Troublemakers Blog
May 26, 2010 / Mischa Gaus
With huge service cuts and layoffs looming, New York’s transit crisis is the thin edge of a wedge threatening to up-end reliable bus and subway service in communities nationwide.
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May 26, 2010 /
Striking workers at the Supervalu-owned Shaw's Distribution Center in Methuen, Mass., have been marching from Methuen to Boston for justice since Sunday, May 23.
The 310 workers, members of UFCW Local 791, have been on strike since March 7 over the company's insistence that the burden of increasing health care costs be borne by workers.
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May 26, 2010 / Dan La Botz
Five thousand members and supporters of the Mexican Miners and Metal Workers Union blocked a port May 24 to protest the brutal police beating of more than 20 union leaders and activists.
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May 24, 2010 / Paul Abowd
Soon after declaring the first week of May "National Charter School Week," President Obama continued the push to open up public school districts—and their coffers—to non-union, privately run charter schools. Applications are due June »
May 20, 2010 / Paul Abowd
Thirty thousand Chicago teachers and para-professionals will vote for new union leadership May 21. Four slates are challenging the Chicago Teachers Union incumbents, who have come under fire for a lack of transparency and an unwillingness to mobilize against the city’s school privatization plan. Seventy schools have closed in eight years, and the union has lost »
May 19, 2010 /
As the sun rose on April 21, hundreds of students approached the main gate to the University of Puerto Rico’s historic Río Piedras campus and chained it shut. Thus began an occupation that has now spread to all 11 campuses of the UPR system and has become the longest-lasting strike action of any kind in this U.S. island colony in years.
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May 18, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
Striking nickel and copper miners in northern Ontario blocked entrances to company property for five days in May, defying a police order to stand down. In what Steelworkers Local 6500 called a protest and their multinational employer Vale Inco called a blockade, strikers and community supporters in Copper Cliff and Levack mounted 24-hour lines complete with RVs »
May 14, 2010 /
Hundreds of RNs at the Bronx's Montefiore Medical Center celebrated Nurses Week by picketing their employer for a decent contract and safer staffing.
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May 14, 2010 /
Workers in the airline and railroad industries will now get to vote whether to join a union on the same basis—majority rules—as all other private sector workers. This week the National Mediation Board, which governs these workers, voted 2-1 to update its archaic procedures. Flight attendants at Delta Air Lines may be the first to benefit from the new rules.
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May 13, 2010 /
As the sun dipped behind California Hall on UC Berkeley's campus last night, a team of hunger strikers, both students and campus workers, emerged with agreements from a recalcitrant administration to evaluate several of their demands. The hugs, shaking hands, smiles, and bread-breaking made it clear that the struggle produced far more than pieces of paper, »