Portside

Reader Comments: Labor Movement, Unions and Trump; Coal Miner's Heritage; North Carolina; More on the Rockettes; Protests and Social Security; Progressives, Neoliberalism and the Broadest Fight Against Trump-readers exchange; Vietnam War;

With the election of Donald Trump, labor faces a unique opportunity. It will face hostility in all branches of the federal government, and will have to maintain a multi-pronged fight. Yes, union density numbers are at historically low levels, and the bulwark of public-sector unionism may suffer a major blow at the Supreme Court through a case challenging the constitutionality of fair-share fees in the public sector...It has the existential imperative to reform itself.

Reader Comments: Not a Revolution - Yet; Hamilton; Enabling Neo-Fascists; Slavery, Democracy, the Electoral College; Understanding the U.S. Working Class; This Was Not a Working Class Revolt; Remembering Tony Mazzocchi; Social Security is NOT Going Broke; Labor Leaders Deserve Their Share of the Blame; Honor the Thousands of Undocumented Workers; Venezuela; Flu Shots: Facts & Fallacies; and more.. Announcement: What Happened? What Now? - Labor Forum with Bill Fletcher

Reader Comments: Analyzing a Very Close Election; What Now, What Next?; Revenge of the Forgotten Class - What Impacted How White Workers Voted?; A Message from the Past for us Today - from A.J. Muste; Announcements: 2016 Election Debrief; Announcing the AltoTrump.com Website; The Spanish Civil War & the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: 80 Years Later; Puerto Rico: Facts and Realities of Living Under PROMESA; Clemency for Leonard Peltier - week of actions; and more...

Supporting Native Americans and their tribes, environmental, climate protection, human rights, and many other groups joined the campaign against the pipeline. The Obama administration intervened to temporarily halt the pipeline. The Dakota Access Pipeline has become an issue of contention within organized labor. Why has this become a divisive issue within labor, and can it have a silver lining for a troubled labor movement?

Reader Comments: AFL-CIO Constituency Groups Stand with Native Americans to Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline; Largest Prison Strike in History Draws Attention to Unpaid Labor; Sanders Says: Elect Clinton-Then Mobilize; Invisible Workforce: Death, Discrimination and Despair in Temp Industry; Announcements: Dollars&Sense - Annual Labor Issue; Studs Terkel; Many Rivers to Cross: Art & Social Justice Festival; Blood in the Water: Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

As a proud Columbia alum (College '69) and an officer of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) I was excited to learn of the NLRB's decision last week. However, I was shocked and, frankly, disgusted to read your condescending and arrogant message to the campus community. As one graduate student put it, your letter 'simply encourages graduate workers to eschew this newly right, like telling workers management will look to their interests.'

Fight for $15 organizers have a long list of grievances against SEIU. They say they themselves do not get $15/hour. They are worried about the instability of their jobs and a tendency of the union to ramp up staff for one campaign, then shift only some of the staff to the next project. Ultimately, some workers say, SEIU's position may undermine public support and open up lines for employer attacks. See SEIU's response below.

Reader Comments: 2016 Elections, Supreme Court, All In To Defeat Trump; Nagasaki - The World Did Not Need US's Experiment; A.J. Muste - An Inspiration for Today; Labor Must Take on Capital; Black Lives Matter takes on Education and Police Unions; Jewish Support for #BlackLivesMatter; Palestine Removed from GoogleMaps - What You Can Do; Announcements: New Book - Women Fight the Islamic State;Rock Against the TPP Concerts - Seattle, Portland and San Francisco; and more.