Tidbits - May 7, 2015 - Baltimore; Cities as "Occupied Territory"; Bernie Sanders; Alberta NDP Victory; $15 per Hour; Israeli Soldiers Speak Out...more

Portside
Reader Comments - Baltimore, other cities as "Occupied Territory"; Drop the Charges against those arrested; Government-Sponsored Segregation; Bernie Sanders - a Long Tradition of American Socialism; Alberta NDP Victory; $15 per Hour or Bust; Israeli Soldiers Speak Out-Gaza Atrocities Were Orders; Labor Union Membership Now Just 11%; Feliks Tych - R.I.P.; Announcements - New York, Boston

Organized Labor Should Spend the Rest of 2015 Training Workers How to Fight

David Goodner In These Times
Local 1021’s model Strike School, which In These Times has obtained and posted online (links below) as an open source document, is designed to educate workers about the true nature of class politics and class conflict, the power of the strike, how to organize and win a strike and how to use the strike as part of a larger social movement. It is divided into three modules: “Economic Power,” “Striking for Our Communities,” and “Strategic Planning,” ...

How Black Women Can Rescue the Labor Movement

Kimberly Freeman Brown and Marc Bayard The Root
The report, “And Still I Rise: Black Women Labor Leaders’ Voices, Power and Promise”—named for a poem of resilience by the late Maya Angelou, could not be more timely, since events in Baltimore in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray after being in police custody have shed light on the hopelessness that can result in cities when jobs disappear and communities such as West Baltimore are left behind.

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Labor Union Membership in the U.S. is Down to Just 11%

Quentin Fottrell MarketWatch
Some 11% of all wage and salary workers in 2014 were in a union — down from 22% in 1983 after peaking at nearly 35% in 1954, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The fall in union membership is a significant contributor to the rise in inequality since the 1970s, says John Schmitt, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a nonprofit left-of-center think tank in Washington, D.C., although there’s no single cause of the economic inequality.

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Teachers sue to join union without paying for political activities

Howard Blume Los Angeles Times
Teachers sue to join union without paying for political activities. Unions claim new suit is attempt to weaken them in the name of protecting teacher rights. The firm behind a case that could limit teacher job protections is now taking on issues with union dues. Another in the endless string of anti-union, anti-teacher lawsuits that pretend to protect worker rights.

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Are Unions and Democrats Still Happy Together?

Jeanne Cummings Bloomberg
The conflict over fast track is fundamental. Organized labor wants to kill the legislation. Obama wants to sign it. The rough outlines of the bill would enable Congress to make its preferences known and receive updates while trade negotiations are under way in exchange for a clean vote -- no amendments -- on a final trade agreement.

Friday Nite Videos -- April 3, 2015

Portside
The Next System Project. Wealth Inequality in America. George Carlin: How Does Our Economic System Work? Leonard Cohen -- Everybody Knows. Introducing Anti-Unionol.

Introducing Anti-Unionol

A new long-lasting anti-worker suppository that drastically reduces economic equality and the middle class.

Vermont About to Become a Hellish Place for People to Work in?

Michael Arria Alternet
Steve Howard, executive director of the VSEA, told NPR recently, “Before you take money out of the paychecks of snowplow drivers, nursing assistants, custodians and administrative assistants … we believe you have a moral obligation to ask for a greater contribution from a broad-based revenue source paid mostly by the wealthiest Vermonters who have had all the economic gains of the last decade.”
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