Portside

Cambodian garment workers have been engaged in militant workplace actions to demand higher wages. Despite anti-union violence, including killings and arrests, workers continue to strike for better wages and working conditions.

The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, making possible a re-united Vietnam. Patricia Hynes reports and observations from March 2014 trip to Vietnam to investigate the plight of 3rd generation Agent Orange-dioxin victims, dioxin contaminated sites, and ecological restoration in order to inform Americans of the on-going legacy of the “American War” in Vietnam and our responsibility and opportunities for undoing this legacy.

Pennsylvania’s “Silencing Act,” passed in latest attack on Mumia and other prison writers, faces court challenge from journalists

And so, dear artists, be brave. The world will not spin without you. This is hard work, this singing and dancing and painting and acting and drumming and fiddling and filmmaking. Hard work is this truth telling, this noticing. We may get the attention of a thousand or the attention of one. Still, may we all remember that we are who we are, each carrying a note required in the larger chord.

What Syriza stands for is what Spain's newly elected Republican government stood for in the early 1930s at a time when the Nazis were on the rise. A democratic Greece under Syriza would represent what democratic Spain represented for the international left in the 1930s. The prospects for a different outcome are better, provided there is strong international support for giving a Syriza government the breathing room it will need.

The Greek people must be thanked for putting the need for changing the course of economic policies firmly onto the European agenda. The stakes are high. A failure in Greece will be seen as vindication of austerity as the only option. Those convinced that Europe needs to change cannot sit on the fence, but need to engage in support of the new winds of reform

Reader Comments - "I Question America" -- Remembering Fannie Lou Hamer; The Coming Race War Won't Be About Race; Ferguson - Politicians and AFL-CIO - Both Missing; Israelis in US: An Open Letter to American Jews on Gaza; Minnesota Home Health Care Workers Unionize; Ukraine and Neo-Nazis; Sanctions & the Dollar; Economic Democracy Project's first event: Economic Democracy And The Struggle For Black Independence - Sept. 3 - New York

Market Basket employees — who are not unionized — ran a grassroots campaign that included walk-outs, rallies, and online actions. The New York Times describes the saga as "one of the strangest labor actions in American business history," and the Boston Globe notes that these activities "stunned longtime observers of the grocery industry and captured the imagination and attention of a region."

This open-ended cease-fire is fragile. Some of the goals of the two sides will be very hard to attain. And, at root, the Israel-Gaza war won’t really be over until there is a comprehensive peace settlement with either a two-state or a one-state solution to Palestinian statelessness.

Our attempt to build a stronger, more democratic union isn’t an attack on the UAW — it’s an attempt to make our union as strong as possible, to win the best contract, and to most effectively play a role in ongoing struggles for social justice. It demonstrates not weakness or a division within our ranks, but a deep well of support on campus for a stronger stance with management.