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Tidbits - December 19, 2013

Portside
Reader Comments - Healthcare; Faculty Unions; NATO and the Ukraine; State Surveillance; Venezuela; Nelson Mandela, South Africa and SACP; MSNBC labor dispute; Germany; Voter Fraud in Iowa - 0.00075%; New Books - Rosa Luxemburg; Diners Guide to Ethical Eating; Jobs with Justice; A Letter from Leslie Cagan, Phyllis Bennis, Bill Fletcher & Other UFPJ Founders

The AFL-CIO: Choices of Perspective

Kurt Stand portside
Continuing the discussion on the role of the AFL-CIO, on the AFL-CIO's recent convention. A response to the ongoing discussion that is needed, started by Steve Early, Bill Fletcher, Jeff Crosby and Peter Olney and published in October by Portside.

The AFL - Path of Least Resistance? Response to Bill Fletcher & Jeff Crosby

Peter Olney portside
Our federation and its affiliates are not ready to confront the challenges of using our existing base in certain industries to grow in non-union sectors of those industries and linked industries. Those discussions and strategies require challenging the inertia of the status quo. They are difficult discussions that challenge the power and positions of our elected trade union leaders. The interplay of the old and the new is one of the keys for renaissance. . .

Claiming the 1963 March on Washington

Bill Fletcher, Jr. Black Commentator
It is barely remembered that the March was for freedom and jobs. The demand for jobs was not a throwaway line in order to get trade union support but instead reflected the growing economic crisis affecting the Black worker

Labor Activist Urges “Innovation” in Workers' Rights Organizing

Rebecca Bowe Guardian
Fletcher told the Guardian he believes the national labor movement is witnessing a “final offensive” from big business and right-wing interests, and “an attempt to destroy unions altogether.” He also criticized a reluctance among national labor leaders to openly recognize the gravity of the situation.

labor

Ways to Juice Up the Labor Movement; Labor Once Again Becomes Part of the National Conversation

Sarah Jaffe; Amy Dean AlterNet and The Century Foundation
The passage of a so-called "right-to-work" law in Michigan recently left the labor movement feeling gut-punched. AlterNet talks with Stephen Lerner, Jonathan Westin, Ruth Milkman, Bill Fletcher Jr., Jane McAlevey, Eric Robertson & Ben Speight for their suggestions on how labor can go on the offensive in the next year. Amy Dean, former president of the South Bay (CA) AFL-CIO Labor Council looks at best & worst developments of 2012 in the labor and social movements.
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