Mike Elk is a labor journalist and staff writer for In These Times. Follow him on twitter @mikeelk.
A Grief-Stricken Randi Weingarten Engages Hesitant Unions on Gun Control in Wake of Sandy Hook
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blog“The teachers and the principals were absolutely heroic. So were the others, who were in lockdown, and kept their kids calm and quiet in what had to be a traumatizing fear. I don’t think it is possible, if one was not that in ...
In Leaked Docs, Honeywell Cites Obama Ties As Key to Anti-Union Strategy
Crossposted from In These Times' Working blogIn These Times has exclusively obtained a leaked internal Honeywell document outlining an anti-union strategy that includes leveraging Obama administration connections. The documents suggest that the megacorporation is deeply concerned about recent union activity at its factories and the bad press that has resulted (one example cited ...
In Conference Call, Romney Urged Businesses To Tell Their Employees How to Vote
Crossposted from In These TimesIn a June 6, 2012 conference call posted on the anti-union National Federation of Independent Business’s website, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney instructed employers to tell their employees how to vote in the upcoming election. Romney was addressing a group of self-described "small-business owners." Twenty-six ...
Koch Sends Pro-Romney Mailing to 45,000 Employees While Stifling Workplace Political Speech
Crossposted from In These Times Much has been written about the owners of Koch Industries, brothers David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch, trying to control the political process through hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to right-wing causes and candidates. Now, an In These Times investigation reveals that ...
Paul Ryan Closely Tied To Corrupt Union Accused of Violently Threatening Dissidents
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blogThe GOP has often accused unions of unfairly coercing members into paying dues--dues that happen to be a major source of support for Democratic candidates. However, an investigation by In These Times reveals that GOP vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan is closely tied to a union ...
As Some AT&T Unions Strike, Others "Scab"
Crossposted from the In These Times 'Working' blogOn Tuesday, 20,000 AT&T workers in California, Connecticut and Nevada went out on a two-day strike to protest unfair bargaining by AT&T. The striking members of West Coast-based Communication Workers of America District 9 and Connecticut-based CWA Local 1298 claim that the company ...
Is Union Busting to Blame for Power Outages in D.C.?
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blogYesterday, 15,091 Washington, D.C.-area residents were without power for the sixth day in a row, according to utility company Pepco spokesman Marcus Beal. As D.C. residents face record heat waves, many are upset and attribute the lack of power to incompetence on Pepco's ...
Scabs Brought in To Run Nuclear Power Plant During Lockout in Mass.
Crossposted from In These Times Working blogOn June 5, a number of replacement workers and outside managers were brought in to operate Entergy's Plymouth Station nuclear power plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts. While the replacement workers have experience working as technicians in other nuclear power plants in the United States, the ...
Microphone Grabbed Out of Hands of Reporter Questioning Honeywell CEO
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blogFor the last two years, I have covered union busting efforts by Honeywell, their close connections to President Obama and how federal agencies have assisted Honeywell in three different labor struggles since Obama came to power. In particular, I covered a 14-month lockout at Honeywell uranium plant ...
Amid ‘Sabotage’ Investigation, Honeywell Lays Off Plant’s Entire Union Workforce
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blogLast Thursday, May 10, at around 2 p.m., managers walked into Honeywell's uranium conversion plant in Metropolis, Ill., and told workers—both union and nonunion—they had to leave the plant immediately. Multiple workers present say a manager explained the sudden dismissal by noting that ...
3,600 Lockheed Martin Workers Go on Strike in Texas
The following article first appeared at Working In These Times, the labor blog of In These Times magazine. For more news and analysis like this, sign up to receive In These Times' weekly updates.Strikes involving thousands of workers in the "right-to-work" state of Texas are extraordinarily rare. Yet on Monday, ...
