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...
The young man in Cleveland Clinic Akron General’s behavioral crisis intervention unit hadn’t communicated much during his hospitalization, but he showed no signs of violence until Brian Eckley tried to draw his blood early one morning. The patient stood up, sat back down, rose again and...
Early in the school year, a kindergartner on Joni Meyer’s school bus got motion sickness and threw up all over himself—and his brother, his cousin and his laptop. Meyer pulled over, soothed the anguished child, cleaned everybody up as best she could and then drove the...
Montrell Steib recalls the young electrician rattling off his expertise in the latest technology and systems, hoping to make a good impression during his job interview at Atlantic Alumina in Gramercy, La. But a supervisor took the wind out of the worker’s sails, saying he’d be...
The single mom appeared at the church in Davenport, Iowa, where Vera Kelly volunteered and asked for some food to share with her children. But not just any food, Kelly recalled, noting the woman only wanted items she could keep in the car where the family...
Jim Key’s blood ran cold a few years ago as he listened to a former worker at Chernobyl recount the explosion, fires and panic that swept through the power plant as the world’s worst nuclear disaster unfolded in April 1986. The most wrenching part of the speaker’s conference...
Terry Bohuslawsky spoke Ukrainian before he ever learned English, attended Ukrainian schools in Cleveland and, along with his classmates, looked forward each year to decorating the elaborate Easter eggs known as pysanky. Bohuslawsky, whose parents emigrated from Ukraine, continued to honor his heritage in adulthood. He worked...