Portside

Hiring freezes, an end to automatic raises, a green light to fire poor performers, a ban on union business on the government’s dime and less generous pensions — these are the contours of the blueprint emerging under Republican control of Washington in January. these are the contours of the blueprint emerging under Republican control of Washington in January.

We're all trying to figure out the next steps. So many face immediate threats from both fascist-leaning Trump supporters and the far right Republican state in waiting. We and millions of other refuse to accept this...Portside contributes our best to find and share the most interesting and useful material we can aimed at remaking the world into a fairer and more peaceful place. Once a year, we appeal to readers to contribute - to help make all this possible.

As one union staffer told me: “What they seem to have missed is that the way to reach blacks, Latinos, and women is the same way you reach the white working class: progressive economics, and knock on their doors. And guess what? The allegedly ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ white working class is cool with a multicultural coalition as long as you give them the progressive economics..."

Preliminary vote totals indeed show that Zuckerman won more votes among U.S. members and was leading by nearly 800 votes before the Canadian ballots were counted. But the Canadian vote went heavily in Hoffa’s favor, about 9,500 to 2,900.

Leaders of the Jewish Labor Committee compare Trump's victory to the rise of the Third Reich in German. Stuart Appelbaum, executive vice president of the United food and Commercial, noted that “back in the 1930s, our founders saw the importance of building alliances and coalitions that could stand together for their values, and stand up against anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry.”

With neoliberalism discredited and the political establishments of both parties defeated, we must offer real solutions on employment, economic inequality, and labor rights by organizing a grass roots, democratic rank-and-file movement, larger and more powerful than Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. It’s time to build broader, unite stronger, and fight harder than we’ve ever done before.

Four years ago, when Obama won re-election, he carried this town by a 67-26 percent margin. This year, Trump won 50-42 percent over Hillary Clinton. They didn’t care about Clinton’s emails or where Trump likes to grab women. They cared about their jobs. They know Trump alone can’t save the mill from closure, but they felt they knew what they’d be getting with Clinton: Four, or even eight, more years of the same.

Unions were finally on an upswing. Now, they’re staring down the barrel of the GOP’s gun.

Janice Fine contributes to a forum on "After Trump." She argues that many people care about inequality, but not all like unions. Some think unions are too conflictual, but Fine argues this is necessary to win the kinds of demands we need to win.

Radicals have long argued that American labor leaders are not only isolated from their rank and file, but actually have a set of interests that are distinct from their members. If labor is going to avoid such astronomical blunders as Trump’s victory in the future, rank-and-file workers will have to lead the charge against their Clinton-backing leaders.