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Not All Labor Law Reforms Are Created Equal

Nelson Lichtenstein Jacobin
Two major pieces of labor law legislation, both rooted in the concept of “sectoral bargaining,” are now being weighed in California and New York. California’s would represent a genuine advance for low-wage workers; New York’s would be a disaster.

Housing Is a Social Good

Gianpaolo Baiocchi, H. Jacob Carlson Boston Review
The American Jobs Plan mirrors past efforts at affordable housing that contributed to our problems and failed Black Americans. We need to take housing out of the private market.

Exterminate All the Brutes: a critique

Mara Ahmed Mondoweiss
Raoul Peck’s “Exterminate All the Brutes” is an awe-inspiring cultural, literary, historical, political and geographic smorgasbord. But to what end?

Remembering Mark Levitan: Comrade and Dear Friend

Michael Hirsch New Politics
What could a labor radical with a doctorate in Marxian economics accomplish in the neoliberal “stop and frisk,” Bloomberg administration? The answer: reform policies he advocated, recalibrating poverty to the benefit of the poor, remain policy today.

Vietnam's Path Toward Socialism

Dr Nguyen Phu Trong Vietnam Plus
This in-depth look by Vietnamese Communist Party's General Secretary on how he understands the process of building socialism provides insights too often ignored. Portside ran an excerpted version on May 24.

Strong Unions Will Boost America's Economy

Rana Foroohar Financial Times
The labour share of the overall economic pie is at a post-second world war low, which is an enormous problem in an economy that is 70 per cent dependent on consumer spending. The demise of the traditional union movement (which represents only 10.7 per cent of the American workforce today, half of what it was in the early 1980s), is one of the biggest contributors to that problem.

McCain’s Brain Cancer Draws Renewed Attention to Possible Agent Orange Connection

Charles Ornstein and Mike Hixenbaugh ProPublica
McCain’s diagnosis comes as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is under increased pressure to broaden who’s eligible for Agent Orange-related compensation. News of his illness has prompted Amy Jones and others to call on the VA to study a possible connection between their loved ones’ Agent Orange exposure and glioblastoma.

The Crisis in Venezuela The Left and Venezuela

Claudio Katz Socialist Project
The situation in Venezuela is dramatic but this does not explain the centrality of the country in all the news reports. Situations of greater seriousness in other countries are totally ignored by the same media. In Colombia, since the beginning of the year, 46 social movement leaders have been assassinated and in the last 14 months 120 have perished. More terrifying is the scene in Mexico. Every day some journalist is added to the long list of students, teachers . . .