Troublemakers Blog
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. »
April 24, 2019 / Dan DiMaggio
Labor Notes has been busy across the country, organizing four big Troublemakers Schools already this spring, with more to come. These schools are unique opportunities for workplace activists from various unions and sectors to build organizing skills and swap strategies. »
April 23, 2019 /
A general strike in Poland’s education sector that began on Monday, April 8 continues with no end in sight. According to organizers from the two unions that initiated the strike—the Polish Teachers’ Union (ZNP) and the Trade Union Forum (FZZ)—on the first day of the strike 14,000 schools and kindergartens out of 20,400 such institutions joined the walkout. »
April 18, 2019 / Chris Brooks
The gloves are off in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Employees showing up to work this morning at the country's sole Volkswagen plant were read a letter from the company's top management expressing their opposition to unionization. »
April 03, 2019 /
On Saturday, March 30, 100 union members, labor activists, and allies met in Detroit for a Troublemakers School: a day of skill-sharing and strategizing about workplace organizing. »