Tonight's show features the current struggles of workers in two ports.  First we speak with Dan Coffman, President of ILWU Local 21, about the Longview workers' courageous fight against the transnational corporation EGT, and how their community has mobilized and braved police brutality to stand up for good local jobs.  Then we hear John Walsh's interview with longshore workers of Unión Portuaria in Buenaventura, Colombia, talking about the conditions in which they live and work, and their own workplace struggles.

Photo: via ILWU, http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/2011/10/hundreds-gather-to-show-union-support/

Fewer Black women are entering and staying in the building and construction trades than in the 1970s.  Portland State University Professor Roberta Hunte provides insights into institutional barriers and survival strategies for our sisters of color.  Jamie Partridge co-hosts.                     

We talk with author Sasha Lilley about her book Capital and Its Discontents: Conversations with Radical Thinkers in a Time of Tumult (Spectre), Occupy Oakland, and her activism as a shop steward at KPFA radio station in Oakland, California, where she co-produces and co-hosts the program Against the Grain.

Then we talk with Kristian Williams about police, their unions, and their relationship to the working class.  He is the author of Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America and the recent article "Cops for Labor?" in the September/October issue of Dollars and Sense magazine, and a member of the National Writers Union. You can find more of his writings at www.kristianwilliams.com.

Music: "I Fought the Law," The Clash

Image: Occupyoakland.org

        A new Workers’ Center for residents of Rockwood and Gresham is called Neighborhoods United (Vecinos Unidos), All in One Community Worker’s Center. Sponsored by We Are Oregon, the center aims to help working families in east county organize against wage theft & evictions, for jobs & food access, for youth, art, music and story telling. Host Jamie Partridge interviews several of the center’s leaders.