Troublemakers Blog
February 16, 2010 /
A Labor Notes fundraising party in the Bay Area on Superbowl Sunday raised more than $1,500 to send young activists to the Labor Notes Conference April 23-25 in Detroit. At the “Superbowl/Anti-Superbowl” party, guests divided into separate spaces to watch the game or to ignore it. We asked for a donation of $20, or »
February 15, 2010 /
October’s national “No” vote on concessions is still ricocheting off shop floors at Ford.
The scene is the UAW Local 600 Ford Rouge DDMP (vehicle frame) Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Management “creatively” proposes a shift that would hurt family life even without overtime! But workers beat it back.
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February 11, 2010 / Mark Brenner
Want to know what chutzpah means? Look no further than TV's newest reality show, “Undercover Boss.” Apparently the titans of industry aren't satisfied that they burned our economy to the ground and got nothing but a slap on the wrist from Washington. They want us to like them, too.
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February 11, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
Ask a union member what’s the bedrock of a union contract, and most will answer “seniority.” Long established as the way to keep the manager’s brother-in-law from getting the good jobs, companies have learned to live with taking turns and following recall lists.
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February 10, 2010 / Paul Abowd
It’s apparent now more than ever why restaurant workers are urgently organizing. While members of the Restaurant Opportunities Center roll on with workplace justice campaigns in several cities, »
February 09, 2010 / Paul Abowd
An outspoken critic of D.C. schools Superintendent Michelle Rhee has entered the race to lead the Washington Teachers Union (WTU). Nathan Saunders, the union’s current vice-president, says the May election is a chance for teachers to take a different direction in contract talks with Rhee, which have dragged on for »
February 08, 2010 /
Call center workers in New York overcame a brutal yet predictable anti-union campaign, but are stuck as management stalls first-contract talks. The National Labor Relations Board, with only two of five seats filled as the Senate dithers, is painfully slow to respond to workers' pleas. They and their union, the Communications Workers, aren't waiting, and took »
February 05, 2010 /
I can remember it like yesterday, one of the great thrills of my sports-watching life. Tragically, Larry Morris, now living in a nursing home with dementia, can’t remember it at all. Absent a union that puts health and safety first for active and retired players, the NFL has discarded its injured performers.
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February 04, 2010 /
Here’s my 2 cents on the NUHW win among the Kaiser Permanente professionals. In my view, it was the result of several key ingredients—but especially the existence of stewards councils that continued on their own even under the SEIU trusteeship:
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February 03, 2010 /
The slumlord at the GM-owned Delphi plant in Lockport, New York, turns off the heat every day between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. "Little Hitler," as the general foreman is known, thinks his dial-down saves GM money. Hammering pipes and raining asbestos may ring a different tune on the company cash register, but Little Hitler can’t see the dollars wasted for the »