Portside

The fight to control the working day remains one of our most important labor struggles.

Unite Here Local 8 and Space Needle management have been through 11 federal mediation sessions over the last three years. Now management will implement pay raises contained in its last offer.

Unions have discovered that there are other ways to deal with workers who are not on their membership rolls. For example, for the first half of last year, AFSCME set out to organize as full members 50,000 of the fair share payers or other non-members in workplaces where they had contracts. They organized 90,000.

A special convention of Cosatu -- the Congress of South African Trade Unions -- concluded a special convention rejecting an appeal by the expelled metal workers union to rejoin the federation. The future of former Cosatu President Zwelinzima Vavi was also debated. Although the Federation's unity was preserved and its political orientation was, deep divisions remain.

The American Federation of Teachers executive council voted overwhelmingly to endorse Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party primary for President of the United States on Saturday, July 11. The union has more than 1.6 million members. President Randi Weingarten said "Hillary Clinton is a tested leader who shares our values.

The Greeks and the U.S. working poor endure the same deprivations because they are being assaulted by the same system—corporate capitalism. There are no internal constraints on corporate capitalism.And the few external constraints that existed have been removed.

Even though AFT's press release explained the process of how members were polled, including several town hall meetings, multiple surveys and a "you decide" website, the announcement of the endorsement erupted a firestorm of outrage from AFT teacher members nationwide on twitter.

Starbucks workers fought and won the right to display their tattoos using Coworker.org. Can even bigger victories for workers be next?

Leaders with the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group for 56 member unions representing more than 12.5 million workers, will press her on issues such as trade, infrastructure and the types of officials she would name to the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.

Much of Aronowitz' criticism of what the labor movement doesn't do, rings true, as does his call for a more open socialist orientation. But 40 after the capitalist class started its aggressive attack on unions we need more than lists of what labor should do. We need to talk about how we are going to do things differently, not just that we should based on a real understanding of where workers are politically, organizationally and ideologically.