Portside

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.

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.

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.

There will be a mail-in vote for union representation from July 21 to Aug. 4 for teachers at the "I Can" charter school in Northeastern Ohio. The American Federation of Teachers plans to file Unfair Labor Practice Charges for alleged retaliation against nine teachers whose contracts were not renewed. Teachers are concerned over class sizes as large as 40, and special needs students not having their needs met. Click the link at the bottom to watch the video.

A federal judge has ordered Affinity Medical Center to bargain with its registered nurses and to reinstate a nurse who was terminated after nurses voted to join a union in 2012.