Portside

Today’s headlines are filled with similar stories of the spread of death and destruction in the Middle East and Africa. American commentators worry that these plagues will burst their borders and somehow spread to these shores. And, as in Camus’ novel, these diseases point to something larger, not the imposition of a new malignant system but the breakdown of the existing order.

The article examines the tapestry of "plutocratic fallacies" used to justify exploitive wages and foster irrational division among low-wage workers., such as the threat that "robots will replace you."

For 20 years workers at the Rocky Mount Engine Plant have worked with the United Electrical Workers (UE), using the minority union strategy to get management to hear their demands, address problems, and improve pay. They have fought for and won a wage scale, raises, and paid holidays—all through petitions, sticker days, and other group actions.

The crisis shows that realpolitik remains relevant -- and states that ignore it do so at their own peril. U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border. Now that the consequences have been laid bare, it would be an even greater mistake to continue this misbegotten policy.

Rubble Bucket Challenge; Kids' artist hits profiling; White Ferguson betrays itself; Race/class in Silicon Valley; Cooper Union - Cooper vs. $; Klein's latest

Most liberals continue to pay lip service to unions and their importance to the Democratic coalition. But in private, many will tell you that they have little use for them. Julian Zelizer, a Princeton political economist, argues that the marriage between liberalism and organized labor “took a terrible turn starting in the 1970s,” when global competition moved manufacturing jobs from the unionized Northeast and Midwest to the non-union South and, ultimately, abroad.

A new report suggests that union membership has increased in New York City and State, particularly in the private sector.

Impatient hedge-fund billionaires do not attempt to conceal their contempt for the rest of us. They are used to making money—fast. Witness what they have done to large segments of the overall economy. Education does not thrive in those conditions, because there is no standard of perfection in any schoolhouse that can survive brutal suppression of uniformity imposed by clumsy testing. A successful school not only makes room for dissent. It constantly nourishes it.

It has taken almost a year of emails, letters and pressure, but at least some of New Mexico's contratistas (farm labor contractors) are finally paying farmworkers the minimum wage they're entitled to

In Germany, auto workers get paid well and their companies still profit. Author Thom Hartmann on why living wages and corporate success don't have to be mutually exclusive.