Portside

"After years and years of politics of gridlock or politics that was focused on protecting the wealthiest in the state, the upper income folks and tax cuts for the wealthy, we saw a session that was focused on working families." Jamie Gulley, president of Minnesota Service Employees International Union commented on recent victories for labor in the Minnesota state legislature. Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) control of state government was responsible.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a new international trade pact crafted by multinational corporations and currently being negotiated in secret by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) along with eleven other foreign governments. Over 600 corporate advisors also have access to the text, but the public and civil society are excluded.

If union members at Hyatt hotels in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Chicago vote yes on a proposed contact it will end a four-year campaign. It will also make it easier to organize in new cities.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced last week that it will accept a case for review next year on the use of labor-management "neutrality" agreements in union organizing campaigns. An anti-union decision from the high court would make labor organizing more difficult and threaten labor organizations at a national level, labor experts say.

In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away. Some vans are so packed that to get to work, people must squat on milk crates, sit on the laps of passengers they do not know or sometimes lie on the floor, the other workers’ feet on top of them.