Steve Mellon

6 days ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

The movement to unionize workers at one of the region’s few abortion care providers took a dark turn last week when managers at Allegheny Reproductive Health Center in East Liberty fired one of the employees involved in the organizing effort and issued written reprimands to several others. Workers announced two weeks ago that more than 80% of the center’s nonmanagement employees had voted to join the Office and Professional Employees International Union as Local 98.

6 days ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

A self-described conservative Republican from rural Ohio, Chris Albright stood beside the small stage at Freedom Corner in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on Saturday and listened carefully to an eight-minute speech delivered by U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, a progressive whose district includes the diverse neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. Albright, wearing a faded hooded sweatshirt and a long gray beard, shoved his hands in his pockets but otherwise remained still.

1 week ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

As closing time neared on Friday afternoon, Pittsburgh workers thought of barbecues and beer and prepared to head for the exits so they could get an early start on the holiday weekend. But on narrow Kirkwood Street in the city’s East Liberty neighborhood, Raven Kirksey’s thoughts remained focused on her job. “I was a patient here for an abortion before I ever started working here,” she said, nodding at the Allegheny Reproductive Health Center across the street.

2 weeks ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

Thursday’s grand reopening of the Braddock Carnegie Library was the most notable celebration of the old building since 1914, when an aging and white-haired Andrew Carnegie stood on a stage with a bunch of other formally dressed men and, on the library’s 25th anniversary, declared it a “center of light.”Carnegie died five years later, and, by the mid-1970s, the library seemed poised to follow him to the ever-after. The center of light grew dark and empty, its doors secured with chains.

1 month ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

Monday’s remembrance ceremony for those whose jobs killed them during the past year was brief and focused. The reading of names, a Workers Memorial Day tradition, took 7 minutes and 15 seconds. It’s chilling to think it may take longer next year. What do we expect to happen with drastic cuts to agencies tasked with making certain that people in this country can work to support themselves and their families and not get killed in the process?