Cross-posted from Crain’s Chicago Business In the trend-conscious restaurant industry, foodies are asking questions not only about whether their beef was raised humanely and whether their asparagus is organic, but also about the working conditions of those who prepare and serve their food. Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a New York City-based workers’ rights advocacy group, has studied the [...]

This interview is cross-posted from Truthout.org. by Amy B. Dean Immigrants’ rights are workers’ rights. These days, that idea is a principle held dear by the US labor movement. But that wasn’t always the case. As recently as the mid-1990s, many unions took protectionist stances against allowing new immigrants to come to this country. It [...]

The system known as “employer verification” is an outgrowth of the last major round of immigration reform, the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act. In the past few years, the E-Verify system has undergone some streamlining and revision. But it remains messy and problematic — for employers and for workers. The labor movement and the business community often [...]

There’s little question that the vast majority of restaurant workers in the United States could use a union. On the whole, their jobs offer low pay and few benefits, and employees have little job security. Yet they are also a very difficult group to organize: turnover in the industry is high, the workforce is largely [...]

At this moment, various plans to reform America’s broken immigration system are working their way through Congressional debate. On Monday, a bipartisan group of eight lawmakers unveiled a plan that includes what they call a “tough but fair” path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Last Friday, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with President Obama [...]

This was a tumultuous year for working people and their families. From the grassroots uprisings last winter to the low-wage workers’ strikes at year’s end, 2012 saw many people coming together for the first time and finding their voices. Below are the items that I would highlight as the best and worst developments of 2012 [...]

United Food and Commercial Workers’ Pat O’Neill talks about the difficulty of organizing retail and the new tactics that have been developed, shoppers’ support and Walmart workers’ extraordinary courage in the rolling actions leading up to Black Friday. This fall has witnessed a wave of rolling strikes and other employee actions at America’s largest private-sector employer: [...]

President Barack Obama’s re-election is a huge relief—we dodged the Romney/Ryan bullet. However, that’s not the same as winning a better future. If Obama’s first term is a prologue to the second, we should not expect to see much progress in strengthening the rights or bargaining ability of workers. Therefore, in Obama’s second term, we [...]

I have a concern: Teachers are getting pummeled. Too often, they are being demonized in the media and blamed by politicians for being the cause of bad schools. Right-wing governors, power-hungry mayors and corporate “reformers”—all ignoring root issues such as poverty and inequality—have scapegoated the people who have devoted their lives to educating our children. [...]

With Barack Obama’s reelection last night, we witnessed the labor movement once again, as in every successful Democratic presidential race in recent decades, saving the president. Its ground troops and financial backing provided the bulwark to shore up Obama’s lead against Romney. By aiding in Obama’s victory, unions helped avert the crisis that the election [...]

The Chicago teachers’ strike may be over, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel may have replaced the Chicago schools CEO, but the underlying issues that caused the rift between teachers and public schools officials haven’t gone away. Because our education system is such a vital public asset, we cannot resolve these issues in the context of a crisis. [...]

The outsourcing of good jobs, the elimination of pensions, rampant home foreclosures; skyrocketing higher education costs and mounting debt: Given these stark realities, the American middle class seems to be sinking fast. The renowned reporting team of Donald Barlett and James Steele insists it is no accident. Trade policy, tax cuts and other incentives that have [...]

“We are striking to improve the conditions in the schools. Right now the children are getting a raw deal.” That statement came from a striking member of the Chicago Teachers’ Union… in 1969. It still resonates in September 2012, when the CTU’s members have again walked a picket line. Although it has often been obscured [...]

Without serious accountability, the rallying cry for more “job creation” is likely to amount to nothing more than empty rhetoric.

Especially since movements such as Occupy Wall Street began [...]

In their attempts to silence the political voice of working people, conservative groups and millionaire donors have been disingenuous and anti-democratic. But you can’t say they haven’t been persistent. Proposition 32 — a so-called “paycheck protection” measure that will appear on California’s ballot in November — is hardly a novel innovation. Rather, it is this year’s [...]

The Democratic National Convention is less than a week away, and liberals are getting fired up. But at least one of the party’s key constituencies isn’t quite so excited. That group is organized labor. Last July’s announcement that the convention would be held in the staunchly anti-union city of  Charlotte, North Carolina—the least unionized state [...]

If the labor movement is to have a future in the United States, it will depend on its ability to show how the issues it champions are not just the concerns of a narrow special interest group. Rather, it must demonstrate that the well-being of all Americans depends upon the fight for dignified working conditions, [...]

Cross- posted from Huffington Post. In 2008, young people in America — including many who voted in their first presidential election — rallied behind a youthful senator from Illinois campaigning on the promise of change and hope. Now the incumbent in the White House, Barack Obama faces a difficult challenge in recapturing the youth vote for his [...]

This interview is reposted from  Truthout. Best-selling author Barbara Ehrenreich – probably best known for her 2001 book “Nickel and Dimed” – has long been on the forefront of promoting stories about working people in an often hostile media environment. Recently, she has been heading the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. An endeavor inspired in part by the [...]

Article originally appeared in Truthout.org An interview with Ilana Berger and Tracy Van Slyke of The New Bottom Line. As a still-recent addition to the organizing scene, The New Bottom Line is hardly more than a year old. Yet in its short life the network has been at the fore of several high-profile campaigns—including Move Your Money and the 99% Power [...]