International

Bosses Are Retaliating Against Workers for Showing Solidarity With Palestinians

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The Nation. Last April, after the death toll in Gaza climbed to 34,000 and Israel carried out its second raid on Al-Shifa Hospital, Erin Donevan started wearing a small circular pin that said “Free Palestine” to the Catholic school where she taught ninth-grade English. Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland touts its commitment to “enriching society” and “social justice,” and, according to Donevan, teachers sometimes wore pins or hung posters in their classrooms for other causes, like Black Lives Matter, support for Ukraine, and LGBTQ rights. By wearing a pin for Palestine, Donevan told me, she hoped that she could signal to students that she was an adult they could talk to if they were upset or confused. She told me, “I was thinking about my students and knowing they all have access to the same Internet I do, and they are seeing these incredibly traumatizing things.”

On April 25, Donevan received an email from the school’s principal, Doug Evans, asking her to “please refrain” from wearing the pin on campus, citing a complaint from a student’s family.

Minnesota

Wall Street Took Over a Vital Sign Language Service—And Started Union Busting

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. “Do no harm” is the guiding principle of American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters’ professional code of conduct. But when Joe Klug, 28, worked as a Video Relay Service (VRS) interpreter for a Twin Cities metro area office of Purple Communications, he says this principle was routinely violated. The VRS field, which allows Deaf and Hard of Hearing people to make phone calls by video interfacing with interpreters, is difficult and fast-paced work. While some calls are social, others can be serious: medical emergencies, job interviews, jargon-heavy discussions with lawyers or sensitive conversations with doctors.

Minnesota

Minnesota Workers Strike Down Shady Provision That Restricts Their Freedom of Employment

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The American Prospect. Michael Rubke, a desk attendant at La Rive condo complex in Minneapolis, is fighting for a union against a behemoth building management company, FirstService Residential of Minnesota, that has a near-monopoly on high-rise condos in the Twin Cities. It’s been a difficult battle so far. The unionization campaign is “at square one,” the 41-year-old explained over the phone after working an overnight shift. “They’re pretending we’re not there.”

But that lack of formal union representation did not stop Rubke and his colleagues throughout the Twin Cities from fighting for—and winning—statewide legislation this summer that improves the terms of their jobs, by beating back a little-known provision used to erode the job security of contracted workers.

International

These Teachers Want the Largest Union in the Country to Rescind its Biden Endorsement Over Gaza

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This article was jointly produced by Workday Magazine and The Nation. When Israel escalated its military operations against Gaza in October, Rahaf Othman was so distraught, she said, she “couldn’t think straight.” The 45-year-old Palestinian American, who teaches social studies at Harold L. Richards High School in Oak Lawn, Ill., recalled that she “started getting nightmares from my own experiences when I was in Palestine. I was functional at work, but barely functional. My brain was mush. I was getting traumatized every time I turned on my phone.”

“For the first month, people were asking me what we should do, but I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus.” While in this state, she said she discovered that she could lean on some of her colleagues.