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?"

NYT: How did you get your start in the labor movement?

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.

Marcial Reyes could have just quit his job. Frustrated with chronic understaffing at the Kaiser Permanente hospital where he works in Southern California, he knows he has options in a region desperate for nurses.

Instead, he voted to go on strike.