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Midwest

Locked Out Refinery Workers Say BP Is Trying to “Starve Us,” Crush Union

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The American Prospect. WHITING, INDIANA—Elizabeth Piña has been at her union hall since 4:00 a.m., checking in picketers, organizing the food pantry, and chatting with her coworkers. She is wearing a black t-shirt, and sitting behind a table filled with schedules and stickers that say “end the lockout.”. She hasn’t “had much of a summer,” she tells me; it’s been dominated by the early-morning shift, Monday through Friday. When I ask her if she is tired, she says, “Nope.

Midwest

How ICE Terror Campaigns Are Used to Discipline Labor

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The American Prospect. CHICAGO – The last time Regina heard from her mother, Laura Murillo, she was calling from inside the ICE detention center in Broadview, Illinois, last Friday. “She just told us that she loved us. She seemed shocked, and she said she’s wanting to fight the case,” Regina says. Regina, 19, is standing at the street vendor booth in the Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago, where Murillo was detained.

Midwest

Construction Bosses Are Using Elaborate Schemes to Harm Workers

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The American Prospect. In 2020, Alejandro was working a construction job in the Madison, Wisconsin, metro area, doing texture, painting, and drywall on residential homes, when his boss asked him to do something strange. The boss gave Alejandro a check, and told him to go to a local bakery to cash it. He was then instructed to use that cash to pay himself and his co-worker for their labor. Alejandro, who arrived in the U.S. from Mexico in 2019 and is now 29, was unfamiliar with employment practices in this country and did as he was told, paying himself $800 every two weeks.