English for Activists

“Our parents have suffered from this cheap labor market and now they are getting old. Do we want to follow in the footstep of our parents?” asks an anonymous Honda worker in China in an internet posting explaining the motivations behind a stunning two-week strike that shut down Honda’s production across the country.

Apple's been all over the news these days, and not just because of the iPad. The high number of worker suicides at a supplier factory in Shenzhen, China, has built into a crisis for Apple, one that activists could push to crack the abusive relationship between corporations and their suppliers that drives wages and working conditions ever downward across the globe.

Folklorists Edith Fowke & Joe Glazer identify Hold The Fort as one of the two oldest songs to spring from the American trade-union movement.

Twelve thousand nurses in the Twin Cities set a one-day strike for June 10. They're pushing for adequate nurse-to-patient ratios and fending off a coordinated bid by management to introduce Toyota-style "lean" restructuring.

The anti-immigrant bill passed by rightwing forces in Arizona has mobilized immigrant and community groups. When will organized labor raise its voice loudly in opposition?

Hundreds of Farm Labor Organizing Committee members and supporters rallied in Winston-Salem North Carolina, bringing complaints of abuse in the tobacco fields straight to R.J. Reynolds.

With huge service cuts and layoffs looming, New York’s transit crisis is the thin edge of a wedge threatening to up-end reliable bus and subway service in communities nationwide.

Striking workers at the Supervalu-owned Shaw's Distribution Center in Methuen, Mass., have been marching from Methuen to Boston for justice since Sunday, May 23.

The 310 workers, members of UFCW Local 791, have been on strike since March 7 over the company's insistence that the burden of increasing health care costs be borne by workers.

Striking Shaw's Distribution Center workers have been marching since Sunday and will end with a rally at the State House in Boston Thursday.
Photo credit: Rand Wilson

Five thousand members and supporters of the Mexican Miners and Metal Workers Union blocked a port May 24 to protest the brutal police beating of more than 20 union leaders and activists.

Soon after declaring the first week of May "National Charter School Week," President Obama continued the push to open up public school districts—and their coffers—to non-union, privately run charter schools. Applications are due June 1 for the second round of his Race to the Top fund, which will reward states that jump on the charter bandwagon.