Portside

By law, a company can’t hire H-2A guest workers if it is in a labor dispute with its US workforce. But that is exactly what this Washington State berry grower is trying to do.

New leadership, a Membership Action Team organizing plan, and a 22 month contract campaign that included two strikes, produce a strong bargaining agreement covering 22,000 hospital and campus workers at the University of California. The new contract offers protections against subcontracting, limits on temporary workers, wage increases, and "strong benefits," among other items.

Jurors never knew what a possible sentence might be. Finally freed from a ban on researching the case, including potential punishments, some are shocked to learn they just consigned Cecily McMillan to a sentence of up to seven years in prison. "They felt bad," said the juror, who did not wish to be named. "Most just wanted her to do probation, maybe some community service...now what I'm hearing is seven years in jail? That's ludicrous. Even a year in jail is ridiculous."

In recent years, workers across the country have been turning their aspirations into action, staging more than 1,100 strikes and protests between June 2011 and the end of 2013, according to China Labor Bulletin. In a sign that labor unrest is rising, there have been more than 200 strikes, including 85 in the manufacturing sector, in the past two months alone, the group said.

New Labor in New York raises many questions about the future of labor organizing, but it also provides many examples of concrete victories for workers long ignored by the conventional labor movement. Those victories are often small, but they are building; the organizations may be siloed, but they are aware that they are part of something bigger.

In the U.S. strikes are expected to include the first walkouts in Philadelphia, Sacramento, Miami and Orlando. Outside the U.S., the protests are expected to include protests in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, South America and Central America.

A new book profiles alternative models of labor organizing in New York City, including worker centers and innovative strategies to organize workers in one of the most unequal cities in the country. New Labor in New York, edited by Ruth Milkman and Ed Ott, is now available from Cornell University Press.

The way most of us “participate in electing our political leaders” is by voting. A tiny minority also “participates” by contributing more than $123,200 to federal political campaigns. In 2012, just 591 donors reached that limit on giving to federal candidates. For some perspective, that represents a little more than 0.000002 percent of the U.S. voting age population.

Millions of dollars are being vacuumed out of public schools and into the corporate pockets -- or fraudulent execs.

This is a case that has taken two years of resources. But Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. "would not agree to let [Cecily McMillan] plead guilty to a misdemeanor,” instead insisting on a felony even if McMillan plead guilty. How does Cy Vance treat other crimes? Crimes like money laundering for drug cartels? It turns out, there is a whole different standard for Cy Vance when it comes to white collar crime.