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Tidbits - April 23, 2015 - Fast Food Strike; TPP, Hillary; Eduardo Galeano; CIA Infiltration at Home; Sundown Towns; and more...

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Reader Comments - Fast Food Strike, Low-Wage Workers Struggle for More than Wages; TPP - LAtest Leak; Hillary Clinton, Fracking and 2016; Eduardo Galeano; CIA Infiltration at Home; Anne Braden; Sundown Towns; 'Driving While White'; Cuba Coops; NYT and Russian Wages; Charter Schools; Walton Wealth; Announcements: Walden Bello in New York; Vietnam - The Power of Protest and In Defense of the Public Square - Washington

MLK's Call to Honor Peace, Justice and Our Planet Still Challenges Us

Jacqueline Cabasso, Joseph Gerson and Kevin Martin Truthout Op-Ed
Thousands of peace, social justice and environmental activists from around the world will gather in New York City from April 24-26 for the Peace and Planet Mobilization for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World - challenges articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King. Peace and Planet convenes prior to the April 27 - May 22 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations, bringing the voice of civil society to the governmental confab.

Tidbits - March 19, 2015 - Lessons from Syriza and Podemos; 2016 elections; Prison Reform, Israel; Culture; and more...

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Reader Comments - Lessons from Syriza and Podemos; Kshama Sawant; 2016 elections; Prison Reform, Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Israeli elections; Venezuela, Greece, Ukraine; Measles; Culture - music, television, films; Franz Fanon; Roger Burbach - Presente! Announcements - Break the Cuba Blockade - Venceremos Brigade; WRL new "Pie Chart"; Mondragon and Workers Cooperatives; Fighting Inequality Conference

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Why Workers Won’t Unite

Kim Phillips-Fein The Atlantic
Globalization and technology have gutted the labor movement, and part-time work is sabotaging solidarity. Is there a new way to challenge the politics of inequality? Tackling inequality is clearly going to require more than technocratic fixes from above. It isn’t likely to succeed unless workers themselves can reclaim some bargaining power, and the sense of political and social inclusion that can go with it.

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The Cost of a Decline in Unions

Nicholas Kristof New York Times - Op-Ed
In this article Kristof acknowledges he was wrong about unions - As unions wane in American life, it’s also increasingly clear that they were doing a lot of good in sustaining middle class life — especially the private-sector unions that are now dwindling. "To understand the rising inequality, you have to understand the devastation in the labor movement,” says Jake Rosenfeld, a labor expert at the University of Washington and the author of “What Unions No Longer Do.”

A Black Mississippi Judge's Breathtaking Speech to 3 White Murderers

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves NPR Blogs - Code Switch
Here's an astonishing speech by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, one of just two African-Americans to have ever served as federal judges in Mississippi. He read it to three young white men before sentencing them for the death of a 48-year-old black man named James Craig Anderson in a parking lot in Jackson, Miss., in 2011. They were part of a group that beat Anderson and then killed him by running over his body with a truck, yelling "white power" as they drove off.

Tidbits - January 8, 2015 - Selma, Police, Palestine, Climate, Sports and more...

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Reader Comments - Selma; Civil Rights Tour led by Julian Bond; Ferguson Grand Jury; Police, NYPD, PBA, de Blasio; Women telling their Story; Wealth and Inequality; Sports - A Radical Proposal; BDS, Israel, Palestine, Solidarity; Sony; The Interview; Privatization and Hucksterism; Climate Change, Marx and Nature; Healthcare; Superbugs; the Ukraine; Announcements - The American Labor Movement At A Crossroads; Elections in Greece: Can Syriza Break with Austerity?

Is It Bad Enough Yet?

Mark Bittman New York Times
Of course it’s the same struggle: “It’s the same people,” says Saru Jayaraman, the director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. “Young people working in fast food are the same people as those who are the victims of police brutality. So the Walmart folks are talking about #blacklivesmatter and the #blacklivesmatter folks are talking about taking on capital.”

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Is It Bad Enough Yet?

Mark Bittman The New York Times
Op-Ed by food journalist and columnist Mark Bittman: "What makes this an exciting time is that we are beginning to see links among issues that we have overlooked for far too long."

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What a Housekeeper at Harvard’s Hotel Tells Us About Inequality

Lydia DePillis The Washington Post
Food service workers at Harvard are members of UNITE-HERE Local 26. After two years, they earn $21.73 per hour on average, while for many years the DoubleTree hotel in Cambridge owned by the university non-union housekeepers earned only about $15 an hour. Last year, housekeepers at the hotel mounted a push to join Local 26 as well. Hilton, which owns the DoubleTree chain bumped salaries to $18 an hour— but has so far managed to avoid a unionized workforce.
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