Troublemakers Blog

August 26, 2010 / Mischa Gaus
Two brothers who own four LA car washes were sentenced to a year in jail last week and ordered to pay workers $1.25 million. The verdict came after a plea agreement that settled 172 charges of criminal and labor-law violations, and shows the increasing heft of a long-running Steelworkers campaign to organize car-wash workers in the city. »
August 25, 2010 / Tiffany Ten Eyck
A 17-state bus tour is the keystone of “The Job’s Not Done," a ramping up of efforts by the Blue Green Alliance—a coalition of labor and environmental players including the Steelworkers—to get the Senate to take up a comprehensive climate change bill to provide funding for jobs in new energy technologies. »
August 23, 2010 /
Twenty-five years ago this month, the small town of Austin, Minnesota, captured the national imagination as 1,700 meatpacking workers struck the flagship plant of George A. Hormel and Company. The strike of Food and Commercial Workers Local P-9 touched a raw nerve in communities and workplaces nationwide struggling to confront corporate demands to extract deep »
August 20, 2010 / Tiffany Ten Eyck
Wednesday’s post over at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce blog (yes, even the Chamber has a blog these days) opines that the income disparity between women and men has an easy solution. All a woman has to do is make the right choices: pick the “right place to work” and »
August 16, 2010 / Tiffany Ten Eyck
UAW International representatives intent on cutting GM workers’ wages in half were met with a roaring reception—of boos—in Indianapolis Sunday. Unable to make themselves heard over the shouts of “traitor!” and more from the standing-room-only crowd of stamping plant workers, a rep finally asked, “Are there members who want to hear this information?” “NO!” was »
August 13, 2010 /
In oppressive heat, Austin construction workers labor without breaks—some without even water. A group that works with immigrant day laborers in the city mounted a “thirst strike” in protest, and spurred the City Council to unanimously pass a rest-break ordinance in late July. »
August 12, 2010 /
Bangladesh’s 3.5 million apparel workers—who are mostly women—left their shops and took to the streets this month to demand that the minimum wage increase to $72 per month. The current wage, the lowest in the world, was boosted to $43 a month, but as protests and strikes continue, the government of Bangladesh and garment companies are attacking unions and non- »
August 11, 2010 / Mischa Gaus
Sunday would have been Sabrina Greenwood’s five-year employment anniversary in New York’s transit system. But she won’t make it: She’ll be laid off Friday. Her union, Transport Workers Local 100, is trying to soften the blow by funding the laid-off workers’ health care with a special $5-a-week assessment from its 35,000 active members. »
August 06, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
The inflatable rat is back, as New York City Teamsters strike to say it’s not fair to pay some movers $16-$22 an hour and others—mostly Black and Latino—just $8. »
August 04, 2010 /
The women at Houston's port have endured disgusting conditions in their bathrooms over three decades, constantly jousting with our ILA officials and management over them—until just this summer, an aggressive campaign was launched and women finally benefited from a little outside help, courtesy of Houston’s new mayor, Annise Parker. »

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