All 398 articles by Kari Lydersen
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Features
A New Era for Worker Ownership, 5 Years in the Making
The New Era Windows Cooperative opens its doors (and windows) for business.
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Working
Columbia College Chicago’s Adjunct Faculty Poised to Strike
Unionized adjunct faculty at Columbia College Chicago appear poised to go on strike for the first time, with...
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Working
Mining Giant Sued Over Silicosis Epidemic
This week, the British High Court of Justice will decide whether to allow a lawsuit to...
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Working
More Blood on the Tracks
Louis Moore, 58, was working overnight on subway tracks in Astoria, New York City when he fell from a...
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Features
Blood on the Tracks
Railway whistleblowers get some federal protection at last.
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Features
Los Mineros’ Leader-in-Exile
From Canada, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia seeks justice for the deaths of 65 miners.
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Features
Chicagoans Flood Streets To Protest ‘Racist’ School Closings
City leaders' plan to close 54 public schools, primarily in black communities, was met with defiance.
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Working
Inspired by Teachers and Janitors, Security Officers Take Fight to the Streets
On Saturday, Chicago's Teamster City thrummed with the sounds of a high school marching band, the young...
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Working
Chicago Police Sergeants Reject Rahm’s Offer
The Chicago Police Sergeants Union is one of the city’s smaller public unions, with only 1,178 members....
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Uprising
‘Let’s Run Amok in This Pit’: For Anne Scargill, The Fight Goes On
BARNSLEY, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND—When Anne Scargill looks out from her front porch, she sees hamlets of brick... more »
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Working
Surrounded by Industry and Out of a Job in Indiana’s BP ‘Boomtown’
EAST CHICAGO, IND.—It was shift-change time at BP’s massive oil refinery in northwest Indiana,...
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Working
Chicago Middle-School Students Berate Officials: ‘Don’t Close Our Schools!’
CHICAGO—“We’re counting on you!” said middle-schooler Marcos Reyes to the row of...
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Uprising
Modeling Capitalist Dystopia: Honduras OKs Plan for Private Cities
Santos Cruz is a national campesino leader in Honduras who has spent practically his entire life fighting for... more »
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Working
Fracking ‘Boom Towns’ Rife with Workplace Accidents
A recent story in The New York Times documented the spike in serious injuries and health problems in...
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Working
Labor Takes Hard Line Against Social Security and Medicare Cuts
CHICAGO—Workers and labor leaders around the country rallied on Wednesday to demand that Congress &ldquo...
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Working
Midwest Generation and 100 Workers Plead with Illinois Pollution Control Board
JOLIET, ILL.—Richard Coronel grew up near the Crawford coal-fired power plant on Chicago’s southwest...
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Working
Laid-Off O’Hare Workers Call for Rebid After Irregularities Surface
Jermaine Sample’s mother worked at Swissotel in downtown Chicago for 10 years, stocking mini-bars and performing other...
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Working
United Workers Win WARN Act Victory in Baltimore ESPN Zone Case
When the ESPN Zone restaurant in Baltimore’s touristy Inner Harbor development closed abruptly on June 16, 2010, about 150...
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Working
Coal Mining the Old-Fashioned Way
Much coal today is extracted in gaping open pit mines where gargantuan equipment—largely unmanned and automated...
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Features
The Death Blow for British Coal
New revelations have surfaced about police brutality in Thatcher's 1984 battle with miners.
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Working
Illinois Coal Bankruptcy: Good News for Environment, Bad News for Workers
Clean-energy advocates cheered this week’s announcement that the parent company of Midwest Generation—which closed...
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Working
Fighting Fiscal-Cliff Cuts, Home Care Workers and Employers Forge Alliance
CHICAGO—Caring around the clock for elderly clients who suffer from dementia and serious physical problems is...
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Working
Rahm the Grinch? Janitors Say Emanuel Is Stealing Their Christmas
CHICAGO—On Tuesday evening, downtown Chicago was in full holiday mode as people perused the Christkindlmarket under...
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Working
Workers on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile Start a ‘Fight For 15’ (Dollars Per Hour)
CHICAGO—The workers at Chipotle Mexican Grill on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile quickly and efficiently turn...
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Working
Opponents Cry Foul as Arizona Copper Mine Blames Congress for Layoffs
The multi-national mining company Rio Tinto has long promised that its proposed new copper mine near the small...
