Portside

If we are serious about preventing future catastrophes of this nature, we must equip railroad workers with the necessary tools - including but not limited to those outlined below -- to enable them to perform the job safely. Railroad Workers United believes it is time we learn from these terrible tragedies and get serious about implementing the necessary measures to ensure safe railroad operations.

After a decade long campaign led by Unite union, fast food chains have committed to ending zero hour contracts in New Zealand. Tens of thousands of workers in the fast food industry will now have secure hours of employment. This victory in New Zealand -- supported by workers in Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Hong Kong and elsewhere represents a fundamental shift in the employment relationship of the most vulnerable workers in the country

The compendious catalogue of a recent exhibit offers representations of art as practiced by numerous Plains tribes from first encounter with Europeans to their near decimation not only from military conquest and rough frontier justice but from European-spawned disease. Much of the work is likened to that of Italian painters of religious scenes during the Renaissance, which might be defined as the depiction of social life sustained by a sacred sacrifice of blood.

The history of public housing in the United States can be read, in part, as a history of the modern impoverishment of racial minorities, in particular, of the African American population. As reviewer Rhonda Y. Williams notes, Edward G. Goetz has written a "multi-layered analysis of housing policy and redevelopment," in a book that "explicitly examines black removal from urban spaces and the perpetuation of racialized poverty."

The Third Reich produced 1,200 films, 300 of which were banned after WWII as dangerous propaganda. Forbidden Films examines the 40 that remain effectively banned to this day, locked inside a German federal film archive and only made availavle to researchers. Are they historical evidence, incitements to murder, fascist pornography, evergreen entertainments, toxic waste or passé kitsch? Are these films better shown and discussed rather than repressed and forgotten?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office released a report Monday accusing presidential administrations, including Obama’s, of not enforcing labor protections in trade deals.

Common foods like olive oil, fish, honey and fruit juices may not contain the food ingredients you think they do. This is an issue not only of food fraud but of food safety.

Part two of a series looking back on the 20th anniversary the AFL-CIO’s New Voice movement. Most successful organizing is not done in a vacuum, existing members have to be front line apostles

Mike Casey, who has led San Francisco’s UNITE HERE Local 2 for over 20 years, is stepping down. Casey was first elected president of Local 2 in 1994, after a tumultuous period in the 1970s and 1980s that resulted in large membership losses. He has presided over a period of stabilization, consolidation and growth. Local 2, once known as the Culinary Union for its many restaurant contracts that have long since disappeared, is now better known as the Hotel Union.

The poet explains the transition between these two poems and reveals a mordant humor.: "That Sure is My Little Dog," written some years ago, arose from what I felt at the time was a lack of political outrage on the left, particularly among younger people, but by the time of Occupy Wall Street, I was feeling more hopeful about my generation (the Woodstock era folks) passing the banner on to the next.generation. Which leads us to the second poem, "Leonard Cohen's Guitar."