Troublemakers Blog
February 20, 2012 / Mark Brenner
Hard to believe, but a scrappy rank-and-file magazine and organizing institute, founded in 1979 to bring together leaders from an inspiring string of wildcat strikes and union reform caucuses, turns 33 today.
Labor Notes has grown a lot since then, training thousands of activists at 10 regional Troublemaker Schools »
February 17, 2012 /
Though it’s passed the legislature twice before, a bill to establish a single-payer universal health insurance system in California failed in the state senate in January. Democrats and much of labor hung back, showing how the national health care law looms over state efforts.
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February 09, 2012 /
Like public sector workers everywhere, New York City’s transit workers face a withering attack on our compensation and our collective organization. The conditions for austerity began long ago, but resistance to these political decisions is possible, though not easy.
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February 07, 2012 /
When millions lost their jobs and homes when the credit bubble burst in 2008, one slower-motion rip-off gained speed as well. In 2009, 50 million workers lost over $1 trillion invested in their 401(k) retirement accounts.
The dream of a dignified retirement didn’t just evaporate, however. It has been systematically stolen over decades.
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February 06, 2012 / Mischa Gaus
The media watchdog group FAIR followed up Jeff Ballinger's piece for Labor Notes with a segment on their weekly round-up show "Counterspin." Ballinger questioned the motivations behind Apple's response to reports on appalling factory conditions.
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February 03, 2012 /
More than 100 warehouse workers in California threatened with retaliatory firing won in court Wednesday the right to keep their jobs.
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January 27, 2012 /
After workers at an Inland Empire warehouse began organizing, their company was fined for breaking the law. But now Walmart's contractor is ending their jobs—and the workers are calling it retaliation.
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January 20, 2012 /
Machinists at Manitowoc Crane in Wisconsin voted 112-59 yesterday to end their nine-week strike over union rights. “The outcome isn't what we wanted,” said bargaining committeeman Craig Holschbach.
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January 17, 2012 /
Three New Year appointments to the National Labor Relations Board assure that it will continue to operate. But while unions are celebrating the NLRB’s ability to keep the lights on, along with a handful of union-supportive decisions by the board, the hard fact is that even when the NLRB is operational, it doesn’t work for workers.
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January 12, 2012 / Steve Early
One hundred years ago today, thousands of angry textile workers abandoned their looms and poured into the frigid streets of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Like Occupy Wall Street in our own gilded age, this unexpected grassroots protest cast a dramatic spotlight on the problem of social and economic inequality. In all of American labor history, there are few better »