Nicole Aro is the AFL-CIO Digital Strategies deputy director.

My mother is a high school teacher. Growing up, the joy that she took in her students learning each day was inspiring (and still is!). She spent thousands of dollars of her own money on classroom and after school activities, countless days and weeks over the summer poring over classics so she could better educate her seniors on their Advanced Placement (AP) work and endless nights and weekends creating her own supplemental material when the textbooks just weren’t engaging enough (think sketch comedies using characters from The Iliad and The Odyssey).

Inspired largely by my mom, when I got to college in Chicago, I promptly signed up to be a part-time teaching assistant in the Chicago Public School system.

Since 2009, more than 1,500 employees of four Hyatt hotels in Chicago have been fighting for a fair contract. Now the company is threatening to strip away their health coverage if they don’t abandon their fight and call off their boycotts.

Over the weekend, Chicago police tore down a first aid station at Occupy Chicago, and nurses were among the 130 protesters arrested in a massive sweep against those taking a stance against Wall Street greed.

About 1,500 people gathered Saturday in Grant Park hoping to make it the movement’s permanent home, according to The Washington Post.