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Free Trade Winners and Losers

Gary Herman Union Solidarity International
The Canada-European Union "Free" Trade Pact, due to be signed on October 27, like other such agreements, favors corporate power and profits at the expense of working people. Dock workers action last July shows resistance is possible.

Play “FeedingThe Dragon” Recalls Life With Dad, A DC 37 Member

Kevin Zapf Hanes AFSCME
A play about a young woman growing up in New York City where her father was a live-in custodian at the St. Agnes Branch Library Library on Amsterdam Avenue between 80 and 81st Street. She describes what a wonderful life she had living in a library and how much the union, District Council 37, AFSCME meant to her and her family. "Feeding the Dragon" has opened at the Pittsburgh City Theatre in Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia Orchestra Walks Out on Opening Night

Michael Cooper New York Times
The strike — called on the same day that musicians on the other side of Pennsylvania at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra walked out on strike — came as the Philadelphia’s players sought to recover some of the pay they lost to concessions during the recent bankruptcy.

Building Alliances to End Gender-Based Violence at Work

Tula Connell Solidarity Center AFL-CIO
There is a specific set of behaviors that constitute gender-based violence at work that includes sexual violence, verbal abuse, threats of violence and bullying. A meeting in Brazil sponsored by the International Trade Union Confederation and the Solidarity Center discussed a campaign to shape a worker-driven International Labor Organization standard ending gender-based violence at work, based about successful initiatives by local worker organizations.

Waivers Can Fix Out-of-Date Federal Labor Laws

Andrew Stern & Eli Lehrer Washington Examiner
Moderators Note: This Portside Labor moderator does not agree with the following proposal by Andy Stern and Eli Lehrer. I do believe that the left in the labor movement needs to know what schemes conservatives are proposing, especially when it comes from a former "labor leader".

Volkswagen Faces Bumpy Road in Challenge to 'Micro-Union'

Daniel Wiessner and Bernie Woodall Reuters
The German automaker's U.S. subsidiary earlier this month brought a case in a Washington, D.C.-based federal appeals court seeking to overturn a vote by a group of skilled trade workers at its Chattanooga, Tennessee, assembly plant to join the United Auto Workers. The dispute is a high-profile test of whether unions, an seek new members by targeting smaller groups, rather than organizing whole plants or companies as in the past.

Who Will Win the Just Born Game of Chicken?

Anthony Salamone, Scott Kraus The Morning Call
400 workers represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union have been on strike at the Just Born candy factory since September 7. Just Born's hard-line stance on hiring replacement workers could have both short- and long-term consequences for the company, including the need to rebuild shattered trust among employees and the possibility of fending off lawsuits from the workers hired to replace them, experts said.