Injury Control & Violence A different kind of Texas-style justice: Two nights at Austin’s Workers Defense Project
August 31, 2012 The Pump Handle 1Comment

It’s Tuesday evening and as usual, the small parking lot outside the Workers Defense Project on Austin’s eastside is packed. The dusty lot is strewn with cars and pick-up trucks parked wherever they can fit and get in off the road. I’ve arrived well before the night’s activities begin, so I easily secure a spot. But my gracious guide and translator, a college intern named Alan Garcia, warns me that I might get blocked in. It happens all the time, he says.

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Drug Safety Medical marijuana progress under Obama not what advocates had hoped; recent crackdown puts patients in the middle
August 17, 2012 The Pump Handle 2Comment

For years, Peter Rosenfeld was looking for an effective way to treat what doctors had diagnosed as severe and intractable migraines. He’d heard of medical marijuana, but thought it was a joke — that it was just a way for people to justify their marijuana use. Today, he’s a passionate advocate for medicinal marijuana and one of many advocates disappointed at recent federal actions.

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Labor Rights On the border of change: A portrait of the workers’ rights movement in El Paso
July 27, 2012 The Pump Handle 3Comment

In the fall of 2011, a new Texas statute took effect against employers who engage in wage theft, putting in place real consequences for employers found guilty of stealing wages from workers. It was a big step forward in a state where wage theft has become as common as cowboy boots and pick-up trucks. It was especially good news for workers in El Paso, where wage theft has become so rampant that workers rights advocates have dubbed it an “epidemic.”

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