Mike Elk
American Prospect
Pittsburgh, PA, United States
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Past articles by Mike:
Potential Rail Worker Strike Caused by Erratic Scheduling
Workers must be constantly on call to work, making it impossible to live their lives. → Read More
Woodland Hills Alumni Push Summer Lee Across the Finish Line –...
PITTSBURGH, PA - Woodland Hills Class of 2005 alumni Ashley Comans is 9 months pregnant and expected to deliver her second child on election day, but this weekend the 34-year-old Black political activist was volunteering for Summer Lee, her former Woodland Hills classmate. At the same time... → Read More
Division Over IATSE Deal as Members Organize Wildcats Walkouts
NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA. - Yesterday the leadership of IATSE announced that they had reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) that will avert a potential strike set to begin at midnight tonight. However, it is unclear if the membership will... → Read More
How Clemente Got the Players’ Union Behind Curt Flood
Today in Pittsburgh, we celebrate Roberto Clemente Day. Forty-eight years ago Clemente, 38, died on New Year’s Eve while on a humanitarian and political mission to Nicaragua to ensure that post-earthquake aid wasn’t being stolen by the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship. Growing up playing... → Read More
Fracking Loses Its Bite as a Wedge Issue in Pennsylvania
Organizing for over a decade has made many residents recognize the ephemeral benefits and environmental dangers of the practice. → Read More
America's biggest unions are bungling the current racial justice moment and failing their workers of color
Unions and organized labor are failing to fully support the Black Lives Matter movement and Black and brown workers are getting tired of it. → Read More
When Henry Wallace Warned of ‘American Fascism’
The progressive vice president to FDR is the subject of a new book by Nation correspondent John Nichols. → Read More
The Great American Pastime: Squeezing Workers
At all levels, baseball owners are using the COVID-19 crisis to force long-desired concessions on everyone involved with the sport. → Read More
American workers are being hung out to dry during the pandemic
Frontline workers are being needlessly exposed to COVID-19. Neither the Trump administration nor the top worker-safety watchdog are protecting them. → Read More
The Future of Labor in Post-Pandemic America
The American Prospect depends on reader support If you are scraping by right now, please don’t give us anything. But if you have the ability to support independent, non-profit journalism, we are so grateful. Your voluntary contribution helps keep this website paywall-free. You can sign up as a subscriber with a range of benefits, including an opt-in to receive the print magazine by mail. → Read More
The Power to Slow Down Reopening
Workers can organize—and have organized—to ensure they can stay off the job until their worksites are safe. → Read More
Immigrant Meatpackers Fightback Against Intimidation & Death Traps
As COVID-19 ravages communities across the U.S., many experts agree that meatpacking plants, where employees work shoulder-to-shoulder, are the next ground zero for the spread of COVID-19. In several rural communities with sudden COVID-19 spikes, many residents say that the meatpacking plants... → Read More
COVID-19 Strike Wave Interactive Map
Each point contains a link to each of the more with more information on the strike. So far, we've identified over 70 wildcat strikes that happened in the last month alone. (Several larger strikes like at Instacart and Whole Foods happened in multiple cities). We suspect many strikes aren't... → Read More
The Coronavirus Is Jump-Starting Union Organizing at Delta
Organizers started a union drive for flight attendants at Delta last November. Uncertainty about the pandemic is stoking a desire among workers for labor protections. → Read More
Latino Organizing Boosts Sanders in North Carolina
The work is intended to build capacity for immigrant rights movements in the future. → Read More
The Emerging Democratic Support for Teachers Unions
A presidential forum in Pittsburgh last week cemented a unified endorsement of public education—at least in public. → Read More
Over 49,000 GM Workers Head Out on Strike
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK – Shortly after midnight, the scene outside GM’s Rochester Operations is tense with excitement, as onlookers wait for the plant’s first strike in 35 years to begin.“I am way too wide awake right now,” shouts one General Motors security guard to another.Then, suddenly, hundreds of workers begin to burst out of the front gates, high-fiving and → Read More
Kaiser Hospital Workers Mobilize for Largest Strike in Two Decades
A coalition of unions representing more than 80,000 workers has authorized a walkout that would begin in October—and used Labor Day to pressure management. → Read More
In The Media, Every Day Should Be Labor Day
The lack of attention paid to working people in our politics and media has had disastrous results. → Read More
How Immigrant Workers Are Fighting Deportation Raids
Workplace organizing is helping immigrants to understand their rights as ICE and other immigration authorities crack down. → Read More