Portside

Many activists rely on fiction for inspiration, new perspectives, and, of course, entertainment. For some of us, novels even helped start us down our paths of activism. But—which novels? A survey of a handful of labor activists and educators revealed their favorite class-conscious novels.

As The Nation has reported, in a charge filed one week before November’s Black Friday strike, Walmart had accused the United Food & Commercial Workers union of organizing illegal pickets for the purpose of winning union recognition (the protests were spearheaded by the UFCW-backed group OUR Walmart).

Republicans say it’s a simple change, opting out to opting in. But by making it more difficult for public employee unions to collect dues, GOP lawmakers in Kansas and Missouri could weaken a chief political nemesis. If organized labor is dealt that blow this year, the stage could be set in subsequent years in Missouri to push for a right-to-work law — the most contentious of disputes between management and unions played out in state legislatures across the nation.

SEIU vice president convicted of stealing over $1 million of members dues money.

The AFL-CIO expects 22 states to consider restrictions to the bargaining process, such as preventing particular types of government employees from joining bargaining units, this year.

Now that we're well past the euphoria of election night, it's time to consider what the vote really meant, and how unions can move forward. First, it's clear that we in labor can't dedicate ourselves to "holding the president accountable" because Obama is not, in fact, accountable to us. He raised $1 billion for his re-election, and most of it was not from us.

Each August, just before the start of school, more than 1,000 drivers for the Atlantic Express school bus company gather in a lot in the shadow of Citi Field in Flushing, Queens. For the drivers, it is the event of the year, one repeated at lots all over the city, and is known simply as “the pick.”

Latino workers, demanding respect in a precarious job environment, helped boost the state's unionized workforce by 100,000 in 2012.

The US Court of Appeals, in Washington DC, issued a decision declaring the recess appointments Pres. Obama made to the NLRB in Jan. 2012 are unconstitutional.

Like most new organizing in the private sector, decades of attempts to unionize Walmart stores in the U.S. and Canada have been met with firings, outsourcing, and even closings.