Does the Democratic Party Platform Matter?; DNC Veoted Sanders Pick of Women Union Lader for Platform Committee

Robert Borosage; David Weigel
Platforms are,a statement of the accepted beliefs of the party assembled. For citizen movements, they are a measure of their progress in defining acceptable opinion. And ideas matter. A commitment to ending segregation or guaranteeing the right to vote. Equal rights for women. No first use of nuclear weapons. The DNC prevented Sanders from picking nurses leader RoseAnn DeMoro - the DNC had not wanted labor leaders on the platform drafting committee.

Successful Labor Struggles Celebrated at Labor Notes - No April Fooling; Labor for Bernie and Beyond

Judy Atkins; Dan La Botz
The speakers and the workshops at the Labor Notes conference celebrated labor's new potential both in fighting the boss and becoming more active in pro-worker electoral struggles. The 2,000 or more participants overfilled the Hilton Hotel and spread out into two other nearby venues. The young workers definitely outnumbered those with more seniority at these kind of events, and the diversity of participants was great. Special reports by Judy Atkins and Dan La Botz.

Tidbits - January 14, 2016 - Deportations and Anti-Latino Racism; Flint Poisonings - Ordered by Gob. Snyder; Attack on Public Sector Unions; Bernie; Oregon; BDS; Susan Sarandon; Speaking Out Against Madness - Ruth Horowitz; lots of announcements...

Portside
Reader Comments: Deportations and Anti-Latino Racism; Flint Poisonings - Ordered by Gob. Snyder; Attack on Public Sector Unions; Bernie; Oregon; Support BDS; Susan Sarandon Supports Bernie; Help Support UAW Local 2865, which democratically voted to endorse the BDS campaign; Robert Rhodes; Speaking Out Against the Madness - Ruth Horowitz; Concussions? - Drink Chocolate Milk; Lots of announcements - Lafayette (IN); New York; Washington, DC; activist scholarships...

Gutting Public Unions

William P. Jones Dissent
Daniel DiSalvo's self proclaimed 'non-partisan' attack on public unions as greedy, inefficient and undemocratic, 'Government Against Itself,' has been welcomed by the right and granted recognition for its 'scholarship' even by some on the left. Not so fast, argues William P. Jone, in a deeper look into the economic realities and history of public unions, and the place of public unions in our democracy, DiSalvo has confused the symptom with the disease.

labor

Trump Las Vegas Hotel Files Objections After Workers Vote to Join Union

Bethany Khan UNITEHERE!
UNITE HERE's Culinary Union Calls for Immediate Contract Negotiations. We voted yes to make our jobs good jobs with fair wages and job security, said Celia Vargas, a housekeeper at the property. We won that vote, so our voices and votes should be respected.

books

Can "Solidarity Unionism" Save the Labor Movement?

Eric Dirnbach Waging Nonviolence
In any case, union contracts and the working conditions they codify are the current compromise between labor and capital in any given workplace. With or without a contract, workers will have to struggle. Staughton Lynd doesn't seem to consider the possibility that some workers may not be looking for constant class warfare on the job, and that settling a decent contract offers a much needed respite to lock-in gains.

US Labor Law at 80: The Enduring Relevance of Class Struggle Unionism

Immanuel Ness Portside
At the center of the liberal democratic system, workers have fiercely resisted exploitation through the development of worker-based organizations rooted in the ideal of paving the road to a classless and democratic society. All those seeking greater labor militancy must recognize that traditional unions are unable to escape the trap set in the 1930s through fidelity to the collective bargaining agreement. [An earlier version was published by CounterPunch.]

5 Vital Lessons from American Labor's Rise and Fall

James M. Larkin The Nation
America's unions have been in retreat for decades - but can history point toward some fresh starts? Steve Fraser's book The Age of Acquiescence reminds us that America's worker movement-100 years ago-was a rather militant creature compared to today. Then, it was worker militias, "bread and roses," and unabashed class conflict; now, it's defense and dwindling membership, and disappointing Democrats. How did we get here? Is there still power in a union?

Tidbits - September 10, 2015 - GOP, Trump and Appeal to Reaction; No Union Mines in Kentucky; Black Panther Party film; Alabama's Black Communists and #BLM; New Resource: Black Lives Matter Syllabus; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: The GOP, Trump and the Appeal to Reaction; No Union Mines in Kentucky; Black Panther Party film; Lessons from Alabama's Black Communists and the #BLM; Indigenous People's History of the United States; Serena Williams; Climate Change and Workers; New Resource: Black Lives Matter Syllabus; Livestream Sept. 18: Unions, Workers, and the Democratic Party

books

Where's the Outrage?

Rich Yeselson Dissent Summer 2015 issue
The book under review examines the rise of American capitalism, the visionary attempts by workers to resist and the housebreaking of a long-running anti-capitalist ethos from imaginative, frenzied opposition to diffuse, angry, but ultimate accommodation. While a residual 19th century fight-back culture built the CIO and defended the New Deal into the 1960s, it lacked the same emancipatory charge it had earlier, and unions shifted to cautious monitors of the working class
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