Portside

If members run the local... what exactly is the union rep's job? We asked four experienced staffers how they approach their day-to-day tasks while keeping the rank and file in the driver’s seat.

Not only do patents push higher prices onto consumers, they burden the research world with the increased costs of paying for the intellectual property needed to do further research . . . If anything, the neoliberal approach to academic research is a return to the privately funded, pre-tenure origins of the university system when numerous schools were simply research labs and promotional arms for private industry

The vision of the 2002 movie “Minority Report,” based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, of “pre-crime” squads identifying people likely to commit crimes is getting less fantastic all the time.

In a remarkable job of reporting, Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post describes the creation of the Common Core standards. Two men–Gene Wilhoit and David Coleman–went to see Bill Gates in 2008 to ask him to underwrite national standards. He agreed, and within two years, the standards were written and adopted by almost every state in the nation. -- Diane Ravitch

When teachers at the Perelman Jewish Day School in Montgomery County were told in March that the private religious academy would no longer recognize their 60-member union, they filed a federal labor complaint - and then they went to a higher authority.

Edward Snowden talks NSA and internet surveillance at SXSW.

Manufacturing jobs are not what they used to be. Companies increasingly hire temp workers through contractors who are paid less and even wear different shirts. Employees paint a grim picture of the work and the long-term impact on the local economy.

Fifteen towns approve resolution that would establish bank that works for people of Vermont, not Wall Street.

Anti-Fascist Action Ukraine estimated that 30 percent of the protesters in Kiev's Independence Square were far-right ultranationalists, and that was before the shooting began, when more of them joined the street battles.

Witnessing a brutal occupation, where permanent insecurity and maximum humiliation are the norm.