Solidarity

NEW YORK - The next wave of union protesters isn't blue collar. It's lawyers, paralegals, secretaries, helicopter pilots, judges, insurance agents and podiatrists. These white-collar workers are not exactly the picture of the labor movement, but they are becoming a more essential part of it as they turn to unions for help in a tough economy as bosses try to squeeze out more profits. "Employers have been downsizing, asking employees to take on larger roles, making them work more hours," said Nicole Korkolis, spokeswoman for the Office and Professional Employees International Union.

JERUSALEM -- Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel arrived in Israel on Sunday to begin a weeklong tour of the Middle East as the region grapples with the worsening civil war in Syria and the stubborn nuclear threat from Iran. Making his first visit to the region as Pentagon chief, Hagel is seeking to demonstrate solidarity between the U.S. and Israel -- allies whose relations have been strained over how to deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. Israel is said to be mulling unilateral military action against Iran's nuclear facilities, a move that Obama administration officials consider extremely risky.

After two explosions rocked the Boston Marathon and shook the nation, Americans took to social media to express their grief and solidarity with the victims. At least three people were killed and 144 injured.  Within hours, #PrayForBoston was trending, and posts on Facebook and Twitter offered housing to stranded runners or their families. By Monday night, entries in Google Docs with contact numbers for those willing to offer a pullout couch or extra beds numbered in the thousands.

The government announced today that it is raising the price of meat 10%, and underground Solidarity activists immediately renewed a call for a 15-minute national strike the day the price increases take effect. The strike call statement was signed by three activists who form the underground temporary coordinating committee of the banned Solidarity union. The government is expected to make the price rise effective July 1.

Once more to the barricades! And over them too. The fare dodgers who jump the turnstiles or sneak in through exit barriers on the Paris Metro are practically as much a fixture of the city as the subway itself. Those who get caught without a proper ticket, though, face fines of up to $60. So what's a poor freeloader to do? The answer, here in the land that gave the world the motto "All for one, one for all," is as typically French as it is ingenious: They've banded together to set up what are, essentially, scofflaw insurance funds, seasoned with a dollop of revolutionary fervor.

Poland is on the cutting edge of democratic change in Eastern Europe, and the direction it has set may serve as a model for others among communist nations also in ferment these days. The Polish election earlier this month was not a parliamentary one in the British sense, with power simply moving from a Conservative Party to a Labor Party. It was essentially a referendum on the policies of the government. Solidarity, despite its overwhelming victory, seeks to remain an opposition movement with freedom of action to maneuver and continue its stance critical of the government.

In a new challenge to Poland's Communist authorities, the outlawed Solidarity movement announced Tuesday that it will disband its Warsaw regional underground leadership, operate publicly and work for the restoration of independent trade unions. At the same time, two union leaders still in hiding from the days of martial law in 1981, Jan Litynski and Wiktor Kulerski, emerged at a Warsaw news conference to declare that they are ending their clandestine activities.

Solidarity's 161 deputies and 99 senators in Poland's new Parliament refused Friday to propose a candidate for president or take jobs in the Communist government and pledged to remain a political opposition. The senators and deputies led by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa also said they will vote "in line with the will of the voters" when a government candidate for president is proposed, almost certainly Polish leader Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski. Although there is little doubt that Jaruzelski will remain as leader, the party itself is torn by debate over its future after its stunning election defeat by Solidarity, according to the party's chief ideologist Marian Orzechowski.

Solidarity's first legal radio program in more than seven years went on the air today with a medley of protest songs and speeches--and an appeal for funds for its election campaign. The union's first authorized broadcast since it was suppressed under martial law in December, 1981, opened with a nostalgic ballad called "Prayer Against Despair." Veteran dissident Jacek Kuron explained Solidarity's program for the parliamentary elections in June, and an announcer appealed for campaign funds.

It's a Catholic thing. It's an immigrant-underdog thing. It's an acoustic-punk thing. There are many reasons why, for the last 10 or 11 years - the precise number is lost in the fog of memory - the L.A. Chicano band Ollin has celebrated St. Patrick's Day by paying tribute to the Pogues, the Anglo Irish ensemble that slammed the lilting grace of traditional Celtic music together with punk's raw energy during the Reagan-Thatcher era. Ollin's annual...

