Portside

Jurors never knew what a possible sentence might be. Finally freed from a ban on researching the case, including potential punishments, some are shocked to learn they just consigned Cecily McMillan to a sentence of up to seven years in prison. "They felt bad," said the juror, who did not wish to be named. "Most just wanted her to do probation, maybe some community service...now what I'm hearing is seven years in jail? That's ludicrous. Even a year in jail is ridiculous."

New leadership, a Membership Action Team organizing plan, and a 22 month contract campaign that included two strikes, produce a strong bargaining agreement covering 22,000 hospital and campus workers at the University of California. The new contract offers protections against subcontracting, limits on temporary workers, wage increases, and "strong benefits," among other items.

By law, a company can’t hire H-2A guest workers if it is in a labor dispute with its US workforce. But that is exactly what this Washington State berry grower is trying to do.

It is exactly 39 years since the Vietnam war ended, with the seizure of Saigon by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the People's Army of Vietnam - time to consider the legacy of this long US war.

Cecily McMillan Trial Update - Sentencing May 19; Reader Comments-Neanderthal Intelligence; Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms, Bitcoins; Charter Schools - their massive fraud; What's a Union For; Paul Robeson Jr.; Cesar Chavez film; Food - Toxic?; Announcements - Building Up the Peace Movement From the Grassroots - New York-May 12; May 15 strike - Low Pay is Not OK; Help save the Haymarket Monument; The Charley Richardson Guide to Kicking Ass for the Working Class

Reformers in Newark Teachers Union win majority of seats on the Executive Board but lose Presidency by 9 votes. This is another indication of growing rank and file opposition to the attack on teachers.

Through outreach, organizing, and advocacy workers can improve their wages, hours, and benefits through direct action and by enacting pro-worker policies. The only reason manufacturing jobs paid well in the first place was because workers demanded that they did decades ago.

These regressive trends can be turned around. But that will require the mobilization of an expansive political movement, sufficiently inclusive to attract Hispanics, low-income white southerners and African-Americans.

Ghassan al-Khouly, an unemployed labourer who specialised in tiling floors, was one of the latest of an estimated 93,000 Syrians to have died since the start of the civil war in March 2011.

A refreshingly principled stand by a small country against a powerful nation engaged in what many see as the political persecution of one of its own citizens.