Portside

Neoliberal education reform is plagued by a contradiction in its commitments — schools need autonomy to be responsive to communities, yet most charters are run by non-educators with no stake in these communities.

The Warren Buffett owned Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway pushed hard for a railroad union to agree to one person crews. Despite support from Union leadership, the membership rejected the one person crew contract.

Miners visited Parliament during talks on a proposed law to expand subcontracting, though some weren’t allowed to enter because they were wearing work uniforms and boots. thThey are demanding that those responsible for the disaster that killed 301 workers be brought to justice; that the mines be nationalized again; that subcontracting be banned; and that occupational health and safety measures be enforced.

When the Supreme Court ruled that unions could not collect dues from the home-care workers they represent, the justices set workers and their clients on a course that could harm them both.

"The term “union” is a dirty word in some circles, even in this city, where labor still has considerable clout and has catapulted many workers into the middle class. But no one can deny that these union workers savor something that is all too rare in the retail industry right now: guaranteed minimum hours — for part-time and full-time employees — and predictable schedules."

Thousands of fast food workers across 150 U.S. cities walked off the job on Thursday. Hundreds of those workers — nearly 500 of them, according to a public relations firm supporting the strikes — willfully committed civil disobedience as part of their protest, and were subsequently arrested by the police.

Peasant associations, unionists, left-wing parties and anti-racist groups launch a solidarity campaign in Greece following a summer which saw a court set free the men who shot strawberry pickers in Greece the previous year. Thirty-five workers, most from Bangladesh, were injured in the shooting, four of them critically. They had been asking for unpaid back wages. Most migrant farm workers in Greece are without legal papers.

Fast food workers are planning to hold civil disobedience actions on Thursday calling for a $15 an hour wage.

Most liberals continue to pay lip service to unions and their importance to the Democratic coalition. But in private, many will tell you that they have little use for them. Julian Zelizer, a Princeton political economist, argues that the marriage between liberalism and organized labor “took a terrible turn starting in the 1970s,” when global competition moved manufacturing jobs from the unionized Northeast and Midwest to the non-union South and, ultimately, abroad.

A new report suggests that union membership has increased in New York City and State, particularly in the private sector.