Portside

Two perspectives on Labor Day plus a music video by Cablevision workers fighting for a contract.

Nuclear hotspots around the world, namely, North Korea; Iran and Israel in the Middle East; and Pakistan and India in South Asia [keep me awake at night.] Of equal concern, however, is getting all countries to take nuclear safety and security seriously. There are no simple technical fixes. International cooperation at all levels is required to ensure that world-class nuclear safety and security is practiced at all nuclear sites.

Newly disclosed budget documents for America’s intelligence agencies show how aggressively the United States is now conducting offensive cyberoperations against other nations, even as the Obama administration protests attacks on American computer networks by China, Iran and Russia.

As the ACLU has documented in Victims of Complacency, while the fate of the men may be unique, the scheme of which they were a part was sadly all too common at the time. Since 2003, similar labor trafficking schemes resulted in thousands of foreign workers (known as Third Country Nationals or "TCNs") being hired to work on U.S. government contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

The priority has to be jobs now, rather than any deficit reduction. On top of lowering unemployment, policy should also restore the bargaining power of low- and middle-wage workers. This means aggressively increasing the minimum wage; it means reestablishing the right to collective bargaining for higher wages; it means guestworkers should have full rights to the same labor market protections as resident workers; it means paying attention to job quality and wage growth.

There are few things more bizarre than watching people advocate that another country be bombed even while acknowledging that it will achieve no good outcomes other than safeguarding the "credibility" of those doing the bombing. Relatedly, it's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national "credibility" depend upon periodically bombing other countries.

ILWU members see turf battles with rival unions as an additional, unwelcome hurdle to surmount, in an already difficult employer battle.