Thousands of oil refinery workers are on strike over health and safety. They cite outsourcing, short staffing, and forced overtime that produces dangerous fatigue—in a job where mistakes can be fatal.
On election night the Chicago Teachers Union and its new independent political organization didn’t knock out Mayor Rahm Emanuel—but they did take him down a notch, forcing him into a runoff with the union’s preferred candidate, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
FairPoint workers in New England have ratified a new contract, ending the longest U.S. telecom strike in decades. The deal limits subcontracting and averts two-tier wages, but wipes out the pension for new hires.
Teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, took their fight against their government’s punitive “education reform” to a new level in the past month, with highly visible actions against legislators, political parties, and even airports.
Many thought Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union Act 10 would be a death sentence for Wisconsin’s public sector unions. But teacher unions around the state have taken the law’s obstacles and turned them into organizing opportunities.
The teacher union and its allies are making a bid to channel the spirit and unity of the 2012 strike into unseating “Mayor 1%” and his city council cronies.