Portside

As national Democrats prepare to run against the GOP on income equality issues, a giant union has issued a scathing Obamacare document that could undermine that case. "The Irony of ObamaCare: Making Inequality Worse" is the title of the UNITE HERE document that is soon to be making its way to Capitol Hill.

As another International Women's Day rolls around March 8, women workers are still facing down infuriatingly familiar challenges—including the persistence of workplace sexual harassment, especially for those of us working low-wage jobs.

It is time to raise the sub-minimum wage. The tipped wage of restaurant workers has been stuck at $2.13 an hour since 1991. A proposed bill in Congress would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016 and the sub-minimum wage to $7.10 by 2019.

"Moral Mondays" movement spreads in South as a coalition of the NAACP, other activist organizations, including unions, rallied Monday in Tallahassee, one day ahead of the opening of Florida's 2014 legislative session.

Though the unions held themselves up as civil rights advocates, white workers often saw their black counterparts as a threat because they competed for the same jobs. In response, black workers formed coalitions to change unions from within. The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, for example, was founded in 1972. One union stood out when it came to opportunity and access for black workers: the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters with its significant black membership.

The agreement calls for an immediate 4.5% pay increase as a signing bonus and then across-the-board 3% raises annually through 2016, plus an additional 2% each year for many employees within certain longevity and pay categories, according to UC. The lower-wage workers will not have to pay any increases for some health insurance coverage.

This blog puts a spotlight on the labor activity in the U.S. South you don't read about elsewhere, always keeping it in context with what is going on nationally and internationally in the Global South as well. This blog also provides a historical and cultural (including music, literature, and art) perspective that takes into account the long, hard, and often bloody struggle workers have always had to wage whenever they tried to organize in this region

One simply can't explain the decline of union representation without acknowledging the role of employer opposition and its empowerment by government policy, as outlined in a 2009 report from the Economic Policy Institute. The government role includes the expansion of "right to work" laws, and the enfeeblement of the National Labor Relations Board and its intimidation by members of Congress.

Reformers will challenge the Machinists Union leadership in a membership election to take place in June. The recent contract at Boeing which included significant pension givebacks despite record profits at Boeing is one of the major spurs behind the oppositions campaign.

Wisconsin was the first state to grant public-sector unions the right to negotiate contracts. Before Gov. Gaylord Nelson signed that law in 1959, only unionized workers in private companies had a government-protected right to bargain collectively. The Wisconsin idea soon spread around the country. Act 10 is an about-face, and Gov. Walker and his Republican supporters see it as a tough-minded strategy that other states can follow. History repeating itself, if in reverse.