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Tackling Concerns of Independent Workers

STEVEN GREENHOUSE New York Times
Today, the Freelancers Union is one of the nation’s fastest-growing labor organizations, with more than 200,000 members, over half of them in New York State. Ms. Horowitz, who has never lacked audacity, says she expects to expand the organization to one million members within three years.

Media Bits and Bytes - Hall of Shame edition

Portside
Microsoft/Google war; Wiretapping Act extended; Content made to order for advertisers; PBS Nova’s drone cover-up; Telecommunication Companies Hall of Shame Awards; Disabled sue for web shopping access; Web search and email scanning expanded; MIT asked to release all Aaron Swartz documents; Cable news is unbearably white

Immigrants Held in Solitary Cells, Often for Weeks

Ian Urbina and Catherine Rentz The New York Times
The United States has come under sharp criticism at home and abroad for relying on solitary confinement in its prisons more than any other democratic nation in the world. While Immigration and Customs Enforcement places only about 1 percent of its jailed immigrants in solitary, this practice is nonetheless startling because those detainees are being held on civil, not criminal, charges.

California Health Workers Get a Second Chance

Carl Finamore Submitted to portside by the author
The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) will have a second chance at a representation election at Kaiser Permanente. And it's because the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will be holding a revote of a 2010 representation election between NUHW and SEIU-UHW where the latter prevailed by violating the law and colluding with Kaiser to rig the vote. There is no nice way to say it. These are the facts.

Today in China: New Leaders, Changing Economic Policies

Duncan McFarland China Study Group, COC, submitted to portside
China held its most important political meetings in ten years with the Communist Party Congress in Nov. and the National People's Congress in March 2013. A new leadership group assumed power: Xi Jinping is the new CPC general secretary and national president, Li Kejiang the premier of the state council. New officials assumed all but two positions in the political bureau's standing committee. A major decision is that China will change its economic development strategy.

Congress has a Constitutional Duty to Preserve and Promote the Post Office

John Nichols The Nation
Congress has backed a continuing resolution that pushes back against the current push to end Saturday delivery. But this “fix” is only temporary. And there are more threats on the horizon.The founding document is clear. Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 gives Congress the power and the responsibility: “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.”