Al Polk will bid his wife goodbye on Oct. 11 and set out for New Hampshire with boots, gloves, heavy coat, windshield scraper and shovel in the trunk of his Chevy Impala. As the weather grows colder over the next few weeks, the fight for America’s future will...
When a group of custodians in York County, South Carolina, learned their bosses planned to sell them out to save a few pennies, they knew exactly who to turn to for help—a fellow worker who’d walked in the very same shoes. County Councilman William “Bump” Roddey,...
Carl Asher clung to a wooden post on his porch for three hours—yelling for help in the darkness, water lapping at his neck —before risking it all. He threw himself into the torrent below and, guided by a neighbor’s spotlight, swam several hundred feet against a...
Chris Frydenger’s young co-workers at the Mueller Co. performed the same work and brought the same dedication to their jobs as he did, but the manufacturer’s two-tier wage system exploited newer hires by paying them thousands less each year. Outraged by the unfairness, Frydenger and the...
Losing two co-workers to domestic violence over a three-year span left Emily Brannon and other members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 310L reeling. But their grief, Brannon noted, also launched them on a quest to save others. They helped to negotiate paid domestic violence leave into...
Robert B. “Bull” Bulman and his co-workers at the FreightCar America plant in Cherokee, Ala., only wanted decent pay and a safe work environment. But when they tried to form a union to achieve these basic goals a few years ago, the company declared war on...
The Goodyear plant in Gadsden, Ala., was always a part of Cindy Beshears’ life. She attended her grandfather’s retirement party there as a child, worked two summers at the plant as a college student in the 1980s and accepted a full-time job on the production floor...
Amy Dennett long endured understaffing, low pay and indifferent bosses in her job at the American Red Cross in Asheville, N.C. But she decided she’d had enough when management’s failure to provide basic resources forced her and her co-workers to build, jury-rig and dig into their...
A worker at the International Paper mill in Prattville, Ala., was performing routine maintenance on a paper-making machine a couple of weeks ago when he discovered liquid in a place it didn’t belong. He stopped work and reported the hazard, triggering an inspection that revealed a...
Bill Boone eats very little meat and avoids expensive gourmet foods altogether. Yet Boone’s grocery bill still tops $280 a week at a Kroger in Benton, Ark., thanks to profiteering on a scale the 92-year-old says he has never witnessed before. Corporations may try to blame the...