New York nurses upended the 100-year power imbalance between bedside nurses and nurse managers yesterday, voting to bar managers and put the union in the hands of the nurses who comprise 99 percent of membership.

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Lockheed Martin has seen fit to distribute nearly $20 million annually to politicians in Washington, and to pay its CEO nearly $150 million in the last five years. But executives can’t seem to find the money to pay for new hires' pensions or to maintain comprehensive health coverage at its F-35 jet plant in Fort Worth, Texas.

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When Chicago’s “Mayor 1%” Rahm Emanuel threatened to derail the National Nurses United rally this Friday, NNU didn’t back down. Chicago nurse Martese Chism tells why.

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Can concessions save jobs? Almost always they cannot, and certainly not in the big picture. Concessions can’t fix a collapsed market or stop offshoring, nor the 1%’s relentless assault on the working class. But concessions may save jobs in the short term if the union bargains hard in areas not traditional to our thinking and gets specific, concrete guarantees.

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Oregon activists are responding to escalating health care costs by rejuvenating a grassroots campaign to win a system that covers everyone—and pays for it by cutting out the insurance companies.

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Even a group of a dozen had a hard time keeping up with everything 1,500 union activists and troublemakers of all stripes—from all over the world—were up to at the weekend's Labor Notes Conference.

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Wisconsin voters chose Tom Barrett yesterday as the Democrat to face Republican Scott Walker in the June 5 vote for governor. Barrett won the Democratic primary handily, defeating Kathleen Falk, the candidate endorsed by most major unions in the state, by 22 points.

Barrett, the preferred choice of the state's Democratic establishment, has hinged his campaign on his independence from labor, and repeated many of the same talking points about public sector workers that voters hear from the Walker camp.

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Records are being broken all over the place as 1,500 union activists, worker center members, and workplace troublemakers are gathering in Chicago for the biggest Labor Notes conference yet.

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A new how-to handbook makes the case that women and people of color can benefit from formal mentoring programs that encourage their development as union leaders. The programs are most effective when paired with a broader education program, but they need to express a shared commitment to democracy—or they could simply recreate a new group of business unionists.

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Given the attack on the Occupy camps last fall, the assault on labor, and the spread of Arizona-style anti-immigrant laws, what would happen this May Day was an open question. Would it see the revival of the Occupy movement, allied with labor and immigrants?

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Gas man came calling just the other day. / Said you lease me your land and I promise we will pay / For what you got underground; we’ll bring it to the top. / But first we gotta drill a hole, make those bubbles pop....

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Hundreds of Vermonters took to the streets of the capital Montpelier on May 1 to demonstrate, rally, and celebrate the victories of working people.

Advocates, organizers, and working people from across the state came together to show their solidarity with the struggles of all working people.

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The oil refiner Tesoro took a $40 million loss after an explosion last year that claimed seven lives. Management is trying to recoup the money by forcing workers to pay for its mistakes, leading Steelworkers to prepare for a strike.

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When reformers take over at the union hall, they can make remarkable changes, transforming dormant locals into ones with proud members who put management on notice. But some stumble. What happens?

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Communications Workers at AT&T are back in bargaining just 18 months after the last group of workers settled a contract. Once again the company is proving to be difficult to deal with, spurring the union to forge unity across regions and between AT&T and Verizon workers.

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At least 2,000 people assembled in downtown Detroit this morning outside the General Electric shareholders meeting to demand that the giant multinational pay its fair share of taxes. Signs read, "We pay taxes, why don't you?"

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Despite the fact that 2011 saw the highest transit ridership in a half century, many regional and municipal transit authorities are facing huge budget cuts and steep service reductions. But several local coalitions are working to expand transit options.

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Rather than waiting for a right-to-work law to pass, Michigan unions are mounting a petition drive to make anti-union bills unconstitutional. They need 322,609 signatures to get on the November ballot .

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Organizing the union at the Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, was a bruising 16-year battle, the fight brought together African American, white, and Mexican immigrant workers, who were able to find common ground despite the company’s attempts to use racial division and immigration enforcement to try to defeat them.

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If you thought retiring would help you avoid the ruination of living standards brought on by the economic crisis, Rhode Island’s pension overhaul just proved you wrong. Pension cuts are hurting every worker—current, retired, and future.

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