Mike Papantonio had me back on Ring of Fire last weekend, talking about what the Chicago teachers’ strike means for the Democratic Party. Here’s the audio.

At In These Times:

Advocates cried foul last week after a judge’s ruling effectively prevented a paid sick leave measure from reaching the November ballot in Orange County, Florida. The ruling, issued after an emergency hearing Tuesday night, ends the latest round of legal wrangling over whether the county’s commissioners could delay on putting the petition-backed proposal up for a vote. It comes amid increasing conservative pushback against the spread of such measures across the United States.

Vicki Shabo, director of work and family programs at the National Partnership for Women and Families (NPWF), called the result “perhaps the purest example I can think of, particularly in recent history, where special interest money and special interest access was used to usurp the purest form of citizen direct democracy that there is.” Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs, and the business group Central Florida Partnership, did not respond to requests for comment.

Here’s the rest.

Thom Hartmann had me back on The Big Picture to talk about the national implications of the Chicago teachers’ strike. Here’s the video.

At Salon:

Seven days in, Chicago teachers are still on strike. Yesterday, elected delegates of the Chicago Teachers Union voted not to end the strike, opting instead to reconvene Tuesday after discussing a proposed contract deal with CTU’s broader membership. Soon after their meeting, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that he’ll seek a legal injunction declaring the strike illegal and forcing the teachers back to work. So the next few days will bring either a resolution or a major escalation of Chicago’s immediate crisis, which pits a famously strong-willed mayor against a local union intent on defying the “education reform” consensus.

Check it out.

At In These Times:

At last week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, Democrats ratified a platform which once again commits to strengthen and defend workers’ right to organize. As before, the platform’s language on unions contrasts sharply with its Republican counterpart. But it offers fewer firm commitments than the documents ratified by Democrats in 2008, or by Republicans last week.

Here’s the rest.

At Salon:

At last week’s GOP convention, Chris Christie served up some juicy red meat: “They believe in teacher’s unions. We believe in teachers.” Of course, if Republicans “believe in” teachers, they have a strange way of showing it: slashing their jobs while trampling their bargaining rights. But as for Democrats’ supposed faith in teachers’ unions, this week showed once again that the party could more fairly be described as agnostic at best.

The week’s first slight to teachers’ unions came Monday, before the convention had even kicked off.

<a href="Read it here.

I was Ed Schultz’s radio show last week, talking about the GOP’s new anti-union platform. You can listen here. My segment, with guest host Mike Papantonio (of Ring of Fire), starts about 19:30 in.