Troublemakers Blog
February 23, 2021 / Steve Early
A rare contested race for president of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) has given its members a clear choice between a union traditionalist from Boston and a progressive activist who backed massive labor protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker a decade ago—and then joined electoral efforts to oust the anti-union Republican. »
February 18, 2021 / Alexandra Bradbury
What if I told you an employer had agreed that it could no longer make any change to policies affecting members without “prior affirmative consent” from the union? »
February 11, 2021 /
Labor Notes is excited to bring on two wonderful new staff organizers, Sarah Hughes and Luis Feliz Leon, at our New York office in February. Sarah and Luis are joining our training and events team, and they’ll also write for Labor Notes. »
February 05, 2021 / Alexandra Bradbury
This week the U.S. labor movement lost its best-known and best-loved troubadour: the great folksinger-songwriter Anne Feeney. She died of Covid on February 3, at age 69, with her children at her side. With her fantastic songs and feisty spirit, she made an incalculable contribution to the movement. She is irreplaceable, and gone too soon. »
February 05, 2021 /
New York City fast food workers will now have legal protections against unjust firings, after the City Council passed a package of bills prohibiting fast food employers from terminating employees or cutting workers’ hours without “just cause.” »
February 04, 2021 /
More than 100 nations are urging the World Trade Organization to waive its “intellectual property” rules so that countries can start producing generic Covid-19 vaccines and treatments to increase global supplies. Unfortunately, the United States under Trump was one of just a handful of countries to block that waiver—putting Big Pharma profits ahead of ending the »
February 01, 2021 / Joe DeManuelle-Hall
Fights for union demands such as safe staffing and struggles against privatization have taken on even more significance during a dire public health crisis. In this webinar on January 29th, we heard from worker leaders who organized with their co-workers to use their ultimate weapon—the strike—to fight for what they need not just during the pandemic »
January 28, 2021 / Barbara Madeloni
Democracy is on everyone’s mind, after the presidential election and transition we’ve just weathered.
There’s the democracy we had to defend. Union members participated in all kinds of ways—from postal workers making sure the ballots were delivered, to UNITE HERE members canvassing Arizona and Georgia, to central labor councils calling for the results to be »
January 27, 2021 /
The feminist movement sometimes gets derided as ignoring working-class women, but in fact it was the source of urgent demands for equal pay and childcare as well as some of the most creative labor organizing of the 1970s. »
January 20, 2021 /
Most people are familiar with the politically motivated killings that punctuated the 1960s. From Medgar Evers to Robert Kennedy, bloodshed galvanized the antiwar, civil rights, and student movements, but eroded trust in government and higher education. The labor movement was no exception to the rule. »