Democracy Now!
by Matthew Cunningham-Cook. On January 25, labor unions in the United States were dealt a major blow. The D.C. Circuit Appeals Court — the second most powerful court in the country and one closely aligned with the Supreme Court — handed down a decision declaring President Barack Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations
by Blair Braverman. In his “Progressive Honor Roll of 2012” for The Nation, John Nichols made what is sure to be a controversial choice for the title of Most Valuable Book: Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement by Jane McAlevey, along with co-author Bob Ostertag. McAlevey, who has worked
by Jake Olzen. “Workers of the world unite!” says the traditional slogan of the Industrial Workers of the World. The Wobblies, since their founding in 1905, have envisioned a global union capable of waging a worldwide general strike. By its height in the 1920s, the union was capable of mobilizing hundreds of thousands of workers.
by The Editors. Mark Twain once said, “New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.” Although there isn’t much evidence to dispute such a claim, perhaps it’s time to create some. With that in mind, we decided
by The Editors. If 2011 — with the emergence of the Arab Spring, Europe’s Indignados and Occupy Wall Street — was the year of the protester (as Time magazine acknowledged), what was 2012? Given the near total dominance of election coverage, it would be easy to assume that this was the year of a return
by Peter Rugh. The stakes are high for people in the Rockaways. More than month and a half after Superstorm Sandy, winter is setting in and many of the ten thousand residents of this Queens neighborhood still lack heat or electricity. Many have no hot water. And there’s another festering crisis: mold. It’s lurching up
by Jake Olzen. Matthew McLoughlin Hundreds of workers and supporters gathered in Chicago’s Cityfront Plaza on Thursday to speak out against the ways that major retail and fast food corporations are weakening the city’s economy with poverty-level wages. Marching along the Magnificent Mile and its throngs of holiday shoppers, the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago
by Matthew Cunningham-Cook. Many, if not most, in the labor movement were deeply disappointed with the results of the Wisconsin uprising, from which the anti-labor establishment has emerged almost entirely victorious. A few months after the uprising began, Joe Burns, a labor lawyer and former union president, published Reviving the Strike: How Working People Can
by Peter Rugh. The line typically forms at the door of this Wendy’s in Downtown Brooklyn during lunch hour. Not today. That’s because a picket line circles the Fulton Street sidewalk in front of the restaurant and organizers with New York Communities for Change (NYCC) stand by the entrance distributing leaflets, urging costumers to eat
by Kirsten Han. On the morning of November 26, 171 Chinese migrant workers in Singapore — all of whom were bus drivers for major public transport operator SMRT — refused to get on the shuttle buses sent to pick them up at their dormitory. Assembling in protest against unsatisfactory wages and living conditions, they pointed out
