Troublemakers Blog
May 13, 2010 /
As the sun dipped behind California Hall on UC Berkeley's campus last night, a team of hunger strikers, both students and campus workers, emerged with agreements from a recalcitrant administration to evaluate several of their demands. The hugs, shaking hands, smiles, and bread-breaking made it clear that the struggle produced far more than pieces of paper, »
May 12, 2010 /
LGBTQ activists made sure clients at San Francisco's Westin St. Francis hotel knew that "Workers' rights are hot!" Leading up to the frenzied San Francisco Gay Pride events in June, Pride at Work (the LGBTQ affiliate group of the AFL-CIO) reminded revelers to respect workers' rights while waving their rainbow flags. Pride event crowds have been estimated at »
May 12, 2010 /
Nearly every book written about the UFW has placed Cesar Chavez front and center, and most of them have portrayed him as a cross between Gandhi and Jesus Christ. Miriam Pawel’s fine account of the rise and fall of the United Farm Workers Union has the great virtue of not making Chavez its main protagonist. Instead, she tells the story of the UFW through the »
May 06, 2010 /
Image-conscious global brand operating in a repressive environment seeks to downplay workers’ complaints. No surprise. But this story has a couple of twists. For one, the repressive environment is the state of Virginia.
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May 05, 2010 / Mischa Gaus
Carolyn Humphries, a gastroenterology technician and member of PASNAP, has uploaded a great video documenting her union’s strike at the Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia the past four weeks.
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April 29, 2010 / Steve Early
In the top ranks of SEIU, little time has been wasted on tears over Andy Stern's retirement from the union, and an insurgent campaign to replace Stern's hand-picked successor apparently has succeeded. Who is Mary Kay Henry?
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April 29, 2010 / Paul Abowd
Twelve hundred troublemakers found themselves inside the Dearborn Hyatt for Labor Notes 2010 last weekend. So they took the opportunity to march on the boss. First they heard from Aracelly Arango, one of 100 Boston hotel workers fired from three non-union Hyatt hotels last summer.
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April 29, 2010 /
Just a few miles from Nike’s global headquarters in Oregon last night, two Honduran workers revealed Nike’s family-destroying labor practices.
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April 28, 2010 / Paul Abowd
A long caravan of cars pulled out of the Labor Notes Conference last Friday to join restaurant workers down the street in front of Andiamo, a fine dining chain in Metro Detroit. The raucous march and street theatrics were the latest action in a »
April 27, 2010 /
Labor organizing requires grueling hours on the road, which is why most of us have become devout podcast subscribers. Built on a solid reputation of entertaining and nuanced storytelling, "This American Life" is often at the top of most organizers’ playlists. But as organizers we still remain expert listeners trained to recognize the siren call of an anti- »