Portside

IBM, the world’s largest computer-services provider, began cutting jobs in the U.S. and around the world Wednesday as part of a global restructuring plan announced in April, IBM acknowledged and workers reported. Based on data gathered from around the world, Alliance at IBM estimates several thousand cuts already have been made or are planned.

UAW President Bob King, seeking to extend the union's base into auto plants across the South, has endorsed a German-style labor structure for a range of U.S. factories -- not just ones owned by German automakers such as Volkswagen AG but also Detroit Big 3 plants with existing UAW contracts and nonunion assembly plants in the South.

Student support workers at Evergreen State College win strike. They are members of The Washington Federation of State Employees/AFSCME. After 17 months of negotiations followed by mediation they went on strike May 28. Their new contract goes into effect July1. This is a rare example of an effective strike in recent years.

A growing number of trade unions representing 800,000 Turkish workers, including members of the KESK and DISK labor coalitions, went out on strike again today.

The decision on Friday by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a 2011 rule that required employers to post, physically or electronically, a notice describing workers' rights under the National Labor Relations Act. It was the second time in as many months that a federal appeals court has rejected the rule, after the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals said last month the poster rule violated employers' free speech rights.