Category Archives: Unions

Labor’s Defiant Lady: Remembering Mother Jones

On Labor Day 2015 we take a look back at the great Mother Jones, who spent most of her life as a union organizer working side-by-side with striking miners, steel workers, and children. It is through efforts of this great woman — and others — that a great American Middle Class was born. Things like the 8-hour work day, the 40-hour work week, and child labor laws didn’t “just happen.” It took literally, blood, sweat, and tears to win what now appears to be slipping away from us again in the 21st Century. Labor Day — a time to remember workers. Continue reading

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Fighting For Single Payer: Rose Roach Keeps Hope Alive For A Better Way For Health Care In The U.S.

No matter what the U.S. Supreme Court decides about the Affordable Care Act, the fight for a single payer health care delivery system in this country continues. Health care as a human right. For profit insurers out of health care. “There are plenty of health care dollars,” Minnesota Nurses Association Executive Director Rose Roach tells us. “It’s a matter of allocating them to actual health care.” Read more about how Roach continues the push for single payer to bring our country in line with the rest of the educated world. Continue reading

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From The Ashes…Remembering A Teacher’s Hope

Why on a day when the State of Wisconsin is implementing Right to Work legislation just weeks after gutting public education would I have been rummaging through old documents and found the following hand-written notation from my father, a proud … Continue reading

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The Continual Struggle For A ‘Living Wage’

The struggle continues today to bring “A Living Wage” to workers. In 1906 John Ryan became a strong and ardent advocate for a living wage and distributive justice. If he were alive today, his deeply researched writing could be tweeted simply: @Living Wage. Greed benefits no one. Read more about this passionate progressive who fought off those of our last Gilded Age. Our November Progressive Profile: Rev. John Ryan. Continue reading

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Embracing Moral Mondays 7 Days A Week

For me, watching Bill Moyers’ PBS Frontline “Two American Families” on July 9 brought me to tears. This was literally my neighborhood. I grew up in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood, which is where the Stanleys, one of the two families … Continue reading

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Wisconsin’s Final Recall Hours: From Jackson Browne, To Phone Banks, To Voting

Tuesday will hopefully bring an end to Scott Walker and his Wisconsin-tradition busting. It won’t be easy. Those who grab power through lies and deceit never go quietly into the night. The Wisconsin recall is about so much more than unions. Continue reading

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Reclaiming The Middle Class: An Evening of Conversation

We are beginning a tour of talking to people around the country about the importance of reclaiming the middle class and the vital role that “We the People” play in “ownership” our country. Find out where we will be in May. Continue reading

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A Look Back in History As We Await The Next Occupy Movement

How different are the times we live in from those of past generations?  Are the challenges we face today of the 99 percent vs. the 1 percent or the overtaking of government rule by millionaires and billionaires that much different … Continue reading

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March Profile: Eugene V. Debs

As we await a spring revival of the Occupy Movement, a look back at the life and times of Eugene V. Debs reminds us that the fight for the 99 percent has long been waged. Read our March Progressive Profile and ask yourself if his words from nearly 100 years ago don’t ring just as true in 2012. Continue reading

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Playing Bigger Than You Are: No One Said It Was Going To Be Easy

Of the many lessons woven throughout Stewart Acuff’s book Playing Bigger Than You Are:  A Life in Organizing (Levins Publishing, Minneapolis) is the valuable perspective he shares about the day-in and day-out work that is the reality of union organizing. … Continue reading

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