Portside

A small group of workers at retailer Target Corporation is demanding accountability from local store managers in the Baltimore area, highlighting issues of discrimination and fair scheduling that affect retail workers nationwide.

Phillips Seafood is a Baltimore-based company famous for its crabs. Global and US unions want to make it infamous for its treatment of low-paid women workers. Phillips moved its Indonesian production from urban to rural mini-plants in order to inhibit access to labor law protections and unionization efforts. Closer to home, the company is a major opponent of attempts to raise the minimum wage.

A consumer pressure campaign against labor abuses in the chicken-processing industry has produced some initial results, with a detailed pledge this week from Tyson Foods to build a better workplace for its 95,000 employees.

Preliminary vote totals indeed show that Zuckerman won more votes among U.S. members and was leading by nearly 800 votes before the Canadian ballots were counted. But the Canadian vote went heavily in Hoffa’s favor, about 9,500 to 2,900.

It’s been five years since self-styled education reformer Michelle Rhee left her job as head of the District of Columbia Public Schools under a cloud of bitterness and controversy, but she is still throwing shade over the Washington city school system.

A small group of IKEA workers in suburban Boston launched a union organizing campaign this week—and immediately attracted the support of Democratic Party presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley.

El Faro was an overaged ship -- and the problem with old ships is that they are about as safe as old trucks. Commercial truckers don't drive 40-year old vehicles on their routes.

A new AFL-CIO Commission on Racial and Economic Justice will attempt to create a "safe, structured and constructive opportunity for local union leaders to discuss issues pertaining to the persistence of racial injustice today in the workforce and in their communities, and to ensure that the voices of all working people in the labor movement are heard."

Atlantic City needs to diversify its economy away from casinos if it wants to continue attracting large numbers of visitors, union leaders argue in response to announcements of closures. New solutions are needed for workers and the wider community to prevent Atlantic City from again going into decline.

New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority refused to change its plans to spend $34 million on Chinese steel to repair the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.