Subjects Archives: Labor

Democracy has a dream-like character. It sweeps into the world, carried forward by an immense desire by humans to overcome the barriers of indignity and social suffering.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently found himself in hot water for removing the right to strike from educational workers, imposing terms and conditions of employment on them, and using the Notwithstanding Clause to bar them from asserting their constitutional rights.

A case the Supreme Court heard on Tuesday could make unions and workers liable for any damages their company incurred during a strike, dealing a blow to organized labor.

More workers are forming independent unions, untethered from the AFL-CIO and other established labor groups.

The United States is an employment “at-will” country. That means, absent a union contract, a boss can fire a worker for almost any, or even no reason, and without advance notice. Well—with the exception of Montana.

Workers in the United States once united across trade and background to fight for the 8-hour workday. Today, many lament how weak the labor movement has become, often pointing to attacks from the right to strip unions and workers of power.

Readers of the first volume of Capital sometimes mistakenly conceptualize capitalism in terms of a relationship between workers and a single capitalist. In doing so they fail to notice that for Marx capitalist society is not one big capitalist enterprise.

In my opinion, American capitalism no longer has any use for, let’s say, 40 percent of the population. These are the descendants of folks who were brought over here in one way or another during the period of capital accumulation. They’re now superfluous human beings.

A NEO-LIBERAL regime entails a spontaneous change in the balance of class power against the working class everywhere. This happens for a number of reasons.

A new Black “first” came along at the same moment that the Democratic Party showed itself to be a servant of the ruling classes. Hakeem Jeffries is a very willing tool of powerful people. There is no reason to celebrate his ascension to the House Minority Leader position.

By rejecting paid sick leave for rail workers, Congress put profits over people.

Around 100 are helping in the battle against the country’s second-largest employer.

Jon Melrod brings back to us a vital moment in the history of the U.S. labor movement, a moment in which the demographic transformation the workforce but also the lingering memory of 1960s social movements and unrest, raised the possibility of radicals racing to the front of class conflicts.

Inflation, Imperialism & Worker Resistance

Rather than simply ‘legalising gay marriage’ the new laws in Cuba addressed everything from domestic work to children’s rights, engaging half of the entire population in a uniquely socialist process, explain MARY DAVIS and ANGUS REID.

The ILWU must call for an end to the war. Most importantly we must appeal for port actions to the International Dockworkers Council (IDC) and the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) to refuse to handle military cargo by dockworkers around the world.

In his early Paris manuscripts (1844), the young Karl Marx defined “alienation” as an estrangement from the product of one’s labor. The modern factory, with its specialized division-of-labor (which even Adam Smith deplored as necessary but dehumanizing), exponentially increased productive output—but at the price of deskilling and condemning the worker to a single, repetitive task.

With the specter of a national rail strike in the United States looming, two meetings took place on Wednesday night.

Following Labour Day, this column explores the origin of the phrase sex work and how sex workers are an important part of the labour movement.

Work Work Work: Labor, Alienation, and Class Struggle