Florida - a place of sunny beaches, wholesome resorts, and slave labor. Just this December, three Florida fruit pickers were found after escaping an employer who brutally beat them and forced them to work as slaves for over a year.

With their industry caught in a deep crisis of overcapacity, the Big Three auto companies demanded brutal concessions on all fronts, and the United Auto Workers’ leadership delivered. In a series of carefully-orchestrated contract votes at General Motors, Chrysler, and (as we go to press) Ford, the UAW bureaucracy is pushing through a sell-out of historic proportions.

This July, six fleet workers at Zipcar, including Socialist Alternative member Chris Manschreck, voted unanimously to join Teamsters Local 25. Zipcar is a car-sharing service operating in Boston and seven other cities. The six-person bargaining unit is responsible for evaluating and maintaining Zipcar’s 700+ cars in Boston. Justice’s Patrick Ayers interviewed his newest Teamster brothers.

As Corporate American continues to attack workers’ wages, working conditions, and benefits, the need for a fighting labor movement is more vital than ever.

At the University of Minnesota this fall, the best classes on economics and public policy won't be taught in classrooms by accredited professors; they will be taught on picket lines by 3500 low-paid workers on campus, who are set to strike on Sept. 5th.

Workers at the Gualberto Villarroel oil refinery in Bolivia are appealing for international support after union activists were fired for protesting the two-tier labor system at the refinery. Although the refinery is now controlled by the left-wing government of Evo Morales, the government has yet to take action to reinstate the workers. Please send protest e-mails in support of these workers!

Iraqi workers have begun to take action to stop a new U.S. imposed law that would sell off Iraq’s immense energy resources to Big Oil.

An interview with a Barnes & Noble worker who was fired for starting a union drive in his workplace.

On Wednesday March 28, Circuit City abruptly fired 3,400 workers. Without warning, these workers were handed termination papers addressed “To Whom it May Concern” and promptly escorted of the premises. Why? They were “overpaid.”

An interview with a shop steward at Visteon U.K., a spin-off from Ford, where over 2,000 workers defied a ruthless multi-national corporation as well as their own union officials. Not only did they refuse to sign up to the company's concession package on threat of bankruptcy, they forced management to give all the workers a 4.25% raise.

On December 2, 17 part-time workers at the Boston’s Children’s Museum (BCM) were told they would be laid-off because of construction scheduled to start on December 31. Previously, the workers had been promised that they all would be able to keep their jobs during the three months the museum would be closed for renovations. In addition, the workers were told that they would have to reapply for their old positions when the museum re-opened.

Shortly after taking office, Democrats in the new Congress proposed to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour (phased in over two years). Does this mean that they have suddenly stopped supporting the interests of big business and started supporting ordinary people instead?

For 12 weeks, 15,000 workers employed at 16 Goodyear plants in the US and Canada crippled one of the world’s largest tire manufacturers. While the strike showcased the power these workers had over a key section of the auto industry, the loss of 1,100 jobs in the final agreement shows the need for unions to adopt new fighting policies.

The unleashing of free-market, capitalist forces has deepened the chasm of inequality between rich and poor, capitalist and worker, both across the globe and within all countries. Recent reports show that inequalities of wealth ownership and income are accelerating everywhere.

This winter marks the 70th anniversary of the 44-day GM sit-down strike. This organized the largest automaker in the world and established the United Auto Workers (UAW) as one of the most powerful unions in the U.S. The impressive gains they won in the 1930s led auto jobs to be seen as the symbol of good union jobs with high wages and solid benefits.