Portside

Labor experts see the contract as a win for workers, especially considering the hard line National Grid took — locking out employees and cutting off their health insurance in an attempt to reduce their benefits.

Federal workers have dealt with low pay, degraded working conditions, and repeated employer lockouts. If they want to improve their conditions, they’ll have to organize.

According to people familiar with BCRI’s decision, the institute’s reversal is centered around the local Jewish community’s opposition with what the Associated Press describes as Davis’ support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement...

"The rescinding of this invitation and the cancellation of the event where I was scheduled to speak was thus not primarily an attack against me but rather against the very spirit of the indivisibility of justice." Angela Davis

Tech Workers Stand Up; TV Goes Global; Biz Adapts; China's History Censored; The End of Women's Mags; NBC News Confidential; German Hacker Nabbed

The politics of the theatrical adaptation of “Network” have not changed since the Chayefsky film was screened in 1976. The story is still based on the reality that a corrupt upper class screws the middle class and poor.

27,000 home health care workers vote to unionize and join the Service Employees International Union. This is one of the largest organizing efforts in Minnesota since the great depression.

Israel and the Palestinians agreed Tuesday to a plan to end the fighting in Gaza after 50 days of combat in which more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, 64 Israeli soldiers and five civilians in Israel were killed. In addition to a cessation of hostilities, other immediate steps include the opening of some of the Gaza border crossings closed by Israel and Egypt. Further indirect discussions are to take place within a month.

The chaos enveloping U.S. foreign policy stems from President Obama’s unwillingness to challenge Official Washington’s power centers which favor neoconservatism and “liberal interventionism”, writes investigative reporter Robert Parry. Obama's failure to confront "neocon absolutism" and "liberal interventionists" has resulted in a foreign policy that is unrealistic, hypocritical, and deadly.