At In These Times:

NEW YORK CITY—Flanked by a hundred-some supporters at a press conference on Wednesday, labor leaders and feminist activists announced a new initiative to push a longtime goal: passage of a citywide paid-sick-leave mandate. Wednesday’s event, held at noon on the steps of City Hall, marked supporters’ latest effort to move City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who will decide the bill’s fate. It comes amid increased organized labor support for similar campaigns around the country—including a recently announced effort in Portland.

All eyes are on Quinn because the law is already backed by a large enough majority of the council to pass and override a promised veto by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The question is whether Quinn will allow the bill to come up for a vote. As I’ve reported for Working In These Times, paid sick leave poses a crucial test for Quinn, a former liberal activist now viewed as the candidate of the city’s business establishment, and Bloomberg’s heir apparent.

Here’s the rest.

Thom Hartmann had me on his show The Big Picture to talk about my latest Salon piece, on workers at a Bain-owned company calling on Mitt Romney to intervene before their jobs are off-shored to China. Here’s the video.

At Alternet:

The rich are different, and so are their bankruptcies. For most Americans, politicians and banks have made bankruptcy an onerous, embarrassing process with lifelong consequences. But bankruptcy means something very different if you’re a giant corporation like American Airlines, which is wringing millions in concessions out of unions after filing for bankruptcy with $4 billion cash on hand – or if you’re a regional sweatshop like Pennsylvania’s W & K steel. . The family that ran W & K has repeatedly gotten caught burning their creditors and endangering their employees. Their business even drew a boycott from its hometown County Council. But now they’re doing just fine, because politicians and banks keep giving them money. A bank they stiffed allegedly took months to make them give up equipment serving as collateral on an unpaid loan – while moving to foreclose on four hundred-plus area homes.

Here’s the rest.

At In These Times:

Hundreds of Houston janitors have been on strike since Tuesday. Employed by little-known contractors to clean the offices of big name companies, including Exxon Mobile, Shell Oil, and JP Morgan Chase, these members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) struck nine buildings Tuesday night, and nine more Thursday night. SEIU, which represents 3,200 Houston janitors, says it expects the strike to escalate further.

“The first reason I went on strike is because I wanted to fight for my rights and to stop the intimidation against me and my co-workers,” says Maria Lopez, a janitor for the contractor ABM.

Read it here.

David Pakman had me back on his show to discuss my Slate piece on the evolving jurisprudence around bosses firing workers for things they posted on Facebook. Check out the video here.

At In These Times:

Following labor’s loss in Wisconsin’s recall, the leader of the nation’s largest transit union says building coalitions with riders, not organizing more drivers, is the top priority for his union’s future. Interviewed at last month’s Netroots Nation conference, Amalgamated Transit Union President Larry Hanley said that Wisconsinites’ willingness to keep their union-busting governor in office demonstrates the urgent need to change the relationship between public workers and the American public. “No matter how much money we put into electoral politics,” said Hanley, “if we can’t change the attitudes of people…we’ll lose. It’s just a matter of when and how hard.”

Here’s the rest.

At Salon:

Take C.J.’s Seafood, which provided seafood sold at Wal-Mart subsidiary Sam’s Club. Last month, some C.J.’s workers in Louisiana – non-union temporary guest workers from Mexico – went on strike. They charged the company with violating wage laws and locking them inside the plant. The National Guestworker Alliance helped workers organize and bring a complaint to the Workers Rights Consortium, a labor-monitoring organization. The WRC found that employees worked up to 24 consecutive hours, were paid less than 60 percent of minimum wage and lived in vermin-infested trailers on company property. One worker told the WRC, “It was forced work. They would come to the trailers and make us go back to work … We were screamed at and had to go to work. I felt like a slave.” According to the WRC, workers’ complaints to management were met with threats of deportation or violence.

Read it here.

RT’s Alyona Minkovski had me on her show Thursday to discuss my Salon reporting on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement being negotiated by the Obama Administration. We discussed the secrecy surrounding the talks, how such deals weaken democratic accountability, and the leaked text granting new rights to corporations. You can watch the segment here.

At Slate:

On a Saturday morning in October 2010, Mariana Cole-Rivera, a domestic violence advocate at the group Hispanics United of Buffalo, began the Facebook thread that would get her fired. She wrote, “Lydia Cruz, a coworker feels that we don’t help our clients enough at HUB. I about had it! My fellow coworkers how do you feel?”
Within minutes, HUB colleagues began posting supportive comments. “What the Hell,” wrote one, “we don’t have a life as is, What else can we do???”
“I think we should give our paychecks to our clients so they can ‘pay’ the rent,” said another, “also we can take them to their Dr’s appts, and served as translators (oh! We do that).”
By Tuesday, Cole-Rivera and four of the co-workers who’d responded to her had lost their jobs.

Check it out.

The hosts of Melbourne, Australia’s Solidarity Breakfast had me on their show Saturday morning (their time) to talk about the Wisconsin recall, the US labor movement, and American politics. You can listen to the audio here.