Troublemakers Blog
October 26, 2017 / Dan DiMaggio
The most important actions by union members this fall are happening on, of all places, the football field.
If other unions are smart, they'll take advantage of this moment. They'll use the fact that every single member knows about NFL players' protests for racial justice, and start conversations in their own locals. »
October 20, 2017 / Chris Brooks
According to Kroger, sports partisanship on the job is OK but union partisanship is not.
The grocery chain has long allowed employees to wear team jerseys of their choice on designated “game days.” NASCAR and NFL teams are among the honorees. »
October 19, 2017 /
Jane McAlevey’s No Shortcuts is an exciting book. It tells the stories of important struggles and it tackles the big questions facing the labor movement. »
October 10, 2017 /
New York City-area movers packed up the inflatable rats—all three of them—and declared victory in late August. For two months, while members of Teamsters Local 814 were locked out of their jobs, they had mobilized in the streets to protest a local company’s decision to drop its unionized movers and warehouse workers. »
October 06, 2017 /
Corporations are making the most headway on their anti-worker agenda by buying state legislatures, argues Gordon Lafer in his new book, The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time. »
October 03, 2017 /
As recently as 2014, just 22 percent of my co-workers were members of our chapter in our big wall-to-wall union. The rest—some 1,242 employees—paid the “agency fee,” which for us is the same as membership dues. The chapter had been defunct for several years. Few bothered to explain to new employees why it mattered to join and what power might come from »
October 02, 2017 /
Truck drivers seem to have re-entered the public consciousness in 2017—but today our understanding of the occupation is far from the freewheeling “cowboy of the highway” image of the 1970s. It’s also no longer synonymous with “Teamster” or even seen as a desirable job. »
September 27, 2017 /
In August last year Iris Montoya came to work at the Rio Garment factory in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where she had worked as a sewing machine operator for 11 years. At 11 a.m., the factory lights shut off and management escorted the workers outside, locking the doors behind them. »
September 25, 2017 / Samantha Winslow
You have to hand it to Big Business and their minions: in every storm cloud they find a silver lining.
The hazards faced by residents of Texas and Florida (and now Puerto Rico) come not just from the flooding but from business interests eager to take advantage of the crisis to toss out the rules—“it’s an emergency”—and squeeze workers. »
September 22, 2017 /
Homegoing, a novel by Yaa Gyasi, follows 300 years of history through the stories of the descendants of two sisters torn apart by the African slave trade. One sister stays in Ghana and one is brought to the U.S. One memorable character begins working in a coal mine as a prisoner, in conditions not too different from slavery. »