Portside

International Labor Organization (ILO) Conventions that protect worker rights should be binding. Just as international financial institutions have the power to enforce their regulations, so too the ILO should have the power to sanction states or multinational corporations that breach its principles.

In defining a clear and comprehensive anti-capitalist politics and offering rational and compelling reasons for operating as anti-capitalists, highly readable Marxian scholar David Harvey goes beyond listing contradictions of capital to engage in a systematic account of the web of 17 relationships for what are usually treated as isolated aspects of crisis. Many of the contradictions are manageable, but some in combination also contain the seeds of systemic catastrophe.

It’s this year’s biggest private-sector bargaining, between the Kaiser Permanente system and a coalition of 28 locals representing 100,000 health care workers.But the national deal, due June 4, may reveal widening cracks in the celebrated labor-management partnership that turns 18 this year. Kaiser is looking for three concessions, say non-coalition unions: increased health care co-pays, cuts to retiree medical coverage, and a two-tier pension.

Editors Clifton Ross and Marcy Rein offer a host of interviews with today's social change activists from Latin America. Staughton Lynd offers a review of this kaleidoscopic survey.

In Andrew Niccol's 'Good Kill', fresh from his Oscar-nominated role in Boyhood, Ethan Hawke portrays pilot Major Tom Egan, who, after repeat combat tours flying over the Iraq and Afghan theaters of conflict, is now stationed outside Las Vegas, where he is deeply conflicted by his role in the UAV liquidation-by-remote-control project.

If the unionization effort succeeds, it will be a big PR boost for the ailing labor movement. It will show that unions, which have focused in recent years on organizing low-wage workers, can also attract hip, highly educated workers, many of them Ivy League graduates. But if Gawker staffers reject the union, it will be an embarrassing blow to labor, especially because so much of the Gawker debate has been out in the open.

Five years ago, workers at Nanhai Honda in China captured the world's attention in a wildcat strike that shut down Honda production. Workers demanded a large pay increase and the chance to elect their own union representatives. What has happened since? The current situation at Nanhai Honda presents both a challenge and an opportunity to the trade union.

In its second season, Halt tells the story of two women laboring to bring a new, better technology to consumers with an assist from a houseful of gamers. Lean In, Gamergate, and the ongoing under-representation of women in tech hang heavy over the episodes.

Volkswagen is touting a University of Tennessee study that determined controversial incentives from the state of Tennessee for the expansion of VW’s assembly plant in Chattanooga are, in fact, a damn good investment for the state. The sunny conclusions of the report may even be mostly accurate, at least with some context. Problem is, Volkswagen paid for the study. Greg LeRoy of Good Jobs First said he believed numbers for created jobs were exaggerated.

In a world of multiple crises and bad politics, Wisconsin poet Margaret Rozga celebrates the spirit of unyielding global resistance.