiers collected signatures on petitions to Congress to change the laws that caused the Postal Service’s $8.5 billion budget deficit.

  • Guess What, Fox News: Public Workers Didn’t Start this Fire

    You know what, Fox News? Public workers didn’t start this fire, but they’ll be damned if it consumes their communities and leaves generations of workers in cinders.

    I was back on the Faux network Friday to talk about the revolt surging through Wisconsin. The host kept arguing that taxpayers have been bled dry, repeating Governor Scott Walker’s talking point that the state has no alternative but to take the hatchet to teachers, nurses, lifeguards, clerks—all the many unionized public workers.

  • As Budget D-Day Nears, NY Transit Workers Hose Down MTA's Dirty Tricks with a Pool Party

    With huge service cuts and layoffs looming, New York’s transit crisis is the thin edge of a wedge threatening to up-end reliable bus and subway service in communities nationwide.

  • March 4 Day of Action Ripples Through California and Beyond
    Paul Abowd
    Mar 5 2010 - 12:04pm

    Walkouts, student strikes, and marches shook every level of California’s embattled public education system on March 4. College students and campus workers joined forces with K-12 teachers and students for the day of action.

  • California Activists Set for Day of Action to Defend Public Education
    Marcel Paret
    Mar 3 2010 - 11:00am

    Sights are set on a March 4 Strike and Day of Action to resist business as usual: layoffs, fee hikes, and program cuts in a call for expanded federal education funding, open admissions, and democratic schools.

  • Postal Unions Battle Cuts to Jobs, Service
    David Yao
    Nov 3 2009 - 1:13am

    The Postal Service, in a financial crunch that threatens both jobs and service to the public, is looking to Congress for help. If postal unions want to avoid the auto workers’ fate, they need to find allies and make their case publicly.

  • Labor Notes Joins Public Sector Workers in Chicago

    Before the trick or treating began last Saturday in Chicago, 65 labor activists met at the United Electrical Workers hall to tackle the “zombie economics” of the free market, which has put the Illinois budget on its back.

  • University Labor Education Programs Under Fire in Economic Crisis
    Bob Bussel and Paul Abowd
    Oct 24 2009 - 1:11am
    ** Print only

    The corporate attack on workers is reaching into the academy, too, where labor studies programs are facing cutbacks or wholesale cancellation. They’re being targeted by anti-labor ideologues and by budget-cutting administrators, but they’re not giving up easily.