Portside

Reader Comments: Nuclear Disarmament - Again on the Agenda; Trump's Racism - recalling Martin Niemöller's dire warning in Nazi Germany; Radical lessons of Martin Luther King; #TimesUp; Traditional Labor Organizing - sharp disagreement with Portside Labor post; Sports in Colleges; Oprah - more disagreement with Portside posts; Grim Times in Austria; Announcements: The '60s-Years that Changed America; Concert for Puerto Rico; War or Peace with North Korea? and more....

A press release about a labor dispute at the American Red Cross (ARC) is challenging perceptions of the venerable institution and how it conducts its mobile unit blood drives.

Retail work does not have to pay poverty wages. New study compares work in Europe and the U.S. For all the power of market forces, from automation taking over routine tasks to globalization squeezing retailers’ margins, there is nothing inevitable about low-quality retail jobs. Social norms and political institutions can make them better, or worse.

John Steinbeck was one of the most prolific and, in my view, significant American novelists of the twentieth century. He was influenced by and synthesized his own politics and personal experience with the political culture and movements of the 1930s.

Donald Trump's draconian immigration enforcement efforts face a basic challenge: the United States operates within an economic system that profits off immigrant labor. Immigrant labor is more vital to many industries than it's ever been before. Today, about 57% of the country's entire agricultural workforce is undocumented. But the list of other industries dependent on immigrant labor is long.

Any effort to block wage increases, gut workers’ rights or healthcare, deport immigrants, or support racism or racist policies, will be met with unrelenting opposition.