Portside

Reader Comments: Alice Walker Open Letter to Alicia Keys; Mideast; Israel; Palestine; Turkey; Bradley Manning; Electoral Strategy; Working Class, Racism; Trade Unions; Labor Movement; North Carolina Civil Rights Today; Fluoridation; Chinese Investment in the U.S.; Announcements - Left Forum, June 7 - 9; Iraqi Workers After the War - new video; Ruby Dee Documentary - June 26; Commie Camp - new film on Camp Kinderland - additional show - June 29

With the traditional union model and its emphasis on bargaining by representatives exiting the stage, working people are urgently searching for a new way to challenge corporate power and win a better life for their families. One hundred years later, the road not taken—represented by Local 8—represents one model.

This huge amount of money did not go to the workers ...

Fast food workers strike in Seattle - 7th city in past 8 weeks. Workers say their wages are stagnant and want a living wage of $15, more opportunities to advance, and the right to organize without retaliation. "Personally I'm on food stamps, my hours have been cut back," Burger King worker Andrew Thomas said. "Being here for a year and half. I haven't gotten a raise."

Reader Comments: Terrorism, Drones, Afghanistan, Benghazi, Obama terrorism speech, Bradley Manning, Chicago Schools, Climate Change, Letter to "The Nation" from a Young Radical, Math, Malvina Reynolds, Africa, Asia, Hope Foye, Race & Biology, Peabody Coal, Bittorrent... Announcements - Gerald Horne keynote's Chicago Human Rights Awards - Jun 15; Film Premier - Camp Kinderland "Commie Camp" - New York - Jun 28; Jerry Tucker Memorial Conference, St. Louis - Oct 11-13

Remember the phrase "good union job"? Living wages, basic safety protections, and guaranteed quality healthcare for life. Today Peabody Coal is taking away retiree health care and pensions, yet they have record profits. Why the fight for retiree pensions at Peabody Coal is in everyone's interest.

Kochs to Buy L.A.Times? Unions Say "No!"; Massive Biometric Database Proposal Hidden In Immigration Bill; NSA Releases Guide to Internet Spying; Scandal Sheets on the DoJ/AP Leak and Bloomberg Reporters Stalking Their Customers; Hollywood Challenges Books for the Blind; Girl Coder Beats the Boys in Hackathon Competition

The strike has long been labor's most powerful weapon. Strikes put pressure on the employer - which needs the employees' labor to run the business. Congress understood the importance of the strike to labor unions, so it protected strikes in two ways in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Although Congress made it clear that it viewed the strike as a right of utmost importance, the Supreme Court wasted no time in limiting and weakening the right to strike.