The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "organized labor" ...
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Corruption in the 2-million-member Service Employees
This investigation of the nation's fastest-growing labor union uncovered corruption in its largest California local as well as questionable financial practices at several affiliated organizations and its national headquarters. The stories revealed that the president of the California chapter - who represented nearly 200,000 working poor people, caregivers making about $9 an hour - had funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in dues money to himself his relatives, and spent similar sums on golf resorts, expensive restaurants and a Beverly Hills cigar lounge. They also showed that Tyrone Freeman misused two nonprofits for financial gain and political purposes, and that the head of the SEIU's largest Michigan local misappropriated funds from one of the charities. In addition, the stories reported that the SEIU's national office, while holding itself up as a model of reform, paid millions of dollars to consulting firms, nonprofits, and individuals with family ties and other personal connections to the union's top leaders.
Tags: Unions; SEIU; corruption; California; Michigan; Tyrone Freeman
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The Final Hours of Miguel Contreras
Labor leader and Los Angeles power-broker Miguel Contreras was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Los Angeles, the week before the 2005 mayoral election. No autopsy was performed, and doctors were pressured to sign a death certificate. The article outlines political power bases in Los Angeles, and speculates how various issues would have had different results if Contreras had lived.
Tags: organ harvesting; autopsy; botanica; 911 tape; labor leader; coroner; Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; LAPD; United Farmworkers; UFW; Centinela Freeman Memorial Hospital; Daniel Freeman Hospital
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Chicago's First Family of Clout
The Chicago politics, labor unions and organized crime have been influenced by the family of Bruno Roti Sr., who came to America over 100 years ago. The Sun-Times conducted an extended documentation of the Roti family's ties to the scandals and corruption at Chicago City Hall.
Tags: Mob; Mafia; Bruno Roti; Hired Truck Program; Al Capone
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Inside the UFW
This series takes a look at what the United Farm Workers have become since it was founded over 40 years ago by Cesar Chavez and others. They found that the UFW is not a union in the typical sense; it has not really been able to raise wages for workers or improve working conditions. It has become, instead, a collection of social-service organizations, some of them for profit, some non-profit, for farm workers. Family members of the UFW founders have often inherited leadership roles and sometimes the money which is donated to various social service organizations is not well accounted for.
Tags: Organized labor; farm workers; immigrant labor; Hispanics; Latinos; not for profit organizations; NGO's; Dolores Huerta; union pension plans
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Opportunity of Exploitation?
These stories deal with how a company, Maxi Staff Inc., used promises of good pay, great housing and the chance to escape poverty and high unemployment to recruit laborers for Puerto Rico to work in U.S. meat processing plants. The stories revealed how, once they were in the United States, the laborers' dreams turned to dust and they found themselves in an unfavorable economic situation. The company charged recruits for the recruits' flights to the U.S. They were put in substandard and unsanitary housing. Workers made less money than they had originally been told, often making less than $100 for a 40-hour week. Recruits who fell ill or got injured on the job were fired and evicted from their housing with 48 hours notice.
Tags: Maxi Staff Inc.; poverty; unemployment; Puerto Rican Laborers; U.S. meat processing plants; U.S. Department of Labor; Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration; Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources; Ronell Industries; Empire Kosher; Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry; Catholic Social Services; Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations; Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church; U.S. Department of Labor's Employment Standards Administration Wage and Hour Division; OSHA; Puerto Rican recruits; Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition
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Organize or Die
Douglas J. McCarron, Chief of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, pulled the carpenters from the AFL-CIO, the national Labor Federation. In this bold move, he made many enemies, but gained as many admirers. Cleeland examines his rise to power and allows him to, as he says, set the record straight.
Tags: unions; labor; carpenters; organized labor
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The Birth of a Movement: The New Face of Protest
A collection of articles by The Village Voice examining if there is a new activist movement and if so, who are the activists and what do they hope to accomplish. The three-month project was done in the wake of mass demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C., and against police brutality in New York City. "The staff found that the movement is composed of large numbers of citizens, with different agendas, but united in their rage over economic injustice."
Tags: protest; movements; radicals; economic injustice; World Trade Organization; International Monetary Fund; police brutality; resistance; mass demonstration; raptivists; environmentalists; politics; global village; labor strikes; executions; Republican National Convention; corporations; race; political street theater; surveillance; death penalty; World Bank
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City to Union-Busters: "Welcome to El Paso!"
The Texas Observer reports on how Mediacopy, a California-based business with tainted reputation, Mediacopy, moves to Texas and receives a $1.9 million break in local property taxes. The story reveals that "charges flew on the West Coast that the firm was mistreating its workers, encouraging INS raids, and even manipulating employees trying to organize a union ... Mediacopy Inc. might not have gotten as far as it did, if the El Paso Times had not slept through the abatement story."
Tags: tax-abatement programs; National Labor Relations Board; business; corporate interests
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Temps Demand a New Deal
The Nation reports that "the explosion of temping and the shifting of employment relationships away from traditional jobs poses what may be organized labor's greatest challenge and opportunity since World War II: organizing the swelling ranks of temps, day laborers, contract and leased workers whose perpetual job insecurity forms the porous foundation of today's supposedly stellar economy."
Tags: unions; collective bargaining; temporary employment; independent contractors; second-class workers; National Alliance for Fair Employment
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Jimmy Hoffa's Revenge
Jimmy Hoffa Jr. is the likely front-runner for his father's former position. He is still struggling with trying to live up to his family legacy and with the future of organized labor in the US.
Tags: labor