It’s that time of year where we’re supposed to collect our clips and turn them in for the awards. I am a freelancer, so there aren’t that many possibilities, but as I was going through my clips, I found a few I really liked from my work .
Battle of Virden revisited on Miners Day (11.11.24). I end up in Mt. Olive at least a couple of times a year, as it hosts a union memorial to Mother Jones and remembers the Virden massacre each year. it’s a little corner of history few people think of, to remember when a work stoppage didn’t mean inconveniences of health insurance, but actually meant you could be murdered by your employer’s hired security and there were no conseqences.
Illinois and Missouri have vastly different approaches to child labor (8.5.24). While Illinois law has a number of requirements and limitations to protect children from being exploited, Missouri was considering a bill to eliminate child work permits entirely, which would leave child labor laws at the bare minimum required by federal regulations.
DNC chair candidates make their case to Labor (1.15.25). The candidates for chair of the Democratic Party mulled what went wrong in 2024 and what they believe the DNC’s focus should be going forward. Spoilers: Ken Martin won.
Steve Nonn, stalwart union supporter, set to retire (11.4.24). Pro-union public officials retire all the time, but Nonn was a lifer – he did a whole career in law enforcement, retired, and then came back as coroner and did another couple of decades instead of fishing.
Unions call for Illinois to fix Tier 2 pension (10.7.24). This one focused on a couple who both teach a few doors apart from each other, but one will retire earlier with a much larger pension simply because they changed the pensions plans before the other was hired – and it may violate federal law.
I’m really enjoying my work covering Labor and its issues, not only for the work itself, but that it keeps me working actively in journalism while I continue to teach it. I feel strongly that we need to stay on top of the changes in the industry and how it works if we’re going to teach students how to do this – we can’t teach them how it worked in 2010 or 1995 if we expect them to be ready for the hellacious media landscape of 2026 and beyond. As I’ll be teaching newswriting again in the fall, I’m looking forward to revisiting my lessons once again, and hopefully suckering another group of students into the awesomeness that is journalism.