Portside

'The US government will come after you, no holds barred, if you're thinking of revealing evidence of its unlawful behavior', says Amnesty - Jon Queally, staff writer

The fast food strikes are part of a broader movement by low-wage workers for higher pay and union representation that has caught fire over the past year. Targets include a range of employers, including Wal-Mart, federal subcontractors, warehouses, retail stores and car washes. This low-wage service and retail worker movement has tapped into a vein of discontent. But it has also created hopes for change through the fledgling campaign’s remarkable successes.

While national attitudes about abortion have stayed relatively the same since the 1990s, regional attitudes are shifting in opposite directions.

Out of sheer existential necessity, then, unions have entered a period of experimentation. The fast-food campaigns that SEIU is backing won’t plausibly conclude with a contract with McDonald’s and Wendy’s. The more likely scenario is that those protesting will try to win minimum-wage increases for workers—either generally or in particular industries—at the city level, either through the vote of city councils or of voters at the polls.

Citizens United was not an aberration for this Court. It emerged from a definite view about the intersection of campaigns and free speech.

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Apple might have abandoned manufacturing supplier Foxconn in the wake of a scandal over deplorable working conditions in its Chinese factories, but it seems that labor rights violations are also rife at Pegatron, its new partner.