here weren’t many strikes in recent decades in which working people scored big victories, but the 1989 Pittston strike was one. Two years earlier, the Pittston Coal Company, in Pennsylvania, dropped out of a trade group that had negotiated a union contract with the United Mine Workers, and the company demanded cuts to miners’ health benefits.

When Liz Shuler rides on an airplane, she often has an experience that will be familiar to most travelers: Her seat mate asks, "What do you do?"

Five years ago, after saying she worked for a labor union, Shuler said, most people would put their noses back in their books. Today, she's met with reactions like "awesome" and "amazing." 

Workers at companies like Kellogg’s, Nabisco and John Deere have hit the picket lines in recent weeks hoping to get a better deal from their employers. A new survey suggests the public by and large supports them.

The AFL-CIO labor federation commissioned the progressive pollster Data for Progress to take the public’s temperature on the strikes that have made headlines this summer and fall. The online survey of nearly 1,300 likely voters asked if they “approve or disapprove of employees going on strike in support of better wages, benefits, and working conditions.”