Portside

Port workers at billionaire Li Ka- shing’s Hongkong International Terminals Ltd. ended the longest strike at Hong Kong’s container terminal as they accepted a 9.8 percent wage increase, resolving a dispute that damaged the city’s reputation as a trade hub.

This article is based upon an interrogation of two books: Gregg Shotwell, Autoworkers Under the Gun: A Shop-Floor View of the End of the American Dream; and Jane McAlevey with Bob Ostertag, Raising Expectations (And Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting For the Labor Movement. Each book focuses on an iconic labor union (UAW and SEIU). What they report gives us reason for both deep concern and hope concerning the future of organized labor.

When the votes were tallied at the NLRB regional office in Oakland yesterday, NUHW support in Kaiser’s largest bargaining unit had increased by 15 percent—but SEIU, the vocal opponent of striking, won again with 18,844 votes versus NUHW’s 13,101. (Another 334 workers chose no union.)

In a scarcely-noticed lawsuit filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, a conservative nonprofit, the Center for Individual Rights, claims that California's system for collecting dues or fees from public employees abridges free speech. RELATED: 10 California teachers are suing in federal court to stop mandatory fair share fee collection. The lawsuit seeks to expand last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision involving union activity in a California special election.

Labor Day is a fight for immigrants rights as well as workers rights. To get either we must fight for both.

The list of “accidents” in Bangladesh factories is long and painful. These factories are a part of the landscape of globalization that is mimicked in the factories around the world in other places that opened their doors to the garment industry’s savvy use of the new manufacturing and trade order of the 1990s. Those who died in Bangladesh are victims not only of the malfeasance of the sub-contractors, but also of 21st century globalisation.

A high-stakes fight between one of the nation's largest unions and an upstart, homegrown rival over which one should get to represent thousands of Kaiser Permanente workers in California entered Round 2 this month. NUHW-CNA face off against SEIU. Mail-in voting concludes Monday, and a final tally is expected by Friday.

The Supreme Court's decision in Allied Chemical Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass to give employers complete control of retiree benefits undercuts the purpose of the National Labor Relations Act and leaves vulnerable, retired employees powerless to protect themselves from costly changes in benefits.

Union leaders are exploring new forms of organization. One such form is the “minority” or “pre-majority” union. Under that framework, workers could sign up members and bargain on behalf of a smaller group until they reached the 50 percent threshold and went through the traditional certification process. This article explores a number of non-traditional avenues for unions.

Breaking: 500 low-wage workers expected to stop working from a dozen chains on Wednesday morning