Labor

Klaus Ernst, former co-chair of Germany's Left Party (Die Linke) and uion leader explains his party's opposition to TIPP and its position on the minimum wage and recent strike struggles.

After a decade long campaign led by Unite union, fast food chains have committed to ending zero hour contracts in New Zealand. Tens of thousands of workers in the fast food industry will now have secure hours of employment. This victory in New Zealand -- supported by workers in Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Hong Kong and elsewhere represents a fundamental shift in the employment relationship of the most vulnerable workers in the country

Reader Comments - Obama and the TPP; Stop-and-Frisk; White Americans and Police Accountability; Vietnam and Anti-War History and the Ongoing Debate; Remembering Jackson State Murders; Greece, Organizing New York; Those Who Work in Customer Call Centers; Announcements - Immigration, Work and Wages - Washington - May 21; Film Showing and Discussion - Blood Fruit - New York - May 22

"Right to Work" laws are all about removing unions as a political check on the power of corporations. But that will have real costs for working families in Illinois. And the costs will be highest for blacks and Latinos.

Whose country is this anyhow? Whose world is it going to be? Those are questions that May Day, the international workers' holiday, has always asked. Listen to these five songs of labor and struggle, from brand new to nearly a century old, and take pleasure and inspiration from how they point to answers.

The 120 workers at Crown Metal Packaging have now been on strike 19 months resisting a union-busting employer aiming to slash wages and cut pensions. They have been supported by the international solidarity of Workers Uniting, the global union formed by North America's United Steel Workers and Britain's Unite.