Portside

Lee Saunders, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, along with other trade union leaders addressed the Illinois delegation to the Democratic Party Convention and pledged support to Council 31, AFSCME who has threatened to go out on strike.

Boal’s litigation is supported by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “We firmly stand with Mr. Boal in his effort to protect these tapes,” says the organization’s executive director Bruce Brown. “Well-established law recognizes that journalists cannot do their jobs to keep the public informed if they cannot work free from government interference.”

Where’s our economy headed? Soon every factory worker will have to start driving for Uber, and the trucks will drive themselves—at least so the business press tells us. But Kim Moody, co-founder of this magazine and the author of many books on U.S. labor, paints a different picture. Chris Brooks asked him to cut through the hype and describe what’s coming for working people and the opportunities for unions. This is Part 1 of an interview with Kim Moody.

Can plant-based burgers really replace the real thing, especially for someone who enjoys meat? Here's what Ione author found in serious taste tests.

Activists in the movement for black lives are working to lift the veil on one of the most powerful influences in law enforcement: police unions.

With 3,000 teachers gathered in Minneapolis for the American Federation of Teachers convention, the two Twin Cities teachers unions led a march to protest the recent police killing of an African American man, Philando Castile, at a traffic stop. Educators want to link their struggle for resources for public schools with the wider need for public investment in neighborhoods and cities, particularly for communities of color.

Taking over Stephen Colbert’s Late Show to blast Fox News, the former ‘Daily Show’ host was unapologetically partisan while also seeking to build bridges.

“Kaine did meet with union leaders in Madison. But he supported Virginia’s right-to-work laws during his gubernatorial campaign and his four years in office. Even the group that seeks to expand these laws [the National Right to Work Foundation] concedes Kaine did few things that troubled them.”

Emmett Till, a 14-year old murdered in Money, Mississippi on August 28, 1955, would be celebrating his 75th birthday on Tuesday, July 25. The writer Philip C. Kolin, like Till a native of Chicago, and professor English in Mississippi, has recently published a book, Emmett Till in Different States: Poems (Third World Press) that traces both the historical significance and contemporary legacy of Till’s brief life.

Criminally negligent police departments continue to receive billions in federal grants and funding, when instead those dollars could be poured into our nation’s school system, community health care systems and alternative strategies that keep people safe. Everyday elected officials refuse to act, Black lives are put at risk.