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Fast food workers strike in Seattle - 7th city in past 8 weeks. Workers say their wages are stagnant and want a living wage of $15, more opportunities to advance, and the right to organize without retaliation. "Personally I'm on food stamps, my hours have been cut back," Burger King worker Andrew Thomas said. "Being here for a year and half. I haven't gotten a raise."

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Remember the phrase "good union job"? Living wages, basic safety protections, and guaranteed quality healthcare for life. Today Peabody Coal is taking away retiree health care and pensions, yet they have record profits. Why the fight for retiree pensions at Peabody Coal is in everyone's interest.

The strike has long been labor's most powerful weapon. Strikes put pressure on the employer - which needs the employees' labor to run the business. Congress understood the importance of the strike to labor unions, so it protected strikes in two ways in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Although Congress made it clear that it viewed the strike as a right of utmost importance, the Supreme Court wasted no time in limiting and weakening the right to strike.

Appeals Court rules NLRB cannot require employers to post notices informing employees of their labor rights. The decision, which comes less than three weeks after lack of regulatory enforcement led to a fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas that killed 14 and left about 200 injured, opens the door for businesses to challenge requirements that workers be informed of their health, safety and employment rights.

These fast food campaigns, and the recent strike wave against Wal-Mart, represent the most dramatic challenges by the embattled U.S. labor movement to two industries that increasingly define the new U.S. economy.

Los Angeles Walmart worker Tsehai Almaz told The Nation that after visiting the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and meeting with local clergy, she and other OUR Walmart leaders were inspired to follow the example of the 1961 freedom riders. “I feel like we’re facing many of the same issues,” said Almaz, “even though it’s not necessarily about race—this time it’s about respect. And being able to feed our families, and having good working conditions.”