Jane Slaughter

It’s not often that a city council race in a city of 100,000 draws national attention. It happened in Richmond, California because one big corporation was so shameless in its open attempt to buy the election.

After an attack by a patient, a nurse is in a coma and not expected to recover. “It’s an exaggerated version of what happens every day...Our members are so livid at management’s callousness.”

“My first reaction was ‘oh no, not again,’” said Mark Esters, an organizer for the Communications Workers in the St. Louis area. “And trying to take it all in. And then, what should our response be? The answer was collective action."

Trying to convince your co-workers that things can change? Labor Notes can help you show them that people no different from themselves have organized a union, or taken back their union, or put the boss in his place.

We troublemakers keep hoping for the spark that will set a wildfire of workers in motion, like in 1937. But that takes legions of skilled, far-sighted activists. Unions' job is to train them up—through everyday struggles in the workplace.

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