Today's movement in support of the 99 percent is a reminder that throughout U.S. history, a major engine of change has been grass-roots organizing and solidarity. Major history textbooks, however, downplay the role of ordinary people in shaping events--especially those who formed labor unions and used the strike to assert their rights. One of the…

The mid-1960s saw civil rights victories in Congress during Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency. In "Going Down Jericho Road," Michael Honey wrote how Martin Luther King Jr.'s final focus showed that the struggle for black and working class parity continued. The 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike was a gritty struggle won in the streets by a host…

This article discusses recent court decisions affecting the relationship between teachers' associations and unions and the public agencies that employ those teachers. Topics discussed include constitutional rights, union representation and union rights, obligation to bargain and scope of bargaining, grievances and arbitrability, fiscal…