Portside

In twelve weeks, on the busiest shopping day of the year, Walmart workers will mount what may be the biggest-ever US strike against the retail giant

The current crisis facing the public sector, a major location of African American workers, along with the crisis facing organized labor, should present a moment to reconsider old assumptions. A multi-union effort to organize Southern public sector workers could be something close to a game-changer on several levels, not the least being the potential impact on Southern politics and Southern unionization. And, as the saying goes, as goes the South, so goes the USA.

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The National Labor Relations Act protects the right of employees to join together to improve their working conditions. The collective power of union membership is designed to balance the power of employees with that of employers, who can increase their power by incorporating or forming partnerships. Employees can also be more powerful together by filing class action lawsuits to enforce their rights under employment laws other than the NLRA.

Discussions between the United Auto Workers union and a Tennessee Volkswagen plant have raised fears among Southern politicians that union representation would deter businesses - and badly needed jobs - from coming to their respective states.

In 15 cities today, Walmart workers and their supporters are staging their biggest day of action since the groundbreaking "Black Friday" strike in November. They are demanding that Walmart reinstate 20 workers they say were fired for taking part in a June strike, and they are calling on Walmart to end its poverty-level wage scale and pay a living wage. (Mike Hall, AFL-CIO Now)

Obama's plan to bomb Syria with cruise missiles will do nothing to hasten the end of the conflict. Instead, it will likely prolong it. The US couldn't end the Iraqi civil war despite having over 100,000 boots on the ground. It is highly unlikely that Washington can end this one from 30,000 feet. The "limited" Tomahawk Cruise missile strikes with "no boots on the ground" are quickly expanding to "a broader strategy" to arm and strengthen opposition rebels.

Walmart workers and supporters plan to mount protests in fifteen cities Thursday, a mobilization that the union-backed group OUR Walmart expects will be its largest since last November’s Black Friday strike.