Troublemakers Blog
September 14, 2020 / Barbara Madeloni
UPDATE, September 18: Amid continued protests, yesterday Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the start of in-person school in New York City will be further delayed for most students. Pre-K and special ed schools will still open September 21, but elementary school reopening has been pushed back to September 29, and middle and high school to October 1. —Editors »
September 14, 2020 /
My school district put me on administrative leave for organizing workers at my school. Then students and community members led a huge campaign that forced my reinstatement in just three days. »
September 11, 2020 /
Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai did extensive field research for almost 10 years to produce Dying for an iPhone. The result is a riveting account of the lives of workers on the production line, but the authors go further to reveal the human, social, and environmental impacts »
September 10, 2020 /
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020 (FFCRA), passed by Congress in March, mandates up to 12 weeks of paid, job-protected time off for workers who must stay home to care for a child because the child’s school or daycare is closed due »
September 03, 2020 / Alexandra Bradbury
The subway is something I’ve always loved about New York City life. But my family can’t ride it together, because my daughter has cerebral palsy and 3 out of 4 stations have no elevator. »
September 03, 2020 / Barbara Madeloni
Educators in Andover, Massachusetts, set up lawn chairs, folding tables, and laptops in the shade of trees and next to school tennis courts and got to work on their first day of professional development August 31. »
August 31, 2020 /
Undergraduate student workers—ranging from residence hall advisors, lifeguards, and library workers to art gallery assistants and student farmers—are organizing to form a union at Kenyon College, a small liberal arts college in rural central Ohio. »
August 27, 2020 /
All summer, our union of undergraduate workers has been battling UMass Amherst over its response to the coronavirus crisis. We won personal protective equipment (PPE), campus-wide COVID testing, and workers comp; then we won the reversal of an incredibly dangerous reopening plan. Now we’re battling retaliatory layoffs. »
August 27, 2020 /
Workers across the country are taking up the fight for health and safety and against furloughs, budget cuts, and concessions.
Faced with unsafe school openings, educators are at the forefront of these struggles—and we can learn a lot from them. On August 25, Labor Notes hosted a discussion with labor activists organizing around safe reopenings. »