Portside

Low wage workers in more than 180 cities stage strikes and demonstrations demanding a $15 minimum wage and the right to organize. They are protesting an economic order in which they have no way to breathe.

Eric Garner and Michael Brown are just two of many victims of white supremacy in America

Policymakers have to figure out how to turn economic growth into wage growth for the bottom 90 percent. Otherwise the American Dream will just turn into another fairy tale.

“Non-competes (agreements) create a Balkanized labor force where you’re not a sandwich maker, but either a Jimmy John’s or Subway sandwich maker. Workers, in other words, are being forced to pledge fealty to companies that can still fire them at will. The payoff, of course, is that workers who, practically-speaking, can’t switch jobs are workers who can’t ask for raises.”

Thirty years since the Union Carbide gas leak tragedy, Bhopal is a city defined—and divided—by the disaster. Authorities labeled 36 wards gas-affected and 20 wards gas unaffected. Today, the contrasts between these areas are clear. The gas-affected areas are home to shanty towns where the deaths took place. They surround the now-dilapidated factory. It is in these towns that the legacy of the 30-year-old gas disaster lives on.

The US now is less equal and socially mobile than Europe. Many say education is key to addressing this growing inequality. But the American education system is an offshoot of an increasingly class-driven society, where Americans from different class backgrounds are living in what are effectively becoming different countries. And this inequality threatens to perpetuate itself "almost automatically."

With the acquittal of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on all charges of murder and corruption, the military-backed regime of former General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is sending a strong message that Egypt’s authoritarian rulers and their repressive institutions are not accountable for their actions. But, Mubarak’s actual conviction took place three years ago in Tahrir Square when millions of Egyptians condemned his repressive 30-year rule.

President Obama's new policing task force is a welcomed first step, but bolder change is needed to fix the broken relationship between law enforcement and communities of color. The Administration's current proposals are not enough to significantly transform policing nationally or ensure the country learns the right lessons from the tragedies in Ferguson and New York.

Justice for Eric Garner and an end to discriminatory policing - New York City Council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus; Center for Constitutional Rights Exec Director Vince Warren; Donna Lieberman, Exec Director, New York Civil Liberties Union. Sign your name - Demand the Department of Justice and Pres. Obama do everything in their power to indict Officer Pantaleo on federal criminal charges.

The system is substantially rigged in favor of letting officers off the hook for using excessive force in the line of duty. Policing in America is not broken. With the video of Eric Garner's death, it is impossible not to conclude that the justice system is institutionally biased in favor of using excessive and sometimes lethal force....The judicial system is not broken. American society is not broken. All are functioning perfectly, doing exactly what they have done.