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The South: Labor's Elephant in the Room

streetheat It's About Power Stupid!
Shifting resources to win in the South necessarily means taking funds from other projects and revenue sources. In many cases this could create an internal struggle over the allocation of funds.There is no doubt feathers will be ruffled and fiefdoms will be threatened, but making a choice between labor's survival and comforting the sense of official entitlement will require political will that hopefully can be summoned.

Google’s Spymasters Are Now Worried About Your Secrets

Robert Scheer Truthdig
Every time there is a so-called terrorist attack on American soil, pressure to ramp up the reach of our increasingly omnipresent surveillance state spikes, sweeping ever-larger numbers of people and more intimate information concerning their lives into national databases.

Li Ka-Shing’s Dockers Accept Pay Offer to End Longest Strike

Simon Lee and Jasmine Wang Business Week
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.

Li Ka-Shing’s Dockers Accept Pay Offer to End Longest Strike

Simon Lee and Jasmine Wang Business Week
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.

Authorization for Use of Military Force: a blank check for war without end

Michael Shank and Matt Shankworth The Guardian
The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed after the attacks of 11 September 2001, and provides the legal cornerstone for the so-called US "war on terror". It allows the US government to wage war at anytime, any place and on anyone deemed a threat to national security – with remarkably little evidence needed.

Inspired by Freedom Riders, Workers Plan Caravans to Walmart Convention

Josh Eidelson The Nation
Following a five-day organizing training and strategy summit in Birmingham, members of the labor group OUR Walmart, a non-union organization backed by the United Food & Commercial Workers union, will announce a plan to send civil rights movement–style caravans of workers from around country to converge at the retail giant’s June 7 annual shareholder meeting.

The Unhappy Marriage of Economics and Health Care

Gerald Friedman Unions for Single Payer Health Care
For 40 years, many economists' have promoted increasing cost sharing through higher copayments and deductibles, the replacement of fee-for-service payment systems with capitation as in Health Maintenance Organizations, and competition where multiple insurers offer a variety of plans catered to individual consumer's interests and in competition with each other. These practices have produced the worst of all worlds, rising costs along with restrictions on access.