Portside

With the Lordstown GM plant closing, the idea of tackling worker alienation, behind workers 1972 "industrial Woodstock," seems lost. The measure of that loss is in news that the US death rate is rising due to suicide and drug overdose.

A labor activist reflects on the United Autoworkers’ (UAW’s) crushing defeat at a Mississipi Nissan plant last week.

Tennessee’s infamous anti-union union is fading away for lack of members. Will Volkswagen’s rationale for keeping out a real union crumble with it?

While new labor contracts cover only 140,000 unionized employees at the Big Three carmakers, they could lift pay standards for the nearly 1 million people who work in the U.S. auto industry and may also spur wage gains through the broader labor market. The deals come after a decade without raises for senior workers and lower wages and benefits for new hires--which almost completely eliminated the wage premium autoworkers once enjoyed over the average American worker.

Eight years after accepting a drastic two-tier system of wages and benefits—and nearly a decade since the first tier got a raise—the United Auto Workers are bargaining with the Big 3 automakers.