Portside

As many as 400 workers at more than 60 fast food restaurants in the Detroit metro area walked off the job on Friday. The fast food strike in Detroit is the second major labor action to hit an American city’s fast food industry this week: On Wednesday and Thursday, more than 100 workers in St. Louis walked off the job at roughly 30 different restaurants. These rolling walkouts followed similar actions in New York, central Pennsylvania, and Chicago.

April Verrett, the newly elected international president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is ready to come out the gate running––or, at least, organizing.

An enduring union-community alliance in the Twin Cities may be a model for progressive victories. The Twin Cities saw a series of labor actions, premised on the belief-the more disparate groups of workers unite in common cause, the more they can win.

In a historic breakthrough, Starbucks and its workers announce they’ve come together. In a joint announcement Starbucks and Workers United agreed “to begin discussions on a foundational framework designed to achieve…collective bargaining agreements.”