Portside

In a move that is simultaneously discouraging, urgent and deeply unusual, the World Health Organization has declared that the resurgence of polio is a “public health emergency of international concern.” The WHO, the CDC, the fraternal organization Rotary International and a raft of partners have been pressing an international and very expensive eradication campaign since 1988. Every time the world has gotten close, though, polio has flared up again.

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis specifically said the union is willing to consider reducing benefits for those who still are working, although she emphatically ruled out changes for members who already have retired. But such compromise wont come until the city and the school board agree to contribute more to pensions each year in order to at least partially make up for a contribution shortfall that occurred during much of the past two decades.

Organizing practice and research have shown that the recruitment and development of grassroots worker leadership is key to winning organizing, contract, and political campaigns. Despite the broad endorsement of leadership-development organizing and a collection of truly inspiring leadership development stories, when asked, worker leaders consistently report varieties of leadership underdevelopment.

Canada has lost their greatest literary treasure, the world has lost one of our most inspirational conservationists

Why is the Palestinian reconciliation agreement good news for peace? First of all, because one makes peace with a whole nation, not with half of it. A peace with the PLO, without Hamas, would be ineffective from the beginning.

Raising the Minimum Wage to $10.10 Would Benefit 4.7 Million Moms

Barack Obama, Joel McHale at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The Universe: First 13 Billion Years. Josh White, Jr, House of the Rising Sun. Rhapsody in Blue Set to New York City.

Cecily McMillan Trial Update - Sentencing May 19; Reader Comments-Neanderthal Intelligence; Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms, Bitcoins; Charter Schools - their massive fraud; What's a Union For; Paul Robeson Jr.; Cesar Chavez film; Food - Toxic?; Announcements - Building Up the Peace Movement From the Grassroots - New York-May 12; May 15 strike - Low Pay is Not OK; Help save the Haymarket Monument; The Charley Richardson Guide to Kicking Ass for the Working Class

It is exactly 39 years since the Vietnam war ended, with the seizure of Saigon by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the People's Army of Vietnam - time to consider the legacy of this long US war.

By law, a company can’t hire H-2A guest workers if it is in a labor dispute with its US workforce. But that is exactly what this Washington State berry grower is trying to do.