The St. Zita Society A Novel Ruth Rendell Scribner: 272 pp., $26 If you're unfamiliar with Ruth Rendell, if you've somehow managed to miss her 60 or so books, if you've never experienced the frisson produced by her unique blend of elegant prose and brutal plotting or laughed out loud at her acidic humor or social observations, then congratulations: Your reading life is about to get infinitely richer. Reviewing mysteries is a bit like dissecting a butterfly to explain the wonder of its flight.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - In the hours BBC (Before Bill Clinton's big speech), large themes were evoked at the Democratic National Convention here. Corporate and union leaders followed one another onto the platform to invite Americans to their political bromance of business and labor working hand-in-work-glove. On Labor Day itself, as men and women in yellow "Teamsters for Obama" T-shirts were strolling around the hall, I was talking to my colleague Matea Gold, who covers politics and money, about unions being at a soul-searching crossroads.

GDANSK, Poland- In a visit meant as much for domestic consumption as international, Mitt Romney arrived in Poland on Monday to accept the endorsement of the country's former president, Lech Walesa. Walesa, the co-founder of the Solidarity labor movement, had invited Romney to his country and lauded him through a translator. "Poland and many other countries will certainly do their best for the United States to restore its leadership position," Walesa said through a translator. "And after our conversation, I'm quite confident that you will be successful in doing that.

As cigarette smoke and the scent of burning sage drifted over the crowd at Occupy L.A., a young protester took to the people's microphone to give a rousing recitation of the group's "points of solidarity. " The crowd echoed his words back at him. "We are daring to imagine," 300 people chanted. "A new sociopolitical and economic alternative that offers greater possibility of equality. " The harmony was shattered by a woman shouting wildly. "Why don't we have a microphone?

Lawmakers in Slovakia on Tuesday rejected a proposal to beef up Europe's bailout fund for debt-stressed nations, but supporters are hopeful that the measure will pass in a second vote expected to take place within days. The ruling coalition of Prime Minister Iveta Radicova collapsed after failing to gather enough votes from the Slovak parliament in favor of the measure, an outcome she had warned would be tantamount to a vote of no confidence in her government. The plan for a strengthened bailout fund, which is widely seen as imperative for Europe to tame its growing debt crisis, was torpedoed in parliament by a junior party within Radicova's coalition.

The outlawed Solidarity labor movement declared Sunday that results of Poland's national referendum last week represented a popular vote of no confidence in the Communist government. "The Communist authorities failed to win a public mandate to govern," Solidarity's national executive commission said in a written statement. Signed by Lech Walesa, a founder of Solidarity, and nine members of the executive commission, the statement was Solidarity's first comment on the Nov.

A masked man knocked out a pro-Solidarity priest with gas and burned a V-sign into his chest with lighted cigarettes at the clergyman's home in the southern city of Krakow, officials said today. Cardinal Franiciszek Macharski of Krakow said in a telex message to the Roman Catholic church hierarchy that the Rev. Tadeusz Zaleski, 29, was attacked by an unidentified man last Saturday at his home.

Syrian protesters tossed roses onto the vehicle of a surprise visitor to Hama: the American ambassador, who could be seen driving through the symbolically loaded central Syrian city as a massive antigovernment rally got underway Friday. Ambassador Robert S. Ford's unannounced visit, which outraged Syrian officials, was a show of solidarity with the tens of thousands of protesters pouring into the streets of the nation's towns and cities Friday and a powerful rebuttal to President Bashar Assad's use of deadly force in an attempt to suppress a four-month uprising against his autocratic rule.

Inmates in at least 11 of California's 33 prisons are refusing meals in solidarity with a hunger strike staged by prisoners in one of the system's special maximum-security units, officials said Tuesday. The strike began Friday when inmates in the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison stopped eating meals in protest of conditions that they contend are cruel and inhumane. "There are inmates in at least a third of our prisons who are refusing state-issued meals," said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.