Troublemakers Blog
January 26, 2010 /
Besides raising basic constitutional issues with the regard to the right to privacy, it is highly debatable whether a safety board's ruling to put video cameras in locomotives will diminish the likelihood of railroad accidents. But what it will do is place blame for accidents squarely on individual worker behavior, giving little incentive for the company to »
January 20, 2010 /
Book Review: In and Out of the Working Class by Michael D. Yates.
A memoir blending real and created stories, and one that never loses sight of where the author stands as he turns his back on fellow economists who believed “they were learning the secrets of God himself” and navigates the minefields of a dangerous economic system while attempting to remain true »
January 19, 2010 /
Interview by Bill Balderston, Oakland Education Association and U.S. Labor Against the War
Iran has seen incredible tumult in the last few months, with massive street protests challenging the government, even as the U.S. and allied nations continue to threaten the Iranian government under »
January 18, 2010 / Tiffany Ten Eyck
If you're one of the fortunate workers that gets Martin Luther King Jr. Day off, keep in mind that MLK probably didn't write his famous "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" in comfy pj's and bunny slippers. Join up with local events commemorating the civil rights movement, or »
January 15, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
Yesterday Rich Trumka announced a deal with the White House: high-cost union health care plans won’t be subject to an excise tax till 2018—five years later than almost everyone else. Trumka made clear that the intent of the changes the unions brokered is to make so many groups exempt from the tax that in practice it will almost never be applied. But why build a »
January 14, 2010 /
Chanting “Si se puede! Yes we can!,” a feet-stomping, fist-pumping crowd squeezed into St. Anne’s Church for a rally yesterday urging Congress not to waste any more time and reform the nation’s immigration laws.
»
January 14, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
In 2007 Teamsters in scores of small Chicago shops, and a few big ones, capped years of organizing against corrupt leaders and stolen elections by electing a reform slate to head 11,000-member Local 743. Attendees at the 2008 Labor Notes Conference heard President Richard Berg tell the inspiring story of how persistence had enabled the slate to slash officers’ »
January 13, 2010 / Steve Early
One unique aspect of the Labor Notes Conference is the special meetings that allow far-flung activists to gather and share information on a rare cross-union basis. This year's April 23-25 conference in Detroit will feature a daylong meeting of those involved in organizing and representing home-based workers— »
January 11, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
Auto workers outshone the tea-party types as dueling demonstrations took place in the snow outside the Detroit Auto Show today. Small numbers of auto workers gathered to say government should use its role in the auto bailout to direct the factories toward job-creating green products such as high- »
January 11, 2010 /
The theory behind the so-called “Cadillac tax” on high-premium health plans is that people like Betty Diamond have too much health insurance, which causes them to get more medical care than they need. And if people like Diamond had thinner health care benefits, the theory continues, their bosses would pass the savings along in nice wage increases. But recent »