Portside

Seattle teachers went on strike for a week this month with a list of goals for a new contract. By the time the strike officially ended this week, teachers had won some of the usual stuff of contract negotiations — for example, the first cost-of-living raises in six years — but also less standard objectives.

Cries of “this means war!” echoed throughout Chicago’s financial district this Tuesday as teachers demonstrated against the Board of Education ahead of union contract negotiations this summer.

A major agricultural labor action is entering its second week in Mexico, where such walkouts are rare. But workers report that they gained experience in the US - via the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida, or with the UFW on the west coast - and those lessons helped inspire workers to organize and fight for their rights in Mexico.

Despite resistance, domestic workers in Lebanon held a founding conference for a new union. Seven women, from four countries, began organizing the union in 2012. The Ministry of Labor has tried to block the union but the workers have persisted and made history.

“There’s a real rank-and-file rebellion going on right now,” says Jen Wallis, a Seattle switchman-conductor for Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway. “People who’ve never been involved in the union, never went to a union meeting, they are showing up and they’re joining Railroad Workers United in droves.

In 2002 the members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, UE, approved a convention resolution opposing George Bush's plans to invade Iraq. Twelve years later the Officers of UE re-affirm their opposition to Obama renewing the war in Iraq.