Portside

“There will be no food in Puerto Rico,” Mr. Rivera predicted. “There is no more agriculture in Puerto Rico. And there won’t be any for a year or longer.”

As anticipated, President Donald Trump has nominated the management-side labor attorney Peter Robb, of Downs Rachlin Martin in Vermont, to serve as general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Thirty-six years after the PATCO strike, Reagan’s lead attorney in the air traffic controllers case is poised to make decisions about thousands of unfair labor practices throughout the country.

Since the passage of the closed door California climate deal in late July, SCOPE has joined forces with grassroots leaders from across the state to organize town-halls, ground-truth the impacts of polluting industries in our neighborhoods, meet with legislators in Sacramento, and continue to push forward a community-led vision for transformation that starts in our own neighborhoods.

Nail salons and spa services are booming -- along with exploited immigrant workers, wage theft, low wages and toxic, dangerous chemicals.

Farm-to-table's sincere glow distracts from how the production and processing of even the most pristine ingredients — from field or dock or slaughterhouse to restaurant or school cafeteria — is nearly always configured to rely on cheap labor. Work very often performed by people who are themselves poor and hungry.

Reproductive are core to real universal health care. These three articles cover some of the turf.

Here are two pieces about challenges facing worker organizing in Middle East! Informal networks of self-help and mutual care have given rise to a workers-led alliance in Lebanon to fight for rights of domestic workers. In EI article, Al-Austath, who heads the Palestinian Federation of Garment Industries, argues that Israel has a deliberate policy of preventing Gaza from nurturing its own industries. “They hate us because we work hard and build our country,” he said.

Many in the labor movement are watching the Supreme Court to see what happens with Janus v. AFSCME. But Janus is not the only important case for workers. The Court will open with three important cases that seriously cut employee rights.

'Malcolm in the Middle' showed that the promises of neoliberalism had always been false.

Two unions, Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and the Motion Picture Editors Guild/IATSE Local 700 (MPEG) have announced that approximately 430 VICE Media employees have chosen to go union.