2009 Pittsburgh Convention Stories: Organizing

 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.
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For young men and women growing up in southwestern Pennsylvania coal country, the job options boil down to working in the coal mines or working in the state prison. Third-generation coal miner Travis Hartley says "Anything less than union isn't good enough."
The old U.S. Steel Homestead plant complex, site of the famous 1892 confrontation between workers and Pinkertons, is no more.  What will replace it -- and with how many jobs?  There may be an answer near Homestead, too. Those same questions are being asked nationwide. 
 Slideshow of images.
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The Force and Fury of Solidarity 
Comcast works hard to be the company everyone – but shareholders – loves to hate.   
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