Why Does OSHA Move at a Glacial Pace? Democrat Calls on Obama Admin to Speed Up Safety Measures
The following article first appeared at Working In These Times, the labor blog of In These Times magazine. For more news and analysis like this, sign up to receive In These Times' weekly updates. WASHINGTON, D.C.—Republicans typically accuse Democats of not doing enough to streamline regulations. But at a hearing ...
GOP NLRB Member Passed Sensitive Information to Romney Campaign
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blog Earlier this month, Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, complained that House GOP members were blocking the release of a National Labor Board Relations Inspector General’s report. The report, which Miller’s office was eventually able to ...
What Politico’s ‘Wisconsin 1848’ Union Screw-Up Reveals
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blog The scene of the journalistic mishap, in Masterlock's Milwaukee plant. Yesterday was a red letter day for labor journalism, as Politico inadvertently revealed a fundamental truth in one of the most embarrassing screw-ups in recent news. Covering President Obama’s visit to ...
Labor Reporting in the Face of Danger
Crossposted from In These TimesThe use of scab workers is a sore on the labor movement. And, as I recently discovered, scabs can also pose a danger to labor reporters. That doesn't stop me or In These Times from getting the real story. But in order to continue to reveal ...
Canada’s Labor Movement Digs in for ‘PATCO Equivalent,’ as Lockouts Drag On
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blog It's usually difficult to get more than a few hundred union activists to show up to a rally in support of a small workforce facing steep concessions. But on January 21, more than 15,000 people showed up to a rally in support of 420 ...
Wonk Bloggers and the Vanishing Voices of Workers
This article originally appeared at In These Times Magazine, where Mike Elk is a staff writer Earlier this week, I got into a little Twitter battle with Matthew Yglesias after the prominent blogger tweeted out “"EXCLUSIVE: The activities of individual business executives have no relationship to the level of ...
Solidarity Inaction: Railroad Workers and the Occupy Movement
Last week , after Occupy protesters attempted (with some success) to blockade West Coast ports without the consent of the International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union (ILWU), some Occupy activists claimed that the lack of union support for the shutdown was evidence that labor leaders are sout of touch with the ...
Massey Mine Explosion Settlement Doesn’t Address Basic Problem: Company’s Anti-Unionism
Crossposted from In These Times' Working blog Yesterday, Alpha Natural Resources, the owner of subsidiary company Massey Energy, agreed to pay $209 million in civil and criminal penalties and in restitution for its role in the mine explosion that killed 29 men in Upper Big Branch, West Va., in April ...
Penn State Riots About White Men Not Liking to Be Held Accountable
If, like me, you scanned the crowds rioting at Penn State last night after the announcement of the firing of Joe Paterno, you may have noticed that nearly all the people there were white men. The riots were about white men not liking to be held accountable. As a native ...
Herman Cain, the Other NRA and the Stagnant Minimum Wage
Crossposted from In These Times Working Blog Over the weekend, Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather Pizza and former CEO of the National Restaurant Association, shocked many political observers when he won the Florida GOP Presidential Straw Poll. While it is unclear what effect Cain’s showing in straw poll ...
Troy Davis Executed, While CEO Responsible for Deaths of 29 Miners Sails Free
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blogLast night at 11:08, Troy Anthony Davis was executed in the State of Georgia for the 1989 murder of a police officer. Much doubt existed in the case as seven of the nine witnesses recanted their testimony (one even claimed that an eighth ...
Remembering Steve Jobs’ Record on Workers’ Rights
Crossposted from In These Times' Working blogYesterday, Twitter was abuzz with reactions to Steve Jobs' resignation as CEO of Apple, among reports that his health is in bad condition. Progressives and conservatives alike praised Jobs as someone who had revolutionized industry with Apple’s innovative computer designs. “Thanks Steve for pushing ...
Why Won’t Obama Join the Verizon Picket Line?
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blogCiting Obama's healthcare reform legislation, the company wants concessions. Union members want a show of solidarity Last Saturday, about 100 Verizon workers and their supporters from the Washington D.C. area —some of the 45,000 company employees who went on strike last week around ...
