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The harsh reality of job growth in America
There are many reasons for those at the top of the U.S. income distribution to celebrate the performance of the U.S. economy and tout the superiority of current U.S. economic and political institutions and policies. Unfortunately, there is a strong connection between the continuing gains for those at the top and the steadily deteriorating employment conditions experienced by growing numbers of workers.
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Misleading narratives on Labour’s defeat have a purpose
GAWAIN LITTLE looks in detail at the different aspects of Labour’s election defeat.
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Millions in France strike against austerity
France’s mass strikes have mobilized millions, persisting into a sixth day, in an attempt to forestall severe cuts to the social gains of the working class.
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“Booming” economy means more bad jobs and faster race to the bottom
For the past 30 years, no matter which party has been in power, the U.S. economy has produced more and more “bad” jobs–because the Race to the Bottom is ruling class policy.
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Moving jobs to Mexico was a feature, not a bug, of NAFTA
The Washington Post (11/21/19) gave readers the official story about NAFTA, diverging seriously from reality, in a piece on the status of negotiations on the new NAFTA.
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Overworked America
Those living in the U.S. are encouraged to think that they live in the best country in the world with little to learn from the experiences of working people in other countries. This sense is reinforced by the fact that the mainstream media generally discusses U.S. problems without reference to developments or trends in other developed capitalist countries.
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Jobs for All Manifesto
What is needed is a program directed toward an intermediate goal which both rejects the existing social order and at the same time is attainable without overthrowing it. —Leo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy
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British workers
As we wait impatiently while the Brits go through the interminable travail of Brexit, let us have a look at who they are. Not directly in a social, cultural or political sense, but by reviewing the data on UK employment. Work gives a foundation for people’s daily lives and will, in turn, have an impact on society, culture and politics.
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What the Chicago Teachers Union and United Auto Workers strikes teach us
The strikes have enabled the workers to feel their real strength. These two strikes give us a sign of the role the trade unions, the most powerful organizations of working people, will play in the future.
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No Depression in Heaven with Alison Collis Greene
In this episode of Money on the Left, we speak with historian Alison Collis Greene about her book No Depression in Heaven with an eye toward contemporary debates around the Green New Deal. Subtitled The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta, Greene’s book critiques what she calls the […]
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iPhone workers today are 25 times more exploited than textile workers in 19th Century England
A recent report by the International Labour Organisation shows that the total global labour force is now measured at 3.5 billion workers. This is the largest size of the global labour force in recorded history. Talk of the demise of workers is utterly premature when confronted with the weight of this data.
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Labour overwhelmingly approves climate revolution as a ‘top priority’
The Canary has been following Labour’s plans for a Green Industrial Revolution closely. But this variation of the Green New Deal has now become official policy at the party’s 2019 conference. And it will reportedly be a “top priority”.
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Notebook #2: The Rate of Exploitation
The rate of exploitation in the production of Apple’s iPhone X, which stands at 2458%, is 25 times the rate of exploitation that is gleaned from Marx’s examples in Capital, published in 1867.
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Dossier 20: When you ill-treat the African people, i see you
The Industrial & Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU)—a trade union, rural peasant movement, and urban squatters’ movement—formed on the docks in Cape Town in 1919. Within a decade, the ICU had expanded across Southern Africa without regard for national borders and counted people from various African countries and the Caribbean in its leadership, as well as people who were Indian and mixed race. The largely forgotten history of the ICU is well worth recovering in a time of escalating chauvinism and xenophobia. Our Dossier #20 offers an introduction to this extraordinary popular movement.
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The workplace democracy plan, explained (Part 1)
Under the Sanders plan, federal contracts could be revoked or denied to low-wage employers, union busters, and companies that engage in offshoring (read: most American companies). Making federal funds contingent on “good behavior” is a powerful means of leverage.
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From victories to union militancy, 5 reasons for workers to celebrate this Labor Day
Labor Day often gets short shrift as a worker’s holiday. Marked primarily by sales on patio furniture and mattresses, the day also has a more muddled history than May Day, which stands for internationalism and solidarity among the working class. Labor Day, by contrast, was declared a federal holiday in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland, fresh off his administration’s violent suppression of the Pullman railroad strike.
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Review of Money and Totality by Fred Moseley
Today, as the global economy flounders from crisis to crisis, Marx’s analysis of capitalism is the essential basis for a correct understanding of what is going on. Moseley’s book reaffirms key elements of this analysis.
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Outsourcing exploitation: global labor-value chains
Through their control over supply chains, multinationals based in the global north exploit workers in the global south.
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A Tale of Corruption by the United Auto Workers and the Big Three American Automakers
What follows is a somewhat complex tale of what happens when a labor union, structured to be unaccountable to the rank-and-file membership, embraces a system of labor-management cooperation rather than a class-conscious understanding that workers and their employers are adversaries with fundamentally opposed goals and desires.
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CEO compensation has grown 940% since 1978
Typical worker compensation has risen only 12% during that time