Every time I get to meet a shop steward and listen to them talk for more than 5 minutes, I end up thinking that they should be blogging. The voice is there and as it gets out more it will grow in strength.

There's a gap in culture and real barriers in technology, but in the mid-to-long run I think these worlds will converge in very effective and powerful ways.

Goodyear workers across the country in 16 plants have been on strike for 10 weeks now.  I've seen almost no coverage of this across the blogs.  If MyDD is really becoming more dedicated to labor coverage, I'd suggest you start keeping the community informed about this important movement for workers.

1) This is such a good idea, I want to chip in $50 to help out but I cannot find a MyDD "contribute" button.  Is there one?  It should be a permanent feature of the homepage.

2) A number of unions still at this late date have racial issues, e.g., the Steelworkers, and progressives need to pick carefully the battles we choose to join.

Great Move!!!! Go Taylor!

I'm very much in favor of this experiment.  A lot of progressives who grew up hearing the Reagan-era critiques of unions don't necessarily understand that Labor is more than just a special interest, even though they would probably check off "pro-union" on a survey.

John Edwards, among others, really gets this.  Empowering unions holds the key to so much else that we want to accomplish.

Fantastic news.

Here is my humble offering on the subject.  I tied it into the CA back story.  There are some good stats on patient mortality with regards to staffing ratios courtesy of the Feds.

Thank you for doing this. I know many Nurses and their job is difficult. Those that try to be good nurses and dare to complain about inadequate patient care are treated harshly by management.

I would love to see the Democrats make Labor and Worker's Rights a huge priority in the new congress. Those rights have eroded much too much under republican leadership.

thanks for doing this. i also think you are spot on about the need for the netroots and labor building a long term alliance.

taylor is a great choice for this project as well. she'll kick ass at this.

that said, i also really hope to see more blogging of labor issues by those from within labor itself.

Let's make sure, as we educate readers about Labor issues, that they can follow up with a little research of their own.

To that end, the name of the company is Universal Health Services, not United. They are for-profit, making aobut half their money off their 23 (I think that's current) acute-care hospitals and another half off their over 100 behavioral health centers around the country. On the latter tip, they've really been on an acquisition binge, buying up little facilities (both for-profit and, more frighteningly, previously non-profit) at a rapid clip, since that kind of density gives them a lot of power on the pricing end.

Which, I'm guessing, is one reason why SEIU is taking them on in Vegas, to get people more aware of just how predatory this company is. (They cut staff everywhere, the main way for-profits make money--of course, they call it "economies of scale"!)

Want to learn if they own anything near you? Their website has a locator map:
http://www.uhsinc.com/hospitals.php

Dig in...