On May 7, while recovering from an illness, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) International President Larry Hanley died suddenly.  In a brief statement, his family, quoting Mary G. Harris “Mother” Jones, urged us to: "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living."

Early in the morning on Nov. 26, 2018, Dave Green, the president of Local 1112 of the United Auto Workers, which represents workers at a General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, received a call from the plant’s personnel director. Green needed to be at the plant at 9 a.m. for a meeting. The personnel director rarely called Green, and when he did, it was almost always bad news. Green got into his car — a silver Chevy Cruze — and sped toward the hulking 6.2-million-square-foot factory, which had manufactured nearly two million Cruzes since the car was introduced in 2011.

On April 11, at 1:15 p.m., the 31,000 workers at Stop & Shop, the largest supermarket chain in New England, walked off the job to protest proposed cuts to their health care, wages, and retirement.

The bakers, cashiers, stockers, deli clerks and butchers who are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union not only provide an invaluable service to millions of customers, they also made Stop & Shop’s parent company, Ahold Delhaize, over $2 billion in profits in 2018.