WADE RATHKE is the founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, and Author of "Nuts & Bolts", "Citizen Wealth", "Global Grassroots", and "The Battle for the 9th Ward".
New Orleans In New Orleans, Local 100 has represented “hoppers” – the garbage laborers on the back of the truck or hopper as it’s called – for more than 30 years. These are temporary workers who do an essential, but tough, dirty, and often disrespected job for the city. The job has changed …
Cleveland SEIU’s Workers United has now won more than 700 elections covering 15,000 workers at Starbucks coffeehouses around the United States over the last four years or so. There has been no recent news indicating any progress in collective bargaining between the union and the company for more than a year to my reckoning. …
New Orleans Bill Becker was president of the Arkansas AFL-CIO from 1964 to 1996. He passed away in 1997, shortly after retiring. I met Bill in 1970 in the fall after founding ACORN in Little Rock. I used to drop in and see him every month or so, asking advice, having a cup …