Portside

The fast food strikes could be the embryo of a new labor movement that challenges the power of organized money and the skyrocketing inequality that has made the American middle class an endangered species.

The Workers Defense Project, founded in 2002, has emerged as one of the nation's most creative organizations for immigrant workers.

Today, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released a new report: "ALEC at 40: Turning Back the Clock on Prosperity and Progress." The report identifies and analyzes 466 American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) bills introduced in 2013.

The 1.3 million member United Food and Commercial Workers Union will rejoin the AFL-CIO after an 8 year hiatus with the Change to Win labor federation. The UFCW will become the AFL-CIO's largest private sector affiliate and bring the labor federation's membership to about 13 million.

At the AFL-CIO annual convention next week community based organizations will be invited to attend and participate in the proceedings. This is a first and it is good news. However when the convention ends what is needed is not just good resolutions but a commitment to action.

In the face of a steadily declining labor movement, unions are increasingly battling one another, devoting resources to gaining members from rivals rather than focusing on the 88.2% of the workforce that is not unionized. Recent "raids"have been especially big with tens of thousands of members at stake. They've become easier to carry off because many unions don't just represent one profession anymore, and can rationalize expanding into rival turf.

A new book by Penny Lewis offers valuable insight into the true nature of the movement to end the war in Vietnam.

A new book by Penny Lewis offers valuable insight into the true nature of the movement to end the war in Vietnam.

Once again, Wisconsin is ground zero for the future of the labor movement — the catalyst for a new, disassembled, fitting-and-starting labor movement.

It is especially important that the AFL-CIO and other participants in American labor relations become better acquainted with the concept of members-only collective bargaining because the National Labor Relations Board will likely be considering that process in the near future.