A CTA rail worker laying down track is in one of the many occupations at high risk of exposure to cancer-causing silica dust.   (TheeErin / Flickr / Creative Commons). Today, after a much-criticized delay on issuing a rule to limit workers' exposure to cancer-causing silica dust, the Obama administration put forward a proposed rule for public consideration. The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupatio...

Melvy Lizeth Camey Rojas, Secretary General of the SNTSG Santa Rosa Dept, shows the scars of the bullet wounds she suffered in an assassination attempt in August 2012 at her union office. (Photo from Public Services International)   Guatemala is beginning to emerge from a grim history of military dictatorship and civil strife, but its workers remain mired in the nation's bloody legacy. Even today,...

To labor's relief, the Los Angeles Times building in downtown LA won't be under Koch ownership any time soon.   (Wikimedia Commons) The Koch Brothers no longer are interested in buying the Los Angeles Times and its parent company, the Tribune Company. Their dropping of their bid is a victory for unions that fought it, concerned that the Koch's anti-labor stance would inform Tribune-owned papers fr...

El Cerrito, COLOMBIA—They were hungry and frightened about their fate, and Omar Serrano struggled for words to steady them. “We are fighting for our labor rights,” said Serrano, president of a small, struggling sugar cane cutters union. “This is not about what is happening only here. But it's about what's happening all across Colombia.” But his words brought little light to the faces of the 40 sug...

A locked out Honeywell worker from Metropolis, Ill. at a pro-union rally in Madison, Wis., in February 2011. (United Steelworkers / Flickr / Creative Commons)   Over the past three years, I have spent plenty of time with Honeywell uranium plant worker and United Steelworkers Local 7-699 President Stephen Lech. However, I have never seen Lech as excited as he was on Tuesday night. “Mike, I got big ...

Union activists rally outside the Michigan state capitol to protest Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's 'right-to-work' legislation, in December 2012. (Photo by Bill Pugliano / Getty Images)   Last December, Gov. Rick Snyder outraged unions and progressives when he abruptly signed two bills into law making Michigan the 24th so-called "right-to-work" state. The laws—Public Act 349, governing public-secto...