Portside

Americans think they live in a democracy. But their workplaces are small tyrannies.

Isolated examples exist of union resistance and victory. Important as these are, they do not yet approach the scale needed to respond to the challenges that labor faces in the coming years. But they show that it is still possible to strike, and it is still possible to win. In each case, building workplace union culture and organization was key. Broadening this model outwards could provide ways of reversing labor’s fortunes.

The Eisendrath group’s deal preserves two independent newspaper voices in Chicago, one of the last two-newspaper towns in America. Tronc had vowed to operate the Tribune and Sun-Times as independent titles, though media observers had expressed skepticism over how long that might last.

"On Tuesday, the U.A.W. said a petition for a union election had been filed by employees at a Nissan plant in Mississippi with more than 6,000 workers. They asked for a vote within a month."

The removal of a single toxic CEO, like the condemning of a single home in the wake of a chemical leak, won’t make the region livable.

A newly-mobilized working class could reshape the nation’s economic and political landscape. Women are the core of today's working-class, and that’s why women’s leadership – – especially among women of color — will be critical for that new working-class movement tp take shape.

One big issue in May’s three-day strike by 38,000 AT&T workers was the company’s offshoring of jobs.

The now-rejected proposed contract deal included wage hike totaling 11% over four years and some job security promises, but also increased employees' healthcare contributions to cover insurance premiums to 29% by 2020.

After years of struggle, El Salvador workers have won a victory with a new minimum wage that has made an enormous impact in people's lives. Corporate power has not given up, preferring to pay starvation wages they are attempting to roll back the gains made.

"It’s unclear exactly how many jobs are on the line. But public health experts at George Washington University estimate that 912,000 health care workers in the United States could lose their jobs if Congress rolls back the Medicaid expansion and removes tax credits to help people buy private insurance."