Portside

Many have praised the recent AFL-CIO convention for the delegates' efforts to fundamentally change organized labor's direction and strategy. The hope is that a reinvigorated labor movement will reverse the decline in union power and forge a broad coalition that can effectively fight the rising tide of wealth and income inequality and the growing impoverishment of the working-class. The following article from the AFL-CIO's online blog highlights ten new initiatives.

The Union Makes Us Strong takes us back, and that's not at all a bad thing. There's a purity of sound here that is moving, along with a professionalism and delivers the goods. "The Union Makes Us Strong by Peter K. Siegel and Eli Smith is a wonderful collection of old favorites, enlivened by some fancy banjo, fiddle and mandolin work and by the sweet harmony of the two singers, " writes labor historian Paul Buhle.

Cleaning and concessions workers in federal buildings will protest their taxpayer-funded poverty jobs. Those planning to strike include workers who serve food or wash floors at Union Station (owned by the Department of Transportation), Smithsonian Museums (owned by the federal Smithsonian Institution), and the Ronald Reagan Building and Old Post Office (owned by the General Services Administration).

Over 200,000 workers in Bangaldesh entered a third days of strikes, demanding the minimum wage be raised from the current 3,000 takas ($38) to 8,114 takas ($100).

Madison — Unions told two state labor officials Friday that if they do not promise to stop enforcing provisions of a law restricting collective bargaining by Monday, they will seek contempt-of-court orders against them.

Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) has since become the longest-lived, most successful rank and file movement in U.S. labor history. Many labor historians have noted TDU’s role in winning rights, cutting mob influence in the Teamsters, and giving rank and file Teamsters a voice.

It used to be too dangerous to have a person work alongside a robot. But at a South Carolina BMW plant, next-generation robots are changing that.

Judge's ruling to stop closing of a hospital in Brooklyn is a major victory for the community. This has implications for the proposed closings of other hospitals in New York.

"The people at the bottom are going to be continually squeezed, and I don't see this ending anytime soon," said Harvard economist Richard Freeman. "If the economy were growing enough or unions were stronger, it would be possible for the less educated to do better and for the lower income to improve. But in our current world, where we are still adjusting to globalization, that is not very likely to happen."

There was lots of excitement about the AFL-CIO Convention last week, but were the proposals enough to rebuild the labor movement? Steve Early argues,"Given the extreme attacks both union and non-union workers are suffering, the convention’s heavy emphasis on conventional political strategies and growth through diluted forms of membership was not “transformative” enough to meet the challenges of the day."