What happens when your union-friendly employer merges with an antiunion company?  If you were a Pennsylvania CWA cable worker, it meant a five-year battle to get a first contract and a continuing fight to get another one. That's if you weren't fired or laid off after cable operations shifted from AT&T to Comcast. Interview by Leo Canty. Video by Randy Croce.

When Pittsburgh's GM stamping plant closed its doors earlier this year UAW Local 544 workers came to the end of a long and traumatic road. A "triple whammy" of the Great Recession, corporate "free trade" policies and high gas prices devastated the lives of hundreds or hard-working people who had given decades of dedicated service to a great American industry. Listen to their voices and you can hear the Death of The American Dream - but listen closely  enough and you can also hear a fierce determination to fight hard for its revival.

The Force and Fury of Solidarity 

By Doug Cunningham, WIN radio

When Pittsburgh’s GM stamping plant closed UAW Local 544 workers felt its gut-wrenching devastation  – the result, they believe, of U.S. global trade policies coming home to roost. It’s a story that’s been sadly playing out for a couple of decades now nationwide, not only in the auto industry but for the whole American manufacturing sector.  Local 544 Financial Secretary Jeff Hall was one of the last few to leave the plant in an emotional goodbye.