Portside

Expertise in the language of the internet is part of what has made BuzzFeed a digital giant. Now members of the website’s news staff are using their fluency in digital culture to pressure their employer to come to the bargaining table.

It’s a problem that starts with the U.S. Congress: Since 1980, as the workforce has grown by 50 percent, Congress has kept the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s funding essentially flat — with budget increases eaten away by inflation.

Over the last few decades, the employee-employer relationship has been hollowed-out...by the staffing industry and businesses that want to “hire” workers without the regulations and obligations that come with officially employing them.

Mercy says nurses returned Thursday, local UAW says informational meetings now are Friday and Saturday

Those losses are the result of highly sophisticated and intense anti-union campaigns by employers, business groups, and politicians. They are also the result of the unsophisticated, shallow organizing approach of the UAW.

A number of Portside readers respond to last week's Labor post, "Reader Responses to Nurses Defend Union Contract." Here are responses from Lauren Esguerra Chavarria; Shanna Murphy; Dahlia Tayag; Faye Bruneau; Francesca Gomes.

Trade union activities are seen as suspicious by Turkish authorities. Unionists have been arrested and convicted for participation in unauthorized protests.

Journalists are saying yes to unions to lift salary floors, win or improve basic benefits, and provide some cushion to the industry’s volatility.

The Volkswagen plant would boost UAW's flagging membership, way down because of plant closings and automation. It represented more than 1 million people at auto assembly plants in the 1980s, but only 155,000 at GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler today.

It’s been five years since Seattle’s landmark $15 minimum wage law. It not only helped workers — it raised their expectations about what's possible and what they deserve.