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Ebola Galvanizes Workers Battling to Join Unions, Improve safety

Mica Rosenberg Reuters
"Most workers were interested in forming a union before, but there was trepidation," said Anthony Reynolds, who cleans airplanes flown by American Airlines and US Airways, Lufthansa and others. "I think now this might be what puts us over the hump to get everyone on board."

Texas' New Voter ID Law Is Racist

Steven Rosenfeld Alternet
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Scathing Dissent Offers 12 Reasons Why Texas' New Voter ID Law Is Racist. Ginsburg dissent calls out thinly veiled GOP voter suppression.

Freeport-McMoRan Destroys Famous "Salt of the Earth" Labor Union

David Correria La Jicarita
The local Steelworkers union Shores decertified is the inheritor of Mine-Mill Local 890, a union made famous by the 1954 film “Salt of the Earth”, which dramatized Local 890’s 1951 Empire Zinc strike. A number of members of the creative team behind the film had been blacklisted by Hollywood.

If Not Now, When? A Labor Movement Plan to Address Climate Change

Jeremy Brecher, Ron Blackwell, and Joe Uehlein New Labor Forum
The labor movement has not adequately addressed climate change - primarily employment based, rather than a comprehensive strategy to truly address the problem. The authors argue that unions need to step up and mobilize for a real solution that includes a government program that puts people to work converting to a climate-safe economy.

Matt Taibbi: The SuperRich in America Have Become 'Untouchables' Who Don't Go to Prison

Amy Goodman, Matt Taibbi Democracy Now!
Matt Taibbi discusses his new book, "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap." The vast majority of white-collar criminals have avoided prison since the financial crisis began, while an unequal justice system imprisons the poor and people of color on a mass scale. Taibbi explores how the Depression-level income gap between the wealthy and the poor is mirrored by a "justice" gap in who is targeted for prosecution and imprisonment.

Challenges of the Tech Revolution - Two Stories

Jacob Goldstein, Kemal Dervis
In the long-term, the Technological Revolution may prove to be a giant leap forward in freeing humans from being chained to jobs that are unsafe, unhealthy, physically taxing, and mentally unsatisfying. In the short-term, new technologies are contributing to structural unemployment, rising inequality, job insecurity, and micro-management of workers as these two news stories illustrate.