Portside

There will be a mail-in vote for union representation from July 21 to Aug. 4 for teachers at the "I Can" charter school in Northeastern Ohio. The American Federation of Teachers plans to file Unfair Labor Practice Charges for alleged retaliation against nine teachers whose contracts were not renewed. Teachers are concerned over class sizes as large as 40, and special needs students not having their needs met. Click the link at the bottom to watch the video.

Veteran labor activist and labor reporter, Steve Early, looks at the growing number of third party candidates and the growing support they are receiving from the labor movement. He pays particular attention to the long history of successful third party candidates in the State of Vermont.

An independent Scotland would give us the opportunity to construct a social solidarity that would say we are not prepared to let reaction destroy our economy, our jobs and our community. My choice is based not on nationalism but on how best to push forward the interests of my class.

As more and more workers become part-time employees they and their advocates are fighting for steadier hours.

The dominant neoliberal consensus today is that class, race, and gender are just issues of identity. The dominant narrative claims that none of them are structural forces worth bemoaning. None of them have the power to determine our life chances if we don’t want them to. To the contrary, it is the invisibility of the structural dimensions of class, race, and gender that defines current social relations of power

How will the clash over education reform between neoliberal democrats and teachers unions play out in the presidential elections?

The largest Union in Britain, UNITE, endorsed a call to Boycott, Divest and Enact Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, because of its treatment and occupation of Palestine. Another article explains the BDS movement.

Rallies, marches and picket lines were held at schools, council offices and town and city centres across Great Britain and Northern Ireland as public workers protested decline living standards, working conditions and a threat to their right to strike.

A majority of union members today now have ties to a government entity, at the federal, state or local levels. Roughly 1-in-3 public-sector workers is a union member, compared with about 1-in-15 for the private-sector workforce. The typical union worker now is more likely to be an educator, office worker or food or service industry employee rather than a construction worker, autoworker, electrician or mechanic. Far more women than men are in unions.

The new president of the largest teachers union in the country will become the voice of roughly 3 million teachers at perhaps the most critical moment in the National Education Association’s history. First item on the agenda: Win back the public.