Portside

Here are two pieces about challenges facing worker organizing in Middle East! Informal networks of self-help and mutual care have given rise to a workers-led alliance in Lebanon to fight for rights of domestic workers. In EI article, Al-Austath, who heads the Palestinian Federation of Garment Industries, argues that Israel has a deliberate policy of preventing Gaza from nurturing its own industries. “They hate us because we work hard and build our country,” he said.

For millions of American workers across the country, the cool air of the fall season promises to bring relief from intense heat on the job. In California, however, the persistent autumn heat wave brings along with it dangerous wildfires and also dangerous working conditions.

A new report goes beyond the sanitized inspection regimes to hear from the workers themselves.

Garment Worker Center in Los Angeles invites all to join September 9, 2015 press conference and benefit performance of award winning play "Real Women Have Curves" at Pasadena Playhouse. FIGHT WAGE THEFT! Support garment workers organizing!

Two-years of campaigning, with over one million people participating, has succeeded in securing $30 million in compensation for the garment worker victims of the Rana Plaza building collapse.

New report detailing status of garment worker access to child care and related issues in Los Angeles.

Three 17-year-old Norwegian fashion bloggers travel to Cambodia for an online reality series experiencing a month long life of a Cambodian garment worker and get an up close idea about exploitation and H&M profits.

The campaign for the Bangladesh Safety Accord, coordinated by United Students Against Sweatshops, that included two Bangladeshi worker tours, six sit-ins and countless direct actions across the country, 23 universities, including Penn State, UW-Madison, and NYU, have required their brands to sign the Accord, and 17 college-logo brands, including Adidas and Fruit of the Loom, have signed the agreement since September.

Billy Frank Jr, fishing rights fighter; Piketty and critics; Demystifying abortion; Lessons from old school labor; Deconstructing the fashion industry