Portside

The upcoming Teamsters election is a chance to unseat James P. Hoffa and reverse the union's managed decline.

This poem is about flowers. Or maybe not only about flowers. Or maybe not. But Cortney Lamar Charleston's poem will make you think twice or even more times if it's about flowers. Or not.

"Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, which observes the amount of time it takes the average black woman to earn the same pay that the average white man earns in one calendar year." Black women only make 60 percent of what white male counterparts make. This is a clear example of the importance of race and gender in determining salary.

By all means, look to the past. Learn and be inspired, but do not try to turn the clock back. The ultimate aim of socialism should be the abolition of capitalism — anything less than this is reformism in the service of capital. Socialists may disagree about the pace of transition, or the means of enacting revolutionary change — but their ultimate aim must be the end of capitalism.

Even in the era of the Beatles and Motown's roster of stars, the brilliant James Brown established a place that was his alone. His was not about magic, it was about power that could not be denied by anyone brought within its field of influence. What the book's author also finds is a wary solitariness that paradoxically found its fullest expression in Brown's ability to give himself so completely in performance to suggest a generosity approaching self-immolation.

The upsurge in interest in the ideas of Socialism also means a reassessment of its traditions. Jack Ross offers a new, ambitious attempt to come to terms with the history of the Socialist Party in the United States, an organization, and movement, whose story is one of this country's modern legends. In this review, Harold Meyerson, who, as he points out, was a part of this history, takes a look.

The National Labor Relations Board's decision on Columbia University graduate students seeking to unionize only applies to private colleges. Organizing rights for graduate students at public colleges depend on each state's labor laws. Graduate students have formed unions in more than a dozen states.

Dave’s Killer Bread, POP! Gourmet Foods, and other food companies are helping people with criminal records overcome the barriers to employment they often face.

Jayro Bustamante‘s debut feature “Ixcanul” generates its power from an intimate observance of the quotidian. As such, its titular volcano — the translation of Ixcanul in the Mayan K’iche’ dialect spoken in Guatemala — is the least volcanic thing in it. Steeped in a culture rarely observed on screen and filmed entirely in Kaqchikel, Bustamante’s film explores a clash between reproductive rights and tradition.

The California minimum wage earthquake is shaking up state and national politics. There is a powerful lesson from the $15 minimum-wage campaign: only a grassroots movement from below based upon a bold vision for structural reform can change public opinion and pressure government to act.