Menu Home

In NYC: Roberta of Rego Park

You never know the characters you’ll run into in a Rego Park laundry room. Doing my mid-trip laundry with Jen of the mountainous bosoms, I ran into two of New York City’s most storied types of inhabitant. Neither one of which you can shoo away with a broom.

Center for Union Lies

A couple of days ago, the right-wing wonks at the inaptly monickered ‘Center for Union Facts,’ an arch-conservative national front group, took me to task for supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. When the national opposition sees fit to criticize the little guy, that’s pretty good evidence he’s on the right track.

Why Do We Need the “Employee Free Choice Act”?

Now that I’m back to labor blogging, some of you may be wondering why I care so much of late about the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s not that I march in lockstep with my fellow Progressives across the country. But I’ve seen many friends and colleagues get treated unfairly when it comes to labor-management issues and in the line of work I’m in, and I’ve heard far too many horror stories.

Labor Puts Weight Behind “Employee Free Choice Act”

‘Every day, corporations deny workers the freedom to decide for themselves whether to form unions to bargain for a better life. They routinely intimidate, harass, coerce and even fire workers who try to form unions and bargain for economic well-being.’ (–AFL-CIO) And that’s why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.

Good Meds: Big Healthcare to Fund Union Training

Frequently, my friends and colleagues in D.C. turn me on to stories that they think I’ll find socially important. This one was enough to help break me out of a momentary funk: a beneficial alliance between a major California hospital and its labor union.

The Employee Free Choice Act: Why You Should Care

Today, a momentary hop back onto the labor movement bandwagon to talk about the Employee Free Choice Act–and why you should care about it.

Minimum Wage, Maximum Win!

The project team behind the national video blog I helped work on with AFL-CIO and ACORN, ‘7 Days @ Minimum Wage,’ sent out this press release to celebrate successfully raising the minimum wage in six states on election day. Woo-hoo!

Jessica’s Story

I had never picked up a video camera in my life before I interviewed Jessica, a low-paid mother of four, for the 7 Days @ Minimum Wage project. Her searing story and her quiet eloquence, both of which emerged absolutely spontaneously, blew me and the ACORN/AFL-CIO project team in D.C. away–so much so that her interview is being shown in its 13-minute entirety, with one small edit to protect her privacy. View that story here.

Downgraded

As I begin work on the 7 Days @ Minimum Wage video project, I keenly remember when I first moved to the Windy City in 2003. I moved midwest on the shaky strength of a job offer that shook apart just as I was arriving. Now here I was, with an urban planning masters degree, without an apartment, and with the sinking feeling I was about to return, albeit temporarily, to the crap jobs of my college days. I wish it had been that easy.

“7 Days @ Minimum Wage” Begins Monday

It’s about to happen. On Monday, October 23, the national video blog I was invited to work on for ACORN and AFL-CIO goes live on the Net. Here is a list of the people who’ll be telling their own stories–including Jessica, the amazing mother of four whom I had the honor to interview–and whose story is the centerpiece of the week-long event.