Alexandra Bradbury

There’s no bargaining in Volkswagen’s new policy. On closer inspection, it looks more like something anti-union forces have been angling to try. And it's suspiciously similar to what Tennessee legislators have already imposed on teachers.

What makes a strike strong? In a factory, your power is your ability to halt production. But the strategy has to be different in health care.

The Ebola scare highlights problems—lack of supplies and training, for instance, and short staffing most of all—that also hit at the root of much more common safety risks in health care.

Online retailer Amazon is opening its own mail sorting plants and sending public letter carriers out delivering its groceries at 4 a.m. Call it privatization by a thousand cuts. If you work sorting, trucking, or delivering packages, is Amazon coming after your job next?

Railroaders voted down a covertly negotiated deal that would have allowed huge freight trains to rumble across the western U.S. with just an engineer onboard, no conductor. “There’s a real rank-and-file rebellion going on right now.”

For Volkswagen workers organizing in Tennessee, it’s been a roller coaster of a year. The latest upbeat twist is a new United Auto Workers local in Chattanooga.

Generation Temp: Auto Workers March for Civil Rights Again

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“There’s a man inside that factory named Mr. Jerry,” explained Nissan worker Mock Morris before he began to sing. “Mr. Jerry! He’s head of security inside the factory. Ain’t gonna let Mr. Jerry—

—turn me around, turn me around, turn me around…” The crowd instantly took up the civil rights hymn.

It was no surprise they knew the tune. Some were alumni of Freedom Summer. Others were a new generation of student activists. Together they marked the anniversary with a conference and a June 27 rally at the Nissan assembly plant in Canton, Mississippi.

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