New York's dissident teachers caucus, the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators, protest Bloomberg's school closings plan. (MORE)   The United Federation of Teachers, the union that represents some 200,000 New York City teachers and public school workers, re-elected its president, Michael Mulgrew, and his Unity caucus to another term on Thursday, April 25. As expected, Unity, which has been in power...

A Bangladeshi volunteer carries an injured garment worker from the Rana factory near Dhaka, Bangladesh, after the 8-story building collapsed Wednesday.   (Munir Uz Zaman/Getty) There are few ways to make a decent living in Bangladesh, but there are many ways to die trying. The cruel weight of that reality bore down on a Dhaka factory complex on Wednesday as it crashed to the ground and instantly e...

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attend a memorial service at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for the firefighters who were killed in a huge blast at a Texas fertilizer plant last week.   (Jewel Samad/ AFP / Getty Images) Today, President Obama spoke at a memorial service at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for the 15 people who were killed in the West Chemical and Fertilize...

Workers from MTA New York City Transit renewed a section of track near Hoyt-Schermerhorn in August of 2011. Railway maintenance work, even in situations like these, can be extremely dangerous.   (Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Leonard Wiggins/Flickr) Louis Moore, 58, was working overnight on subway tracks in Astoria, New York City when he fell from a catwalk onto the tracks and was  killed ...

Bangladeshi garment workers march in 2011 to commemorate the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in the United States and the deaths of over 500 Bangladeshi garment workers since 1990.   (Wikimedia Commons) I think that’s wrong. Bangladesh may or may not need tougher workplace safety rules, but it’s entirely appropriate for Bangladesh to have different—and, indeed, lower—workplace safety s...

Seven different government agencies were tasked with regulating the West, Texas fertilizer plant that exploded on April 18. (Wikimedia Commons)   The twin tragedies of last week—the Boston Marathon bombing and the West Texas Chemical and Fertilizer plant explosion—received vastly unequal media attention. While reporters pored over every detail of the Boston story (including some “facts” that turne...

Workers from Chicago fast food and retail outlets strike for improved wages, benefits and work conditions, as well as the right to unionize. (Aaron Cynic)   On a normal day, Sonia Acuña, a petite 41-year old mother of four, puts on her bright red McDonald’s cap and reports to work at a branch of the giant hamburger chain in Chicago’s main rail terminal, Union Station. But today, in cold and drizzl...

The long hours Americans put in at work aren't just stressing us out, according to a new study by Dr. Youngjoo Cha of Indiana University—they're also helping keep our workplaces gender-segregated. The study, “ Overwork and the Persistence of Gender Segregation in Occupations ,” published in the journal   Gender & Society, found that “[T]he norm of overwork in male-dominated workplaces and the ...

Rick Perry's attempts to woo Illinois businesses, such as this ad in Crain's Chicago Business, could prompt Illinois to give corporations costly tax breaks.   Texas Gov. Rick Perry rode into Chicago this week in an effort to lasso Illinois-based businesses and herd them to the Lone Star State. At a press conference on Monday , Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel met the visit with derision. "I hope when he...

Joe Griego figures the bull was done with him in about 10 seconds. It was the longest 10 seconds of his life. On Nov. 22, 2008, he was finishing his shift at Tres Hermanos Dairy in Veguita, south of Albuquerque, when a recalcitrant bull refused to return to its pen. When Griego turned to ask a co-worker to help, the bull took advantage. “They say bulls are cowards,” he says. “They’ll attack when y...

The April 18 fertilizer plant explosion In West, Texas. (Erich Schlegel/Getty Images).   On Friday, as cable news networks sought desperately to fill airtime while waiting for the latest news in the aftermath of the Boston bombings, a friend asked me, “How come there’s no manhunt for the  owner of the Texas factory , which did far more damage than the Boston bombers?” He was right to wonder. The  ...

Some 500 union members and supporters marched in Baltimore April 20 to demand that government-sponsored commercial developments include good jobs for the city's working families, and to celebrate a new deal for unionized labor at the city's Horseshoe Casino development. (United Workers)   BALTIMORE–Local labor organizations are claiming victory this week after brokering a pair of agreements that w...