Portside

Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 in San Francisco have passed a motion to stop work and march on Crissy Fields the site of a white nationalist gathering that is planned to take place on Saturday, August 26.

It’s been almost a decade since the Great Recession, and America has witnessed a record 82 months of month-on-month jobs growth. The national unemployment rate now stands at a 4.3%, a 16-year low. But month after month, it is the low-wage sectors – fast food, retail, healthcare – that have added new jobs. Wage growth has barely kept pace with inflation. The national minimum wage ($7.25) was last raised in 2009.

Rulings in recent years have effectively forced consumers to file class actions in the jurisdiction where the corporation is based or to disaggregate the claims into separate filings.

With teachers facing similar attacks in school districts across the country, it makes sense to share strategies for fighting back. That’s the goal of the United Caucuses of Rank-and-File Educators (UCORE), a growing network of locals and caucuses within the teachers unions.

Though the law is set to take effect on August 28, the pro-union We Are Missouri coalition, led by the Missouri AFL-CIO, says it has collected enough signatures from voters to call for a state-wide referendum in November 2018 that could nullify the legislation.

Trump has been apt to condemn and mock anyone he finds offensive. He has no problem commenting on women bleeding, but has no comment when someone is bleeding from being hit by a car. His lack of commentary is indicative of his relationship to the white racists. While I do not believe all those who support this president are racist, I do believe all racists support this president. His lack of actions and words have reinforced this fact.

The neo-Nazis, The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists must be condemned, and defeated, in the press, on the streets, in the classrooms, in the workplaces, and in the halls of government, from the highest levels in the White House to every town hall and union hall across the United States.

The salvation of unions resides in joining with allies to fight the coming Trump onslaught – and then to go beyond that to define a bold, unapologetic vision of society and economy, one that inspires millions of workers to engage and take action.

As alt-right and white supremacist movements grow it is important to revisit history and see the ways in which most hate movements are intertwined.

To advance anti-racism on the macro scale, we need to collectively engage in popular struggle, rooted in a left platform that is relevant and intuitive for poor and working people. There should be an immediate creation of a hopeful, broad-based mission that is winnable, which will serve to expand the resistance movement and create an organized majority to kill pernicious nationalism, masquerading as populism.