Portside

Through workers associations, work centers, and “alt-labor” groups, millions of workers — along with part-time workers, temporary workers, and those who work for employers that have no union — are using new tactics to fight against that inequality of bargaining power. The groups are not competing with traditional unions, but rather working alongside them and in tandem.

City puts human rights under threat with water privatization scheme.

Even when change is still necessary, even when injustice still continues, there can be an upward spiral, growing from past transformations into future ones.

The regime has repeatedly carried out artillery and air attacks on city centers, creating a humanitarian catastrophe—which is all but ignored by the US political-media establishment.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby Monday, allowing "closely held" businesses to claim religious rights and avoid federal healthcare regulations that require employers to include birth control in insurance plans.

Al Jazeera journos jailed; NYT beats war drums; Giants behaving badly; Facebook messes with your mind; News biz renaissance; Newspaper requiem.

The Chilean 9/11 created a community in California and around the world of Chileans that fled to escape the brutal military regimen. The Bay Area Chilean community commemorates September 11, every year with a cornucopia of cultural and art events. “This is part of our history as a community here in the Bay Area,” said Marci Valdivieso, one of the organizers.

This recent struggle that succeeded in securing a wage increase at Victoria Secret may show that the fight for better wages at fast food stores might be having a ripple effect.

Today’s American readers will find the arguments favoring Peña Nieto’s energy reform familiar. They center around the flaws of the state-run enterprise: its corruption and inefficiency, its coddling of unions, and its monopoly in the national market for consumer goods such as gasoline, which has kept prices high. But thus far, the debates have hardly touched upon the local consequences of this reform for regions that will be most affected.

Empire enjoys watching the two sides battle like caged mice, weakening each other to its advantage.