Troublemakers Blog
March 16, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
It was a day like today—60s and sunny, decades ago—when I swung from the top of a telephone pole and thought I had the best job in the world. A few months earlier, in the Detroit winter, not so much. I remember phoning a customer from the pole behind her house and hearing her tell me she could see a man working on the pole back there. When I visited another »
March 10, 2010 / Jane Slaughter
When I told friends I was on my way to the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer conference, held last weekend, they all said, “I bet that’ll be a bunch of long faces.” I predicted not—these were people who’d always known the health care reform debate in Congress would come up short. Yet the 124 »
March 09, 2010 /
As health insurance lobbyists holed up in the Ritz-Carlton behind dozens of police in riot gear, thousands of health care activists surrounded the downtown D.C. hotel in a peaceful but pointed demonstration of anger and support for health care reform.
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March 08, 2010 /
Picking up on more March 4 creativity: 75 students from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, organized a funeral for public education March 4 in concert with the massive protests in California schools and on other campuses around the country. After the wake, they »
March 08, 2010 /
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's decision to close at least 19 schools in the city has not been well received. An unprecedented number of schools were slated for “phase-out” in late 2009 by the Department of Education—a gradual closing that takes several years while a school stops accepting new students. Thousands of »
March 04, 2010 / Mischa Gaus
“You’re the ringleader—the main problem.” That’s what Frank Buonvicino said managers told him as they fired him Monday. Buonvicino and 13 other union supporters at a Staten Island call center that handles complaints and inquiries for the E-Z Pass toll system were called in one by one and fired. He and his union are calling on you to help.
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March 03, 2010 / Mischa Gaus
GritTV reports on the arrest of owner of a New York boutique chain last week, charges that grew from a union-backed drive to remake retail by attacking its worst employers. (See this Labor Notes story for more on that).
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March 03, 2010 /
It is true what they say: no words or photos can describe the enormity of what we saw in Haiti. Nine of us nurses, eight from Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, just spent 10 days here volunteering at the public hospital in Port au Prince, working the night shifts.
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March 01, 2010 /
The student-worker movement that’s emerged in California over the past five months is gearing up for a strike and day of action. On March 4 students all over the state will strike, march, and occupy buildings to keep education accessible to all—and ensure sustainable jobs for those working in education.
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February 26, 2010 / Tiffany Ten Eyck
Get ready for a really big show—the 2010 Labor Notes Conference is on track to be the biggest ever! It’s got to be a sign that more and more people are fed up with strategies that don’t work. Come find out what it feels like to be together with more than 1,000 other troublemakers who are searching, like you, for a way to light some fires.
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