Convinced that wage violations are widespread, lawyers are pressing three class-action lawsuits on behalf of thousands of immigrant forestry workers.
"It seems very clear it's a breach of duty," says John Banzhaf, a professor of law at George Washington University in Washington and one of the lawyers pressing for class-action lawsuits against big food companies.
Over the years, it has filed lawsuits in a number of states that have led to the overhaul of failing child welfare systems, and it is currently pressing a class-action suit on behalf of abused and neglected children in Mississippi.
The guild is pressing for smaller class sizes and more contact with lecturers and has been invited to join the university's budget scrutiny group to prioritise day-to-day spending for the students.
The issue is not just pressing for the middle class.
Blackjack dealers and croupiers, alarmed about secondhand smoke, are pressing a $5 million federal class action lawsuit filed against the Wynn Las Vegas, to force the hotel to protect casino workers who have to sit in smoke-misted rooms.
The organization is also pressing lower in the class structure, having introduced a pilot music-education program in three cities for the homeless children who subsist as scavengers in garbage dumps.
Grace Chung Becker, president of the Fairfax County Association for the Gifted, called the idea "intriguing". But parents will want assurances, she said, that online courses are as rigorous as the face-to-face variety and that developing a virtual school doesn't come at the expense of other pressing needs, especially reducing class sizes.
For those who haven't stepped foot in a classroom in a number of years, clickers are electronic-response devices, roughly the size of credit cards, that enable students to answer questions in class by pressing a button, and that record and display student answers.
And Democrats as a whole need to recapture the notion that they stand for the middle class by pressing for simple, understandable, effective, and popular steps that will improve health security as soon as possible.
