Subjects Archives: Labor

President Trump is all in, touting his success in rebuilding U.S. manufacturing.  For example, in his state of the union address he claimed: We are restoring our nation’s manufacturing might, even though predictions were that this could never be done. After losing 60,000 factories under the previous two administrations, America has now gained 12,000 new […]

Reverend Dr. Delman Coates joins Money on the Left to discuss why the politics of public money creation are essential for social and spiritual liberation. Dr. Coates holds a Master’s in Divinity from Harvard and a Ph.D. in New Testament & Early Christianity from Columbia University. He currently serves as Senior Pastor at Mount Ennon […]

If you want to predict the future, don’t speculate, study the past. In light of the knowledge gleaned, examine the present. The history of the future is planted, not buried, in the here and now.

The protests that started with the national strike called by Colombia’s central union on November 21 to protest pension reforms and the broken promises of the peace accords have persisted for two months and grown into a protest against the whole establishment. And the protests have continued into the new year and show no signs of stopping.

Conservative leader Boris Johnson swept to power in the UK’s December 12 elections, winning 365 of a possible 650 seats. Labour’s socialist leader Jeremy Corbyn announced his resignation, after a bitterly disappointing night for his party.

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.

GAWAIN LITTLE looks in detail at the different aspects of Labour’s election defeat.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 […]

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.