Troublemakers Blog
May 16, 2012 / Mischa Gaus
When Chicago’s “Mayor 1%” Rahm Emanuel threatened to derail the National Nurses United rally this Friday, NNU didn’t back down. Chicago nurse Martese Chism tells why.
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May 09, 2012 / Mischa Gaus
Wisconsin voters chose Tom Barrett yesterday as the Democrat to face Republican Scott Walker in the June 5 vote for governor. Barrett won the Democratic primary handily, defeating Kathleen Falk, the candidate endorsed by most major unions in the state, by 22 points.
Barrett, the preferred choice of the state's Democratic establishment, has hinged his campaign »
May 03, 2012 /
A new how-to handbook makes the case that women and people of color can benefit from formal mentoring programs that encourage their development as union leaders. The programs are most effective when paired with a broader education program, but they need to express a shared commitment to democracy—or they could simply recreate a new group of business unionists.
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May 01, 2012 /
Hundreds of Vermonters took to the streets of the capital Montpelier on May 1 to demonstrate, rally, and celebrate the victories of working people.
Advocates, organizers, and working people from across the state came together to show their solidarity with the struggles of all working people.
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April 26, 2012 /
Communications Workers at AT&T are back in bargaining just 18 months after the last group of workers settled a contract. Once again the company is proving to be difficult to deal with, spurring the union to forge unity across regions and between AT&T and Verizon workers.
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April 20, 2012 /
Organizing the union at the Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, was a bruising 16-year battle, the fight brought together African American, white, and Mexican immigrant workers, who were able to find common ground despite the company’s attempts to use racial division and immigration enforcement to try to defeat them.
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April 18, 2012 /
The blockheads we curse daily on the factory floor are transformed by Gregg Shotwell's “large-caliber pen” into a bureaucracy “organized like a totem pole—one empty wooden head on top of another.” Such gems are found on every page of this selection of Shotwell’s Live Bait & Ammo shop floor papers.
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April 12, 2012 /
A campus organizing drive in Philadelphia once again raised a question that’s bedeviled workers seeking power against their bosses: Should they go with a smaller union where they know they’ll have a voice, or choose a big one with potentially more clout but less say for the rank and file?
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April 11, 2012 /
A Brazilian General Motors worker, Teodoro Antonio Pereira, was killed in late March while moving a die. Pereira was working Saturday overtime and working alone on a two-person job. To protest his death, on the next work day his co-workers shut down production for two hours for an in-plant meeting.
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March 30, 2012 /
Harvard has 73 libraries that comprise the largest private library collection in the world, the keystone supporting billions of dollars in research grants awarded to the Harvard community each year. Yet the Harvard administration feels its libraries are a drag on finances and is again threatening layoffs.
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