Montreal Bus Operators Find the Road Just as Bumpy as Their U.S. Counterparts
By Joe Maniscalco
Threats to personal safety and underfunding are making it tough for cities all across the United States to attract new bus operators — but those same factors are hitting Canadian transit workers just as hard.
Empowered Workers Are Making Unionizing ‘Cool & Sexy’
By Joe Maniscalco
With no shortage of expert analysis aimed at understanding the resurgence of union organizing across the country, the dancers at the only unionized strip club in the United States probably have the best: union organizing is on the rise because it has once again become “cool” and “sexy.”
The Head of Vermont’s AFL-CIO Wants to Democratize Your Union
By Joe Maniscalco
Vermont AFL-CIO leader David Van Deusen is sitting outside a tavern in Montpelier about to grab a beer when he starts talking about how important independent journalism is to the American Labor Movement.
Taking On the Boss? A Lifelong ‘Troublemaker’ Has Some Advice
By Joe Maniscalco
Frank Emspak has been making trouble for powerful elites his whole life. Sometimes as a pugnacious member of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers [UE], other times as executive producer of Workers Independent News (WINS). Now approaching 80, Frank Emspak is still mixing it up and making trouble — and he’s urging today’s generation of workers to do the same.
Delays and Loopholes: How US Labor Law is Failing Workers
By Steve Wishnia
U.S. labor law is supposed to protect workers’ right to organize — but employers regularly evade it by exploiting the slow-moving system and its weak or nonexistent penalties for violations, leading labor lawyers say.
Why Hardly Anyone Wants to Be a Bus Operator Anymore
By Joe Maniscalco
Sacha Alvarez was barely six months into her new job driving the BX40 bus route in The Bronx for MTA New York City Transit when a crazed man swinging a foot-long tree branch burst onto her vehicle and started clubbing her on the head. The February attack understandably left her dubious about her future behind the wheel — but she’s not alone. Cities across the country are discovering hardly anyone wants to drive a bus anymore.