Workers to Pocono Medical Center: You Can’t Do That!

By Richard Negri We should file this one under: “Can they really do that?” The short answer should be: “Only if we let them.” How Pocono Medical Center (PMC) thought it would get away with flagrant disregard for the law, no one knows, but what we do know is that they’re busted and going to [...]

OSHA Fines Honeywell, Citing 17 ‘Serious Violations’ at Uranium Facility

by Mike Elk Federal action comes almost exactly one year after USW members were locked-out of Illinois plant by international company When union workers were locked out over a year ago at the Honeywell uranium facility in Metropolis, Ill., they warned that the unskilled scabs being brought into the plant would cause accidents at the [...]

Apple Store Workers Share Why They Want to ‘Work Different’

By Josh Eidelson On the day Apple celebrated 10 years since opening its first Apple Store, employee Cory Moll announced a campaign to unionize the company’s 30,000-plus retail employees. Moll sent an e-mail to reporters declaring that “the people of Apple are coming together to “‘work different.’” “The core issues definitely involve compensation, pay, benefits,” [...]

Hotel Frank Workers Are Fighting For All of Us

by Marc Norton The protracted warfare at San Francisco’s Hotel Frank is a bold display of the tenacity and resilience of a small group of workers in a knock-down-drag-out fight with union-busting bosses in one of the most difficult periods for labor in decades. This is truly a David-and-Goliath battle. When Wells Fargo Bank took [...]

Sen. Bernie Sanders: We Will Not Balance the Budget on the Backs of Working Families

by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) June 28, 2010 Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment in the history of our country.  In the coming days and weeks, decisions will be made about our national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American in this country for decades to come. At a time when [...]

In the Ditch

Richard L. Trumka President, AFL-CIO When your car breaks down in a ditch and you need it to get to work, what do you do? A. Fix it, even if you have to responsibly take out a loan—and work harder over time to pay off the debt, even if it means taking a second job. [...]

Protecting undocumented workers

By Harold Meyerson Nearly every day for three years, Josue Melquisedec Diaz reported to work by going to a New Orleans street corner where contractors, subcontractors and people fixing up their places went to hire day laborers. It was there, one day in 2008, that a contractor picked him up and took him to Beaumont, [...]

Progressives Should Support The AT&T– T-Mobile Merger

by Nathan Newman Why should progressives care about the proposed merger of AT&T with T-Mobile?   Because AT&T is the ONLY unionized wireless company in the country and the merger would ensure that 20,000+ T-Mobile workers would have the chance to join the 43,000 currently unionized AT&T Mobility employees with decent wages and legal protections [...]

New Report on Misery of Gulf Migrant Workers As Global Union Body Confronts FIFA about Qatar Construction Conditions

ITUC OnLine A new multimedia report uncovering the human cost of the huge migrant labour force in the Gulf States of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates was launched May 31 by the International Trade Union Confederation in Brussels. The International Trade Union Confederation will be using the report to put pressure on FIFA and [...]

Why the Republican War on Workers Rights Undermines the American Economy

by  Robert Reich The battle has resumed in Wisconsin. The state supreme court has allowed Governor Scott Walker to strip bargaining rights from state workers. Meanwhile, legislators in New Hampshire and officials in Missouri are attacking private unions, seeking to make the states so-called “open shop” where workers can get all the benefits of being [...]