Portside

The agreement calls for an immediate 4.5% pay increase as a signing bonus and then across-the-board 3% raises annually through 2016, plus an additional 2% each year for many employees within certain longevity and pay categories, according to UC. The lower-wage workers will not have to pay any increases for some health insurance coverage.

This blog puts a spotlight on the labor activity in the U.S. South you don't read about elsewhere, always keeping it in context with what is going on nationally and internationally in the Global South as well. This blog also provides a historical and cultural (including music, literature, and art) perspective that takes into account the long, hard, and often bloody struggle workers have always had to wage whenever they tried to organize in this region

One simply can't explain the decline of union representation without acknowledging the role of employer opposition and its empowerment by government policy, as outlined in a 2009 report from the Economic Policy Institute. The government role includes the expansion of "right to work" laws, and the enfeeblement of the National Labor Relations Board and its intimidation by members of Congress.

Reformers will challenge the Machinists Union leadership in a membership election to take place in June. The recent contract at Boeing which included significant pension givebacks despite record profits at Boeing is one of the major spurs behind the oppositions campaign.

Wisconsin was the first state to grant public-sector unions the right to negotiate contracts. Before Gov. Gaylord Nelson signed that law in 1959, only unionized workers in private companies had a government-protected right to bargain collectively. The Wisconsin idea soon spread around the country. Act 10 is an about-face, and Gov. Walker and his Republican supporters see it as a tough-minded strategy that other states can follow. History repeating itself, if in reverse.