Texas and Ohio have ordered a stop to abortions, saying they’re not essential medical services. Other states will follow. Right-wing forces are using the pandemic as a pretext to crack down dramatically on abortion rights. We can’t let them.
Reader Comments: Barr Lied; Trade Wars; Reality of Economic Numbers; Don't Fall for 'Electability' Trap; Redistricting; Iran; Venezuela; Jakarta Sinking; Top 100 People Killing the Planet; Pete Seeger Remembered; May 8 was V-E Day; Announcements...
At stake in Lordstown, Ohio, are the livelihoods of more than 1,400 plant workers and thousands more indirect jobs in the surrounding area of northeast Ohio, a key swing state in presidential elections.
Taylor Sappington is exactly the kind of candidate his party should want in Ohio. He couldn’t get union support. Democrats were at such a woeful level in Ohio that unions felt as if they had no choice but to make friends with some GOP candidates.
We have to answer the cries of people who want elected leaders to do something different. They want to be treated fairly and they need a political party who represents them. It’s shameful that the elites have one-and-a-half political parties. Working class men and women have zero parties—or they have half a party. That’s what upset's progressives. I hope the DNC takes a different turn and restore the party’s integrity. I’m hopeful, but won't hold my breath.
While candidates and political parties use mostly volunteers to get the public to help them optimize ad spending, Working America aims to shape attitudes in face-to-face conversations, usually standing on a front stoop with a cracked screen door or a barking dog between a canvasser and a malleable voter. Over the past 12 years, the labor group has held repeat conversations on their front porches to advance progressive policies and candidates.
The people’s veto of SB 5 was a triumph of organization, and of labor’s ability to tell its story to ordinary people. I draw out its lessons for organizers in my book, Collective Bargaining and the Battle of Ohio: The Defeat of Senate Bill 5 and the Struggle to Defend the Middle Class. Worse than simply “right to work,” the 500-page SB 5 was designed to destroy public unions’ ability to operate—or even, in some cases, to exist.
A new book, "Collective Bargaining and the Battle of Ohio: The Defeat of Senate Bill 5 and the Struggle to Defend the Middle Class," by John McNay, draws lessons from the battle in Ohio that defeated a Republican anti-union bill by public referendum.
Voter suppression is not new. We've seen grandfather clauses, poll taxes, and literacy tests as historical barriers to the vote. Now, we see a reduction in voter flexibility, with more ID requirements, fewer early voting days, and stricter rules about voter registration.
Whether the split between labor and the Democratic Party in Ohio is temporary or permanent, the ongoing peace talks between the Democrats and labor leaders haven’t quelled labor’s urge to become the dominant political force in the county. Activists are aware that labor support for an independent mayoral candidate in 2015 could burn another bridge back to the Democratic Party.
Spread the word