Rebecca Burns is an In These Times contributing editor and award-winning investigative reporter. Her work has appeared in Bloomberg, the Chicago Reader, ProPublica, The Intercept, and USA Today. Follow her on Twitter @rejburns.
Dispatch
A RAD-ical Housing Experiment
Baltimore public housing tenants will serve as guinea pigs for a new national privatization plan.
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
Why Can’t College Be Free?
Three proposals to reclaim the promise of higher education.
Rebecca Burns
Feature
Eviction by ‘Rent-a-Cop’
An Illinois bill could 'privatize' evictions and pave the way for Wall Street abuses.
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
Pittsburgh’s Nonprofit Pirates
A hospital behemoth dominates the city, pays no taxes and does little for its lowest-paid workers.
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
Keystone by the Bay
Labor and environmental groups clash in Maryland over fracking.
Rebecca Burns
Feature
The Adjunct’s Lament
Even in the ivory tower, work is often solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
Schoolyard Syndicalists
From the Chicago public school closings, some students emerge radicalized.
Rebecca Burns
Feature
A Company Town Becomes Our Town
How a town shadowed by Chevron built a vibrant movement to challenge corporate power.
Rebecca Burns
Feature
University Tries to Nip Professors’ Union in the Bud
A cautionary letter--and the rumored retention of a notorious union-buster--show Northeastern is nervous about adjunct faculty organizing.
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
The Devil’s in the Details
If the Senate's bill is so good, why are immigrant rights groups so unhappy?
Rebecca Burns
Feature
Undocumented Immigrants Win Access to Organ Transplant Waitlists, and a Shot at Life
14 Chicago patients in critical need of transplants went on a hunger strike to change hospital policy.
Rebecca Burns
Feature
Is Higher Ed the Next Target of Corporate ‘Reformers’?
The proposed shuttering of City College of San Francisco bears unsettling parallels to K-12 school closings.
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
A Fracktious Debate
Greens are divided on whether to regulate fracking or hold out for a ban.
Rebecca Burns
Photojournalists Fight Replacement by iPhones
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
Mad Professors
The adjuncts are at the barricades.
Rebecca Burns
Feature
Out of the Pen and Unrepentant
Environmentalist Tim DeChristopher on the future of climate activism.
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
Where Unions Went Wrong on ‘Right to Work’
Labor activists retool their tactics against the bosses.
Rebecca Burns
Feature
It’s Not Easy Being Blue and Green
Labor and environmentalists face off over the Keystone XL pipeline.
Rebecca Burns
How Chicago Workers Went From Occupation to Cooperative
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
Can Co-ops Save Unions?
Labor-cooperative partnerships may herald a new strategy for labor--if they can get off the ground.
Rebecca Burns
1 in 3 Foreclosures Were Triggered by Bank Error
Rebecca Burns
Feature
Domestic Insurgents
In organizing domestic workers, a feat once thought impossible, Ai-jen Poo has transformed the labor movement.
Rebecca Burns
Feature
Is Life Without Parole Any Better Than the Death Penalty?
Maryland is poised to be the 18th state to abolish capital punishment, in favor of lifetime imprisonment.
Rebecca Burns
Pencils Down: Faced With Mass Closings, Chicago School Activists Mull a Testing Revolt
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
Shot, Then Shut Out
Chicago's most crime-ridden neighborhoods have no access to trauma care.
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
Prison Prep School
'Zero-tolerance' and 'tough-on-crime' policies put students in a school-to-prison pipeline.
Rebecca Burns
Feature
Supermax Showdown
AFSCME wants Illinois' Tamms Correctional Center to stay open. Activists want it closed.
Rebecca Burns
Banking on Detention: Demonstrators Call on Wells Fargo to Divest from Private Prisons
Rebecca Burns
Feature
You Are Not A Loan
Is a debt strike the future of Occupy?
Rebecca Burns
Marriage Equality, DREAM Movements Win Big at the Ballot Box
Rebecca Burns
Feature
In Person: Sister Activist
Simone Chapman leads Nuns on the Bus, who lobby for social and economic justice (and plague Paul Ryan).
Rebecca Burns
Housing Activists Take Aim at Fannie and Freddie
Rebecca Burns
Labor
Charter Schools Stay Open During Strike, But Solidarity Lurks Inside
Rebecca Burns
Seven Arrested in Launch of Keystone Pipeline Blockade
Rebecca Burns
Tropical Storm Isaac Deepens Man-Made Housing Disaster in Haiti
Rebecca Burns
How Climate Change Got Removed From the Agenda of the Rio+20 Summit
Rebecca Burns
Veterans Return Medals, Protesters Face Violence During Mass March on NATO Summit
Rebecca Burns
As the G8 Opens at Camp David, Thousands Rally in Chicago for Tax on Wall Street
Rebecca Burns
May Day in Chicago: Live Updates
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
No Vacancies: Squatters Move In
Growing movements on both sides of the Atlantic try to turn bank-owned houses into homes.
Rebecca Burns
Evicted from Tents, Occupy Moves Onto Sidewalks and Into Clinics
Rebecca Burns
‘Public Transportation Is a Human Right’: Demonstrators in 18 Cities Occupy Transit
Rebecca Burns
Feature
How Green Is the Green Economy?
Four environmental organizers and researchers examine the 'green jobs' buzz.
Rebecca Burns
Dispatch
Mexican American Studies Suspension: A Teachable Moment in Tucson
Some educators and students refuse to accept a new curriculum ban in Arizona.
Rebecca Burns
Vermont Voters Endorse Challenge to Corporate Personhood
Rebecca Burns
Senate Defeats Rollback of Reproductive Rights
Rebecca Burns
WikiLeaks: New Document Release Targets ‘Shadow CIA’ Intel Firm
Rebecca Burns
Palestinian Detainee Khader Adnan Agrees to End Hunger Strike
Rebecca Burns
Announcing In These Times’ New Agreement with the National Writers Union
Freelance contributors are essential to the quality and success of In These Times and independent media, and this agreement is one way to demonstrate their value to our publication and our commitment to transparency.
For more information about the National Writers Union, visit nwu.org.
Read the full agreement, which reaffirms a floor for the rates of our freelance editorial content, as well as our current rates (which are higher) and submissions guidelines below.