How the Working Families Party Could Disrupt Philly’s Political Machine

by Stuart Elliott Jake Blumgart’s interesting article on the potential of the Working Families Party in Philadelphia appears even more relevant after the recent success of the WPF in Maryland. Blumagart writes This time next year Philadelphia could be home to yet another political machine. That may sound like the last thing this city’s fractious […]

Philadelphians Stage ‘Sip-In’ To Support Casino Workers

by Jake Blumgart Philadelphia’s SugarHouse Casino opened almost four years ago. Unite Here Local 54’s campaign to unionize workers there is almost as old. And at the end of the month, after a history of reported union-busting activity that includes alleged retaliatory firings, SugarHouse will face its first National Labor Relations Board hearing. According to the complaint filed with […]

A Swank Sushi Joint Gets a May Day Scolding From Angry Workers

By Jake Blumgart On May 1, International Worker’s Day, a half circle of Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) members and supporters surrounded the entrance to Fat Salmon, a high-end sushi restaurant in Philadelphia. They watched as Diana A. (she asked her last name not be used) walked into the restaurant to deliver a prepared statement denouncing, […]

Wage Theft and Low Wage Work in Philadelphia

by Stuart Elliott Talking Union contributor Jake Blumgart has written a couple of outstanding articles on low-wage workers and wage theft.  In an interesting cover story  on wage theft in Philadelphia’s City Paper. He portrays some victims of wage theft: an undocumented carpenter, a waitress forced to share tips with her manager, and a coffee […]

New York Named National Leader in Fight Against Wage Theft

by Josh Eidelson Advocates say what had been a ‘pathetically weak’ law now has teeth One year after New York’s new wage theft law took effect, the Progressive States Network has named the state the nation’s leader in confronting the issue. Speaking on a media call Wednesday, PSN Senior Policy Specialist Tim Judson said the […]

Introducing The Cry Wolf Project

By Jake Blumgart Big business has a long history of “crying wolf” to protect its own narrow interests at the expense of the wider public. Name a progressive achievement that seems sacrosanct today—clean air regulations, the minimum wage, child labor laws—and you’ll find that almost every attempt to achieve those goals was met by a […]

Unions Save Lives: More Lessons From the Triangle Fire

by Jake Blumgart The Triangle factory fire, which took place 100 years ago today, was the result of industry’s reactionary attitude toward regulation, fueled by their own negligence and avarice. (As I explained earlier this week.)  But there was another reason for the fire: Triangle workers did not have a voice at their workplace. Triangle […]

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and Industry’s Perpetual Resistance to Reform

by Jake Blumgart The blaze lasted less than half an hour. But in that brief period 146 people, mostly young Jewish and Italian migrant women, died in hideous ways, some burnt beyond recognition, some crushed on the sidewalk nine stories below. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire raged one hundred years ago this Friday, March 25th 1911. […]

Steelworkers, China Trade and Green Technology

by Jake Blumgart On September 9th the United Steelworkers (USW) union filed a trade complaint against the Chinese government for violating WTO free-trade rules, by pumping billions into the clean energy manufacturing sector. Six weeks later the Obama administration agreed to take up the case. If the governmental review, scheduled to wrap up in early […]

Six Months After Upper Big Branch, Republicans Still Obstructing Progress

by Jake Blumgart and Peter Dreier Six months ago, on April 5th, 29 miners were killed by an immense explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia. They didn’t have to die. Mine owners, government officials, and union safety experts have known how to prevent such explosions for decades. Some operators take the […]