Portside

Hiring migrant farm labor is very profitable for big agribusiness. Last year workers walked out of the fields at Sakuma Brothers Farms in Washington - one of the largest berry growers in the state. Berries are big business, with annual sales of $6.1 million, and big corporate customers like Häagen Dazs ice cream. Here is their story.

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A “coalition of coalitions” -- comprising unions, students, and several other sectors, even including elected municipal officials -- has coordinated movements of protest over the past years and is leading toward a great day of action on May Day. Beyond that several actions are planned for over the course of the summer eventually leading to an important workers’ strike next fall.

The Patriot Act is a nightmare for immigrants without papers already living precarious lives of dead-end jobs, zero-hour contracts, squats, and physical danger. When a young Asian woman, alone in the U.S., meets an ex-serviceman, himself traumatized by three tours in Iraq and living in a basement flat , the two bond in a tough but brilliant first novel absent stock characters or cartoon emotionality but with a profound and intimate knowledge of life on the margins.

German unions use their positions on corporate boards to push their agenda. They have unleaded waves of strikes and secured generous wages increases thus ending years of waning influence.

Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) was the most influential African American poet of the last half-century. His was a wide ranging, experimental practice that left its mark on literary poetry, spoken word verse, and hip-hop. He was a socially committed and engaged intellectual who combined a Marxist enthusiasm with a linguistic panache that resulted in a rich, humorous, and rigorous body of work. Patrick James Dunagan looks at a summing-up collection of his work.

Baltimore is the latest city to crack down on unpaid residential water bills, despite concerns that the practice violates basic human rights. Meanwhile, the city’s corporate debtors continue to run their taps unaffected.

As Baltimore is policed like occupied territory today, remembering James Baldwin's words about Harlem in 1966. This article originally appeared in the July 11, 1966 issue of The Nation.

Officials calling for calm can offer no rational justification for Gray's death, and so they appeal for order.

New report details perverse policies that are driving more people into hopeless, inescapable poverty.