Portside

During Iran’s post-revolution reform era (1997-2005), a new wave of trade unionism began in the country. However, this spring of unionism quickly turned to winter, and most union leaders were arrested when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. Nowadays, any attempts by workers to organise strikes are met with severe repercussions by security agents. Nonetheless union resistance is growing.

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Twenty years after the murders of students at Kent State (May 4) and Jackson State (May 15), in 1970, Holly Near wrote "And It Could Have Me." in 1990. "The song has grown over the years, new verses being added as violence continues to interrupt human potential." Today with Trump as President and a right-wing GOP-cabal in control, the song has new meaning - "it could have been me; But instead it was you; So I’ll keep doing the work you were doing as if I were two."

Campaigns to silence criticism of Israel don’t protect Jews — they endanger them. A national conversation on what antisemitism is — and what it isn’t — is long overdue. Recent reshuffling among the Trump administration may have Steve Bannon on the outs, but we are only weeks removed from a white supremacist as “the shadow president.”

"Donald Trump's greatest threat to our society and to our democracy is not necessarily his authoritarianism, but his essential ignorance—of history, of policy, of political process, of the Constitution. Saying that if Jackson had been around we might not have had the Civil War is like saying that one strong, aggressive leader can shape, prevent, move history however he wishes. This is simply 5th grade understanding of history or worse." David Blight, Yale historian.

Here is an extraordinary anthology by contemporary working class poets.

By rushing this bill through Congress, Republicans are creating a manufactured crisis that will devastate millions of families. GOP Trumpcare plan is a disaster. It would take away health care from millions of people, cost thousands more for middle-class and low-income Americans, and strip protections from people with pre-existing conditions, all to give a massive tax break to insurance company CEOs and the wealthiest Americans.

Whether intentionally or by virtue of the fact that the populations historically affected by low-wage, abusive workplaces are people of color, MLOV’s DC on Strike May Day rally was intersectional, highlighting how the most vulnerable communities are always those with the most complex identities.

Bad Dictators are arguably Bad, and some are war criminals. But Washington tends to deal with the pro-American dictators by just not bringing them up much.

More than a thousand people rallied and marched on May Day as part of the Seattle March for Workers and Immigration Rights. -