Troublemakers Blog
June 05, 2019 / Barbara Madeloni
You’re at a union meeting, brainstorming for a campaign, when a hand shoots up. “What we need is better messaging. Can we get a billboard? Maybe we could make a meme.”
We’ve all been there. Maybe you’ve said it yourself. It seems like common sense that if we can just find the right words and the correct medium, we’ll win over our fellow workers, or the community »
May 24, 2019 / Dan DiMaggio
Members of Electrical Workers (UE) Locals 506 and 618 rallied with supporters May 17 in Pittsburgh outside the Wabtec shareholders’ meeting. Wabtec, which completed its acquisition of GE Transportation in February, is still demanding a two-tier contract that would slash the average wage by $12 an hour. »
May 20, 2019 /
Originally published at rankandfile.ca.
On Tuesday, May 14, the majority of Winnipeg Transit drivers, members of Transit (ATU) Local 1505, did not enforce payment from transit riders. This “fare strike” is the first time the ATU has done this type of action in North »
May 17, 2019 /
Larry Hanley spent 40 years in the Amalgamated Transit Union, and he died at his post on May 7 after serving almost nine years as the international president. »
May 10, 2019 / Jane Slaughter
Being on strike is “kinda scary,” said one picketing nurse in Toledo, Ohio—but “kinda empowering,” broke in another. “We’re doing this for nurses across the board.” »
May 10, 2019 / Barbara Madeloni
The ivory tower of academia does not protect its workers. Across the country, austerity politics are bleeding colleges and universities dry, opening the door for the corporate takeover of higher education. But, like their colleagues in elementary and secondary education, higher education workers are fighting back. »
May 07, 2019 /
Eric Blanc’s Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics offers a sharp summary of the lessons of last spring’s teacher insurgencies. He drives home the points that (1) strikes are the source of our power and (2) if it can happen there, it can happen here. »
May 01, 2019 / Saurav Sarkar
In April the U.S. government carried out its largest workplace raid on immigrants in 10 years, detaining 280 people in Texas.
It’s the latest attack by a president who campaigned on the threat to build a wall along the Mexican border and has repeatedly tried to ban all migrants from several majority-Muslim countries.
The excuse for all this is an alleged crisis »
April 29, 2019 / Chris Brooks
The lines stopped at Tennessee’s Volkswagen factory today as workers were forced to attend an all-plant captive audience meeting with the state’s Republican governor, Bill Lee.
A recording of the governor’s speech, obtained by Labor Notes, reveals a raucous meeting in which the governor tried to praise workers while encouraging them to vote against the union. »
April 24, 2019 / Chris Brooks
“The anti-union campaign has begun,” said a Volkswagen worker, who asked to not be identified due to fear of being targeted by management.
Before each shift, the 1,700 workers at the company’s Chattanooga, Tennessee factory attend mandatory meetings where they do stretches while supervisors read updates from the company’s “JumpStart” newsletter. »