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Sanders Loses on Trade at Democratic Platform Meeting

David Weigel Washington Post
When it came time to fight, the Sanders forces tried two tactics. The first was an amendment to the compromise plank, tweaking it to say "and that's why we oppose the TPP." The second was a separate amendment that would have put the party on record against a TPP vote this year.

South Korea: Independent Union Leader Sentenced to Five Years in Prison

Yi San Labor Notes
South Korea's unions, once one of the best organized segments of the global labor movement, have suffered setbacks since the late 1990s, when the government made it easier for employers to lay off workers and hire casuals. Fewer than one in 10 workers is now unionized, the country’s lowest level ever. South Korea’s government and business leaders want to put Han away because he represents a pivotal segment of what is left of labor militancy.

Labor Union Works to Persuade Voters Door-to-Door

Doug Livingston Akron Beacon Journal
While candidates and political parties use mostly volunteers to get the public to help them optimize ad spending, Working America aims to shape attitudes in face-to-face conversations, usually standing on a front stoop with a cracked screen door or a barking dog between a canvasser and a malleable voter. Over the past 12 years, the labor group has held repeat conversations on their front porches to advance progressive policies and candidates.

Clinton Snags AFL-CIO Official, Former Sanders Staffer, In Labor Outreach

Amanda Becker Reuters
Secretary Hillary Clinton has hired two deputy labor campaign directors. Lori D Orazio is coming from the AFL-CIO and formerly worked for the United Auto Workers. Michelle Gilliam was a staffer for Senator Bernie Sanders and before that was an organizer for a local chapter of the Transport Workers Union.

Immigrant Laborers Have a New Tool to Fight Back Against Rampant Wage Theft in the US

Kate Groetzinger, Frida Garza Quartz.com
The Jornalero app has three main functions: First, it allows day laborers to record the hours they work. Second, it allows them to file a wage theft report directly to a workers’ center from their phone. Third, it allows them to send out an alert when they experience wage theft, to warn other day laborers with the app about nonpaying employers in the area.

Labor Unions File Lawsuits Challenging 'Right-to-Work'

Phil Kabler Charleston Gazette-Mail
It compares the right-to-work law with laws passed in Southern states in the 1950s as part of the massive resistance to the U.S. Supreme Court’s desegregation orders in Brown v. Board of Education, with legislation intended to discourage membership in the NAACP — laws that were ultimately overturned in court for violating 1st and 14th Amendment rights of free expression and association.

New Labour's Contempt for Ordinary People Was to Going to Only Ever End in Disaster

Alan Simpson Morning Star
In the end, those who must live without hope easily turn to hate — or at least resentment. That is how we ended up with a referendum campaign that rarely reached beyond “fear” and “immigrants.” Throughout history, the right only feeds in the spaces vacated by progressive, inclusive politics. At least on the Labour side, much of the Leave vote has its roots more in poverty than in prejudice. And this is where Labour must begin.

How Unions and Environmental Groups are Finding Common Ground

Julie Grant Michigan Radio
Leaders in both the environmental and labor movements say the country could prevent more public health disasters like the toxic water crisis in Flint, Michigan, if old infrastructure is fixed or replaced -- like leaky drinking water pipes, and natural gas pipelines. And at the same time, the repairs would create jobs.

State Terrorism and Education, the New Speculative Sector in the Stock Market

Renata Bessi and Santiago Navarro F. El Enemigo Común
(Orginally published in Spanish on SubVersiones, see links at the end.) If the national teachers movement in Mexico manages to bring down the educational reform, there will be a path to bringing down all the structural reforms that are occurring in the country’s strategic sectors, such as the energy sector. This is the assessment that teachers are making. This is precisely the fear of the federal government.

The Master/Servant Relationship: A Medieval Horror Romance

Peter Hall-Jones New Unionism
Why do we defer from 9 to 5? The “master-servant relationship” is a feudal phantom that still haunts today’s workplaces, thanks to English common law. Peter Hall-Jones argues that it’s time to exorcise the old ghoul. The workplace democracy movement aims to do just that, but where do unions fit in? The way they respond to this agenda might well determine their relevance in the workplace of the future.