Stories by Liza Featherstone

Liza Featherstone is a New York City-based journalist. She is the author, most recently, of "Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights At Wal-Mart" (Basic).subscribe to Liza Featherstone's rss feed

Wal-Mart's Weakness: Is the Behemoth in Trouble?

Posted on Apr 27, 2011, Source: The American Prospect

Tough economic times, frugal shoppers and angry employees are making the giant chain flail.

Higher Education Should Be Free -- And We Need a Movement to Make It So

Posted on Jun 16, 2009, Source: The Nation

Why not take the meritocratic promise of this country at face value and try to make it real?

Labor Head Andy Stern Has Some Unusual Corporate Bedfellows

Posted on Jul 2, 2007, Source: The Nation

SEIU President Andy Stern heads one of the strongest unions in the country, yet he's stood on stage to campaign with anti-union CEOs like Wal-Mart's Lee Scott. Why is he so cozy with corporations?

Workers of the World Unite Against Starbucks

Posted on May 21, 2007, Source: The Nation

When you pay $4 for a cup of coffee-flavored foamy milk at Starbucks, part of what you're buying is an illusion of environmental responsibility. How they treat their workers is a different story.

Is Wal-Mart Big Green or Big Mean?

Posted on Sep 1, 2006, Source: The Nation

Wal-Mart wants to bring organic food to the masses, but the retail giant's aggressive ways could end up doing more harm than good.

Is Wal-Mart Really Going Green?

Posted on Nov 30, 2005, Source: Grist.org

The mega-retailer has announced a slew of environmentally friendly policies. Is this an honest attempt at change or just more greenwashing from the Biggest Box of Them All?

On the Wal-Mart Money Trail

Posted on Nov 6, 2005, Source: The Nation

An investigation into the Walton family's charitable donations shows a pattern of giving that appears intended to support the best interest of Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart's Image Rescue

Posted on Sep 16, 2005, Source: The Nation

After Katrina, Wal-Mart sent truckloads of water and emergency supplies. A business capable of operating so humanely should do so every day -- not just in a disaster.

The Ten Worst Jobs in America

Posted on Sep 13, 2005, Source: AlterNet

Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be poultry processors -- or any of the other dangerous, difficult, smelly, low-paying jobs on this list.

The Other Side of the Big Easy

Posted on Sep 12, 2005, Source: Grist.org

Katrina has exposed decades of benign neglect, racism, and environmental injustice that can't be prettified with crawfish étouffé.

E-Raced

Posted on Aug 2, 2005, Source: Grist.org

The Bush administration's new environmental justice plan ignores the fact that racial minorities are more affected by environmental problems -- like pollution-related asthma -- than others.

Wal-Mart Has No Plan B

Posted on Jun 30, 2005, Source: Women's eNews

Wal-Mart continues to keep Plan B, the "morning-after pill," off its shelves. The megastore's policy, catering to its rural base, complicates its pursuit of new markets.

Wal-Mart Wiggles Around Worker Health

Posted on May 26, 2005, Source: The Nation

If Wal-Mart doesn't want to provide decent health insurance for its workers, maybe the company should lobby for national health insurance.

Race to the Bottom

Posted on Mar 16, 2005, Source: The Nation

Padding opponents' bank accounts and exploiting racial tensions are among Wal-Mart's new and improved tactics; but they wouldn't work if communities didn't have tensions to exploit.

Down and Out in Discount America

Posted on Dec 22, 2004, Source: The Nation

To effectively battle corporate criminals like Wal-Mart, the public must be engaged as citizens, not merely as shoppers.

Will Labor Take the Wal-Mart Challenge?

Posted on Jun 17, 2004, Source: The Nation

Wal-Mart has profoundly altered labor politics, deploying ever more creative and ruthless tactics to suppress the right to organize while driving down wages and benefits in the retail industry and beyond.

Report From New York

Posted on Feb 16, 2003, Source: AlterNet

Despite police blockades, New York City on Saturday was one enormous, intoxicating, unpredictable protest march drawing well over one million people to the streets.

Mighty in Pink

Posted on Feb 14, 2003, Source: The Nation

Code Pink is riding a clever new wave of creative and memorable feminist antiwar activism.

Wal-Mart's Female Trouble

Posted on Dec 3, 2002, Source: The Nation

Wal-Mart's business practices may be leading to a new kind of globally sanctioned gender discrimination.

Thanks For Shopping at Wal-Mart -- NOT

Posted on Nov 22, 2002, Source: The Nation

The UFCW's Day of Action against Wal-Mart shone a spotlight on the company's unfair labor practices and union-busting ways.

Peace Gets a Chance

Posted on Oct 11, 2002, Source: The Nation

A nascent U.S. peace movement has been gathering momentum, as activists make an effort to transcend their divisions and reach mainstream Americans.

Welfare Moms Go to Washington

Posted on Mar 11, 2002, Source: The Nation

2,000 welfare recipients and supporters gathered in the nation's capital on Tuesday, for a rally sponsored by the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support.

Faking It: Sex, Lies, and Women's Magazines

Posted on Mar 4, 2002, Source: Columbia Journalism Review

How can women's magazines run scrupulously reported and fact-checked articles on such subjects as breast cancer and women in Afghanistan, but tell complete lies in articles about sex?

Operation Enduring Protest

Posted on Oct 19, 2001, Source: The Nation

Demonstrators gathered at points across the globe to protest the bombing of Afghanistan. 20,000 in London, 15,000 in Berlin, 10,000 in San Francisco...

The Student Movement Comes of Age

Posted on Oct 24, 2000, Source: The Nation

Many students are used to being repeatedly shut down in their efforts. But many are finding, after years of effort to organize, that they are finally being listened to on a national scale. In this article, Liza Featherstone points to the recent Sodexho Marriott boycotts, the Students Against Sweatshops, the newly formed Worker Rights Consortium, and other significant steps in student-led fights for equality. Featherstone also suggests a need for more activism that links global concerns with class and race issues here at home.

The Student Movement Comes of Age

Posted on Oct 17, 2000, Source: The Nation

Liza Featherstone, a journalist tuned it to youth issues, shows how "college students are increasingly engaged in well-organized, thoughtful and morally outraged resistance to corporate power." In this essay, she traces the evolution of these student groups and exposes the corporatization of U.S. colleges.

The New Student Movement

Posted on May 8, 2000, Source: The Nation

In an effort to push corporations out of universities and to fight for workers' rights, students from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin have come together to create a nationwide movement.

What's a Girl to Read?

Posted on Apr 26, 2000, Source: AlterNet

Trying to seduce as many underage girls as possible, corporate publishing has adopted the buzzword "real" as its come-on of the moment. Rightly sensing that there is a vacuum in the teen magazine market -- the fastest-growing segment of the population has, like, nothing to read -- publishers have dreamed up Jump, Teen People, Twist and Glossy. But how much "realer" is this new crop?

Dilbert: Just a Cartoon?

Posted on Apr 26, 2000, Source: deleted

Author Norman Solomon takes a serious look at "Dilbert," arguing that the cartoon is really on the side of big corporations, and is relentlessly contemptuous of workers, if not resigned to the status quo. Does Solomon miss the joke, or is Dilbert bad news for the rank-and-file?
A Q&A with Solomon accompanies the article.
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