Portside

Workers are picketing Southwest Airlines at 10 airports. Union leaders say that the company has been privileging stockholders at the expense of workers, despite record profits.

Activists are calling for an end to charter schools and juvenile detention centers.

Bernie is building an infrastructure that will help encourage the growth of the political revolution. This will include a Sanders Institute to elevate issues and ideas, and two organization to recruit 100 candidates running for offices from Congress to school boards, as well as to help them campaign.

President Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers and President Michael Mulgrew, United Federation of Teachers Strongly supported Secretary Hillary Clintion at the Democratic Party National Convention. They stressed that she was rock solid on labor issues.

The labor movement's agenda was on full display at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Union delegates numbered roughly one-quarter of the convention’s 4,000-plus delegates. Still, there were stark reminders that labor has struggled to keep at bay the party’s coziness with corporations, especially those of the Silicon Valley disruption variety. Ride-hailing giant Uber—not unionized taxi cabs—served as the DNC’s exclusive shuttle service.

lee Saunders, President of the 1.6 million American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers is not only a major leader in the AFL-CIO, but one of the prime supporters of Secretary Hillary Clinton.

Driver-owned apps could end Uber’s exploitative reign over the ride-share market.

But it's unlikely the politicians and labor leaders involved in the law expected this: an Uber-funded investigation of local union politics by a CIA-linked intelligence company.

If unions find better strategic partners outside the labor movement on a particular issue, they should proceed on the basis of their analysis of what is needed, not hold back and wait for labor unity. Too often a particular union’s political stance may reflect a private employer’s growth plans, not the general good for working people.

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.