Portside

As city police hauled away about two dozen of his casino union brethren in handcuffs at a mass protest last week, longtime Trump Taj Mahal bartender Al Messina couldn't help but wonder aloud:Is this what 24 years comes down to? What happened to the bond between the casino industry and its workers?

As city police hauled away about two dozen of his casino union brethren in handcuffs at a mass protest last week, longtime Trump Taj Mahal bartender Al Messina couldn't help but wonder aloud:Is this what 24 years comes down to? What happened to the bond between the casino industry and its workers?

As city police hauled away about two dozen of his casino union brethren in handcuffs at a mass protest last week, longtime Trump Taj Mahal bartender Al Messina couldn't help but wonder aloud:Is this what 24 years comes down to? What happened to the bond between the casino industry and its workers?

A new book, "Collective Bargaining and the Battle of Ohio: The Defeat of Senate Bill 5 and the Struggle to Defend the Middle Class," by John McNay, draws lessons from the battle in Ohio that defeated a Republican anti-union bill by public referendum.

Whether the split between labor and the Democratic Party in Ohio is temporary or permanent, the ongoing peace talks between the Democrats and labor leaders haven’t quelled labor’s urge to become the dominant political force in the county. Activists are aware that labor support for an independent mayoral candidate in 2015 could burn another bridge back to the Democratic Party.

After a long absence organized labor is attempting to unionize workers in Silicon Valley. The teamsters have aimed their campaign Facebook drivers. Previous campaigns in 1992 and 2008 ended in failure.

Philadelphia teachers and their union were surprised today when they learned that the School Reform Commission had decided to unilaterally cancel their contract.

The union election was remarkable for a couple reasons: First, because of the margin of victory, with 86 percent voting yes on 77 percent turnout. And second, because it took place in the anti-union South.

In 2010 two former employees of Integrity Staffing Solutions, a temp agency that supplies workers at many of Amazon’s U.S. warehouses, sued the company demanding back pay for the time they spent in security lines after clocking out at Amazon warehouses in Nevada. On Oct. 8 the Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether that time counts as work.

Two articles on Venezuela. The first is on the takeover of an abandoned Clorex factory, by the Venezuelan government. The second is about the assassination of a young member of the Venezuelan Socialist Party.