Portside

Whether he wins or loses, Sanders is already helpfully tapping into rank-and-file discontent about who gets to decide what in our unions. While other big union endorsements of Clinton may soon be announced, the Labor Day buzz—at the grassroots, in early primary states—is largely about Bernie.

Whether he wins or loses, Sanders is already helpfully tapping into rank-and-file discontent about who gets to decide what in our unions. While other big union endorsements of Clinton may soon be announced, the Labor Day buzz—at the grassroots, in early primary states—is largely about Bernie.

Amid all that’s clearly wrong with Indiana’s current direction under right wing Republican rule, Quigley ( If We Can Win Here: The New Front Lines of the Labor Movement, Cornell University Press, 2015) finds cause for optimism. “Despite a state political climate that proved inhospitable to labor in the right-to-work debate, private sector workers are launching union organizing campaigns across the state’s capital,” and in smaller towns as well.

Bernie Sanders has a long record of supporting pro-worker policies. Vermont union members learned long ago that the mutual benefit derived from their work with and for Sanders goes far beyond the results of labor’s usual (and sometimes tawdry) transactional relationships with public officeholders.

When workers feel collectively trapped in poorly performing unions that do not properly represent them, the most union-minded among them often believe that changing unions is their only hope. If switching to another union is not a viable option because of AFL rules or incumbent union manipulation of Labor Board procedures, the result will be more workplace anger, frustration, and resentment.

Oil workers belonging to the United Steel Workers of America put-up picket lines in Northern California, Texas, Kentucky and Washington State this week. It has been 35 years since Tony Mazzocchi helped lead a strike against big oil.

Yesterday Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin declared "now is not the right time" to proceed with any fundamental overhaul of health care financing and delivery in Vermont. He claimed the latest cost estimates for what's known locally as Green Mountain Care (GMC) were higher than originally projected, in a period when "slower recovery from the great recession has tightened the state budget. What Shumlin has championed for nearly five years was "just not affordable" anymore.

Four Ways a California Police Chief Connected Cops With Communities A critical look at any institution with as much power and authority invested in it as the police is probably a good thing.

A Richmond Rattlesnake The scale of Chevron’s own spending–to defeat low-budget municipal candidates–was so jaw-dropping that it drew national media attention. From Bay Area newspapers and The L.A. Times to Bill Moyers and Rachel Maddow and a visiting U.S. Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, everyone agreed that Richmond was ground zero for corporate-funded negative campaigning in the post-Citizens United era.

“Kaiser has attacked its own workers and its core clients at the same time,” Local 5 Secretary-Treasurer Eric Gill says. “Union groups have been its core constituency,” but now they’re facing double-digit rate hikes in Hawaii.