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Working
Facing Job Losses and Wage Cuts, Chicago Airport Janitors Pay Rahm Emanuel a Birthday Visit
CHICAGO—A diverse crowd gathered outside Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home as dusk fell Thursday,...
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Working
The Freelance Life: Blessing or Curse?
The setting for labor lawyer Sara Horowitz’s recent author talk in Chicago was itself a fantastic...
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Working
Harry Malkin: From Pit to Paintbrush
CASTLEFORD, WEST YORKSHIRE—The two elderly women dressed in their Sunday best talked about the “human...
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Working
Chicago Passes Austerity Budget with Little Debate (But More Than Usual)
On Thursday the Chicago City Council passed Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed 2013 budget, which—although...
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Working
Airports Go Green … And, Labor Leaders Fear, Bust Unions
Outside the Westin River North hotel in downtown Chicago on Nov. 5, about 20 men and women in winter clothes...
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Features
Activists Arrested Confronting Dick Durbin About ‘Fiscal Cliff’
Chicagoans dressed as Robin Hood staged civil disobedience at the Majority Whip's office.
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Working
At ‘Official’ Budget Hearing, Chicagoans Find Official Indifference and Empty Chairs
CHICAGO—During three community budget hearings this month, Chicago union members and other regular residents voiced their...
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Working
Chicagoans Ask City Councillors To Fight Emanuel’s Cruelest Cuts
CHICAGO—Today, members of the City Council's Progressive Caucus are delivering the news to Mayor Rahm...
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Uprising
Chicago Chicanos ‘Read Out’ in Solidarity with Tucson
Books can save your life. Especially if you are growing up in a rough area, faced with discrimination,... more »
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Working
At Alt Budget Hearing, Chicagoans Decry Privatization and Job Cuts
CHICAGO–Labor leaders and workers fear that the proposed 2013 budget, which the City Council will vote on...
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Working
New Contract Spells Good News for 1,200 Chicago Airport Workers—Unless City Moots It
On Oct. 19, after four months of bargaining, UNITE HERE Local 1 union ratified a contract ensuring better wages and...
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Working
Chicagoans Give Rahm Emanuel Poor Grades
At an October 22 forum sponsored by Columbia College, three prominent Chicago political analysts gave Mayor Rahm Emanuel grades...
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Working
The Original Coal Country
Kari Lydersen recently spent a week in England reporting on coal mining and coalfield communities through a Climate...
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Working
Lessons From Essen: What the U.S. Rust Belt Can Learn From Germany
ESSEN, GERMANY—Stephan Haas has probably given this spiel hundreds of times, but he still sparkles with...
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Working
Lawsuit Sheds Light on Murky and Dangerous Warehouse Sector
Working In These Times has frequently covered the warehousing industry and the way that complicated layers of different...
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Working
City Janitors Are Latest To Feel Sting of Emanuel’s Cost-Cutting
CHICAGO—Pam Broughton worked for eight years as a janitor at the Fifth District police station on...
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Working
Illinois Unions Fight Prison Closures
In Illinois, the battle over slated prison closings is highlighting how unions that represent prison guards can find...
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Working
Romney’s Bain in the Ass
As throngs of eager Republicans and the rains of Tropical Storm Isaac have descended on Tampa, so too...
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Working
Chicago Teachers Move Toward Strike (Updated)
Update: On Wednesday, August 29, Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis filed 10-day notice of a strike. CHICAGO&ndash...
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Working
Rahm Emanuel’s ‘Leaky Jobs Pipeline’ Exposed
During Rahm Emanuel’s first year-plus as Chicago mayor, his office has issued a steady stream of...
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Working
Not-For-Profit Hospitals Make Billions—and Provide Little Charity Care
Not-for-profit hospitals, including some of the country’s biggest and best-known institutions, are almost entirely tax exempt,...
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Uprising
Chicago: Occupiers of Mental Health Clinics Face Trial
CHICAGO--On Tuesday, N’Dana Carter and others arrested for occupying the now-shuttered public mental health clinic in... more »
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Working
Chicago Protesters: “Take TIFs Off the Menu!”
Some unusual offerings were on the menu Tuesday at the Chicago restaurant Fulton’s on the...
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Working
NLRB Rules In Favor of Chicago’s Columbia College Professors
Unionized part-time faculty at Columbia College in Chicago gained a major victory, union leaders say, when the National...
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Working
Global Hyatt Boycott Heats Up
On July 23 unions and other labor and community groups called for a global boycott of Hyatt hotels, citing...
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