Portside

Millions of dollars are being vacuumed out of public schools and into the corporate pockets -- or fraudulent execs.

The way most of us “participate in electing our political leaders” is by voting. A tiny minority also “participates” by contributing more than $123,200 to federal political campaigns. In 2012, just 591 donors reached that limit on giving to federal candidates. For some perspective, that represents a little more than 0.000002 percent of the U.S. voting age population.

A new book profiles alternative models of labor organizing in New York City, including worker centers and innovative strategies to organize workers in one of the most unequal cities in the country. New Labor in New York, edited by Ruth Milkman and Ed Ott, is now available from Cornell University Press.

In the U.S. strikes are expected to include the first walkouts in Philadelphia, Sacramento, Miami and Orlando. Outside the U.S., the protests are expected to include protests in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, South America and Central America.

New Labor in New York raises many questions about the future of labor organizing, but it also provides many examples of concrete victories for workers long ignored by the conventional labor movement. Those victories are often small, but they are building; the organizations may be siloed, but they are aware that they are part of something bigger.

In recent years, workers across the country have been turning their aspirations into action, staging more than 1,100 strikes and protests between June 2011 and the end of 2013, according to China Labor Bulletin. In a sign that labor unrest is rising, there have been more than 200 strikes, including 85 in the manufacturing sector, in the past two months alone, the group said.

Each August, just before the start of school, more than 1,000 drivers for the Atlantic Express school bus company gather in a lot in the shadow of Citi Field in Flushing, Queens. For the drivers, it is the event of the year, one repeated at lots all over the city, and is known simply as “the pick.”

The richest 1 percent now own more than 35 percent of all of the nation’s household wealth, and 38 percent of the nation’s financial assets – including stocks and pension funds. The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million of us put together. 6 Walmart heirs have more wealth than bottom 33 million American families combined. So why are we even contemplating cutting programs the middle class and poor depend on, and raising raising their taxes?

The Brotherhood, the military and the property class are increasing their stranglehold on society, but the spirit of revolution, two years on, is undiminished. The youth, women and workers have not been defeated, and they want their voices heard.

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