Each week, we take a look at the biggest friends and foes of labor. We celebrate the workers winning big and small battles, and we shame the companies or people trying to deny working people their rights.
Winners: Working families, as a series of paid parental leave victories (in San Francisco, New York and California; and on Twitter) mean millions more will have the ability to care for their families and not lose income or their jobs.
Runners-Up: UAW and Chrysler, while the media coverage of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis is dying down, working families are continuing to provide assistance to those affected.
Loser: Gov. Scott Walker, after a Wisconsin judge ruled that the "right to work" law that Walker championed was "an unlawful seizure of property because it required private-sector unions to extend benefits to workers who don’t pay dues."
Runner-Up: Lifeway Foods, as the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) union notes the Chicago-area company is continuing to refuse to bargain a first contract and denying working people a voice on the job when the National Labor Relations Board has issued a decision finding the company has unlawfully refused to recognize the union and an administrative law judge has found the company committed additional unfair labor practices.