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Salvadoran janitors fight for better wages, supporting families here and abroad

Apr 22, 2024
Immigrants from El Salvador clustered in major cities often work demanding, low-paying jobs that are hard to fill — like janitors.
Nuria Gomez de Gonzalez from El Salvador marches in downtown Houston for better wages and hours for local janitors like her.
Elizabeth Trovall/Marketplace

UPS reaches contract with 340,000 unionized workers, averting potentially calamitous strike

Jul 25, 2023
The Teamsters called the tentative agreement “historic” and “overwhelmingly lucrative.” It includes, among other benefits, higher wages and air conditioning in delivery trucks.
Above, UPS workers at a Teamsters rally on July 19. A deal reached Tuesday by Teamsters and UPS was key to averting a nationwide strike.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Why so many workers are going on strike these days

Jun 28, 2023
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the number of workers who went on strike increased almost 50% last year, compared to 2021.
Above, striking Starbucks workers in November. Data show that the number of workers who went on strike increased by nearly 50% in 2022.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Film and TV choreographers are organizing their own union

May 31, 2023
They want the residuals and better working conditions other guilds have obtained for members.
Up until this spring, commercial choreographers — those working in film, television, music and on digital platforms — didn't have a union they could join.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Understanding the civil rights movement as a labor and economic movement

Feb 23, 2023
Legalized segregation was an economic system that determined people’s livelihoods, says history professor Robin D.G. Kelley.
Protestors hold signs reading "Union Justice Now!" and "Honor King: End Racism!" in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968, days after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Gen Z is the most pro-union generation

Many young workers have witnessed the effects of economic crises and are struggling with the gap between their wages and the cost of living.
Young Starbucks workers picket for their union outside a Starbucks store in Portland, Oregon, in the fall of last year.
Mitchell Hartman/Marketplace

Crisis at Christmas: Strikes disrupt the U.K. during the festive season

Dec 29, 2022
During a wave of industrial unrest, triggered by the cost of living crisis, striking workers voice their discontent from the picket line.
Workers strike outside a mail-sorting office not far from London. The now-privatized Royal Mail service says it can't afford an inflation-matching pay hike.
Mimisse Beard

For public good, not for profit.

Federal agency that oversees unions will get first funding boost in a decade

Dec 28, 2022
The National Labor Relations Board's resources have been stretched thin at a time when union organizing is surging.
The funding increase for the National Labor Relations Board comes at a time of high-profile labor organizing. Above, Starbucks workers on strike in Brooklyn, New York, in November.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

SEIU’s Mary Kay Henry on the Fight for $15’s 10-year anniversary

Nov 28, 2022
“What gives me hope is something that seemed impossible in 2012 is now very possible,” Henry told Marketplace.
Signs sit in a pile during a 2016 protest in Chicago, where demonstrators demanded a $15 minimum hourly wage.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Panel will set wages and conditions for 500,000 California fast food workers

Sep 5, 2022
The approach is rare in the U.S., but common in other industrialized countries.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the FAST Recovery Act on Labor Day.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images