Portside

The question before the Mayor is whether he will continue to fund a dual school system–one sector able to choose the students it wants–and the other sector serving all. He is trying to have it both ways, and it doesn’t work. He gave the charter lobby almost everything it wanted, and they still came after him as if he had given them nothing at all.

As another International Women's Day rolls around March 8, women workers are still facing down infuriatingly familiar challenges—including the persistence of workplace sexual harassment, especially for those of us working low-wage jobs.

Bernie Sanders says he is "prepared to run for president of the United States." That's not a formal announcement. A lot can change between now and 2016, and the populist senator from Vermont bristles at the whole notion of a permanent campaign. But Sanders has begun talking with savvy progressive political strategists, traveling to unexpected locations such as Alabama...

Washington raised the minimum wage in 1998 linking it to inflation. In the 15 years that followed, the state's minimum wage climbed to $9.32 - highest in the country. Meanwhile job growth continued at an average 0.8 percent annual pace, 0.3 percentage point above the national rate. Payrolls at Washington's restaurants and bars, portrayed as particularly vulnerable to higher wage costs, expanded by 21 percent. Poverty has trailed the U.S. level for at least seven years

Reader Comments - International Women's Day; Cecily McMillan; Ukraine; Venezuela; Are Unions Necessary?; Gov. Christie and Bridgegate; What the Hell Is Barack Obama's Presidency For?; War in Iraq; Announcements - Dignity in Action -San Francisco -Mar 8; Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Commemoration -New York - Mar 25; New book - Save Our Unions: Dispatches from A Movement in Distress; Today in History - Supreme Court rules in Dred Scott - March 6, 1857

"Moral Mondays" movement spreads in South as a coalition of the NAACP, other activist organizations, including unions, rallied Monday in Tallahassee, one day ahead of the opening of Florida's 2014 legislative session.

The air pollution in Beijing in mid-February was more than 10 times the WHO-prescribed safe limit. It led to the authorities shutting down chemical, metallurgical and other such industries, besides banning outdoor barbecues and even asking people to stay indoors.

With new strategies, the Working Families Party is shaking up the two-party system.Bertha Lewis knows perhaps better than anyone else how hard those fights can be. But she thinks they're worth it. "Sometimes, in years past, you couldn't tell a Democrat from a Republican. No one wanted to talk about race; no one wanted to talk poverty. This conversation that we're having nationally about inequality is because [groups like WFP] kept to our principles and our ideas...' "