Troublemakers Blog

Comics Against the 1%: Black History Month

Worker saying, "A. Philip Randolph once said, 'At the banquet table of nature there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, & you keep what you can hold. If you can't take anything, you won't get anything, & if you can't hold anything, you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization." Worker waves a flag "union power." Zoom out to boardroom with banner: "GenericCorp Celebrates Black History." Suited man says "I thought this would be more about jazz or 'brotherly love.'"
February 04, 2020 / Dan Mendez Moore
Click to enlarge. »

TV Review: A Slowdown and a Strike Get the Goods on Bob's Burgers

January 28, 2020 / Kelly Gilbert
This is the latest installment in an occasional series where we evaluate the “union episode” of a television show. »

Strikes Are Hard Work

Dedham educators in red, on a picket line, with red and white signs.
January 13, 2020 / Barbara Madeloni
They stood on a picket line at the entrance to the school parking lot: seven educators out on strike for the first time. Public sector strikes are illegal in Massachusetts. But the night before, after two years of fruitless negotiations, the 300 members of the Dedham Education Association had voted overwhelming to walk out. »

A Busy Year for Labor Notes!

December 20, 2019 / Dan DiMaggio
Labor Notes has been at it for 40 years. But 2019 will go down as one of our busiest and most productive yet. »

Review: Longtime Labor Reporter Describes the Decline of Worker Power

December 18, 2019 / Steve Downs
Early in his new book, Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor, former New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse makes a striking observation. »

Challenger Wins Re-Run Vote to Head NewsGuild

December 13, 2019 / Steve Early
After a much-contested election process, the largest union of journalists in North America has chosen a 32-year-old reporter at the Los Angeles Times to be its new leader. »

Support Labor Notes: The Strike is Back!

December 02, 2019 / Labor Notes staff
Labor Notes is in the midst of our year-end fundraising drive. Below is the text of our fundraising letter, which will hit supporters' mailboxes in the first half of December. Donate to support our ongoing efforts to put the movement back in the labor movement at labornotes.org/donate. »

Film Review: Nothing But a Man

Lead couple of Nothing But a Man depicted sitting together, smiling.
November 27, 2019 / Toni Gilpin
You’ve probably noticed that Hollywood doesn’t turn out many movies about unions. But, says film buff and labor historian Toni Gilpin, there are some overlooked movies out there that depict working people and their lives on the job even though they might lack scenes with picket lines. This is her latest installment in an occasional series of viewing »

The Hard Fight at Amazon

Around 200 Amazon workers, mostly of East African descent, protested outside their workplace in Minnesota.
November 27, 2019 / Joe DeManuelle-Hall
Amazon is today’s most high-profile corporate villain. It’s the devil incarnate to activists concerned with labor standards, climate change, public subsidies, and the deportation machine. But for all the condemnation of CEO Jeff Bezos, why have no U.S. Amazon workers managed to unionize? »

Twenty Years Later, Remembering the Battle in Seattle

November 22, 2019 / Jeff Engels
The morning of November 30, 1999, was unseasonably warm as I jumped in my car to meet up with my fellow members of the Inlandboatmen’s Union at our headquarters in Seattle. At the time I was a business agent for tugboat workers and running for national president of the IBU, the marine division of the Longshore union (ILWU). »

Pages