Will Workplace Safety Become a Casualty of the Debt Deal?
WASHINGTON D.C.—This week, Congress passed a debt-ceiling deal that is expected to reduce the deficit by at least $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years. The debt deal sets up a “supercommitee,” which will identify $1.5 trillion in additional cuts by Thanksgiving. Congress will then vote on the recommendations in ...
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December 20th, 2012
A Grief-Stricken Randi Weingarten Engages Hesitant Unions on Gun Control in Wake of Sandy Hook
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blog“The teachers and the principals were absolutely heroic. So were the others, who were in lockdown, and kept ...
November 19th, 2012
In Leaked Docs, Honeywell Cites Obama Ties As Key to Anti-Union Strategy
Crossposted from In These Times' Working blogIn These Times has exclusively obtained a leaked internal Honeywell document outlining an anti-union strategy that includes leveraging Obama administration connections. The ...
October 17th, 2012
In Conference Call, Romney Urged Businesses To Tell Their Employees How to Vote
Crossposted from In These TimesIn a June 6, 2012 conference call posted on the anti-union National Federation of Independent Business’s website, Republican presidential candidate Mitt ...
October 14th, 2012
Koch Sends Pro-Romney Mailing to 45,000 Employees While Stifling Workplace Political Speech
Crossposted from In These Times Much has been written about the owners of Koch Industries, brothers David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch, trying to ...
August 14th, 2012
Paul Ryan Closely Tied To Corrupt Union Accused of Violently Threatening Dissidents
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blogThe GOP has often accused unions of unfairly coercing members into paying dues--dues that happen to be a ...
August 10th, 2012
As Some AT&T Unions Strike, Others "Scab"
Crossposted from the In These Times 'Working' blogOn Tuesday, 20,000 AT&T workers in California, Connecticut and Nevada went out on a two-day strike to protest ...
July 7th, 2012
Is Union Busting to Blame for Power Outages in D.C.?
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blogYesterday, 15,091 Washington, D.C.-area residents were without power for the sixth day in a row, according to utility ...
November 10th, 2011
Penn State Riots About White Men Not Liking to Be Held Accountable
If, like me, you scanned the crowds rioting at Penn State last night after the announcement of the firing of Joe Paterno, you may have ...
October 17th, 2012
In Conference Call, Romney Urged Businesses To Tell Their Employees How to Vote
Crossposted from In These TimesIn a June 6, 2012 conference call posted on the anti-union National Federation of Independent Business’s website, Republican presidential candidate Mitt ...
April 28th, 2011
Massachusetts Dems Pass Bill to 'Eliminate Collective Bargaining as We Know It'
Originally posted on In These Times' 'Working' blogLast night, the Massachusetts House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill (111-42) to strip public-sector workers of their ...
September 22nd, 2011
Troy Davis Executed, While CEO Responsible for Deaths of 29 Miners Sails Free
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blogLast night at 11:08, Troy Anthony Davis was executed in the State of Georgia for the 1989 murder ...
August 17th, 2011
Why Won’t Obama Join the Verizon Picket Line?
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blogCiting Obama's healthcare reform legislation, the company wants concessions. Union members want a show of solidarity Last Saturday, ...
August 26th, 2011
Remembering Steve Jobs’ Record on Workers’ Rights
Crossposted from In These Times' Working blogYesterday, Twitter was abuzz with reactions to Steve Jobs' resignation as CEO of Apple, among reports that his health ...
February 16th, 2011
Irrational Exuberance: The Trouble With Hysteria Over Public Pension Shortfalls
WASHINGTON, D.C.—On Monday, the U.S. House of Representative’s Judiciary Committee held a hearing on public pension funds and states' shortfalls in funding them. Republicans have ...
'The East'
Why have you started a comedy festival in northern Michigan in the middle of winter?
Because if you were here in the dead of winter in the middle of nowhere (which is actually somewhere to us), you'd need a few laughs too ... Continue Reading
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