Portside

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.

Virtually all labor organizations face the expanded challenge of recruiting and maintaining members in already unionized workplaces where the decision to provide financial support for the union has, for better or worse, become voluntary.

A new left-liberal coalition has formed in Richmond, California, Former mayoral candidate Mike Parker called on voters and supporters to join forces. The task is need to challenge Chevron-backed candidates and those unwilling to stand up against Chevron when representing the community.

Veteran labor activist and labor reporter, Steve Early, looks at the growing number of third party candidates and the growing support they are receiving from the labor movement. He pays particular attention to the long history of successful third party candidates in the State of Vermont.

Mike Parker, a key Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) organizer who spent thirty-two years as a union reformer and skilled tradesman in Detroit, is leading a citywide slate of progressive candidates in a run for Mayor. Now, as municipal elections loom in the fall, the business community—led by America’s third-most-profitable company, Chevron—wants to make a political comeback by defeating those who've curbed its influence.

Neuburger’s volunteer assignments as an inside organizer in UFW recruitment campaigns, combined with his “shop floor” experience with many different employers, gave him a perspective on the union that’s rare for a gringo. Where he could, he played a very different role than the many college-educated activists who acquired UFW “membership” by virtue of their boycott activity the country or appointed staff positions at union headquarters in La Paz.

Since 2011, an unexpected wave of collective activity, involving workers and their allies, inside and outside of unions, has become a beacon of hope for saving our unions. In all its diverse manifestations, this multi-front struggle has been a revolt, from below, against “the right to work for less money.” In both the public and private sector, older forms of protest—were recast by a new generation of activists searching for effective ways to resist corporate domination.