Subjects Archives: Labor

  • IWW Miners of Jerome & Bisbee loaded into cattle cars and deported from state of Arizona

    In 1912, more than 1000 working class men, mostly members of the Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union of the Industrial Workers of the World, being loaded into cattle cars in Bisbee, Arizona, July 12th, for the purpose of being deported from the state of Arizona.

  • Ad for Kakkoos (Latrine)

    Toilet tales

    Kakkoos (Latrine) is a Tamil documentary that is a powerful indictment of society’s apathy towards the thousands who are tasked with cleaning public toilets and sewers. The filmmaker Divya Bharathi talks about why she made a documentary and what is the task at hand, post its tremendous success.

  • Trump Is Trying to Make NAFTA Even Worse

    Trump is trying to make NAFTA even worse

    Many on the Left have been deeply critical of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) since before it was fast-tracked into law by former President Bill Clinton in 1994. Now, President Donald Trump’s current plan to renegotiate NAFTA is poised to make the massive trade deal even worse.

  • Union Busting Cartoon

    Ransacking the public sector

    Almost 50% of union members in the United States today work in the public sector. By necessity, they will have to play a major role in the rebuilding of organized labor. But like private sector unions before them, government employee unions face circumstances threatening their very existence.

  • Class Ceiling

    The shifting politics of inequality and the class ceiling

    Britain’s class landscape has changed: it is more polarised at the extremes and messier in the middle. The distinction between middle and working class is less clear-cut. The elite is able to set political agendas and entrench their own privilege. The left needs a clear narrative showing how privilege leads to gross unfairness—and effective policies […]

  • New Yorkers protest Trump

    Are liberals having second thoughts about immigration?

    On June 20 The Atlantic posted an article by Peter Beinart claiming that the Democrats had “lost their way on immigration.” While the article has been lauded by Rightwingers, it is mostly a compendium of familiar sound bites on immigration, presented without much understanding of the issues.

  • A union march in Detroit

    Improving our quality of life will require rebuilding union strength

    Unions provide workers with voice and the means to use their collective strength to gain job security and say over key aspects of their conditions of employment, including scheduling and safety. These gains are significant in our “employment at will” economy.

  • May-Corbyn

    The general election in Great Britain

    When it came to the general election in Britain, everything was settled in advance. The Conservative Party led by Theresa May was supposed to prevail. The Labour Party, victim of its own confusion, its refusal to support the will of millions of members and voters who wanted to put an end to the straitjacket of the European Union, was supposed to be trounced.

  • Southern Front

    Rebuilding the American labor movement—the Southern front

    The major contradiction for working people in the USA in the 21st century is now abundantly clear: while working for a living is a necessity for the majority of Americans and the wealth of the nation continues to grow, real wages and the number of decent jobs are in steady decline.

  • Jeremy Corbyn Waiving

    Corbyn: shifting the possible

    While Jeremy Corbyn didn’t become Prime Minister, he did pull off the most stunning upset in recent political history. And he did this by turning out voters who, according to all received wisdom, would never vote, above all the young and poor.

  • ‘What we see this week is a shallow farce, beginning with a plan to move air traffic control to a private, non-profit corporation run by the airlines.’

    The thing about Trump’s infrastructure plan is: it doesn’t really exist

    The Republican leaders of Congress killed off Trump’s much touted infrastructure plan months before he even reached the Oval Office. What we are left with is a farce.

  • Jeremy Corbyn during the count at his Islington North constituency

    Visions of Corbyn

    In a number of recently posted articles (see here) it seemed clear that a UK General Election upset was in the making, despite the tirade of anti-Corbyn commentary from mainstream media in the UK. Now it has happened.

  • Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, prepares to give a speech on his party’s foreign and defence policy at the Chatham House think-tank, during the 2017 UK general election campaign

    Jeremy Corbyn’s “Dark Past”

    This expert has some shocking revelations about @jeremycorbyn‘s past…

  • South American Federation of Trade Unionists

    Let’s Rebuild a Democratic Global Trade Union Movement

    This whole project to hollow out institutions has only one aim which is the creation of a predatory state whose only reason for existence is to accumulate and plunder the country’s resources for the benefit of family members of Jacob Zuma, as well as the network of greedy, corrupt families who also benefit from crony capitalism.

  • Labour’s manifesto is a shift to the left: it’s no time for compromises with the right

    It must be part of a bold and insurgent campaign based on resistance to racism, austerity and war that focusses on mass rallies and mobilisations. Giving in to the right can only make it weaker.

  • Protesting Miners in Iran

    Silicon Valley’s toys contribute to Iran’s 2017 presidential election

    With a few days to go to Iran’s upcoming presidential elections on 19 May, six candidates could survive the vetting process of the Guardian Councils.… The role of the media, both in Iran and throughout the diaspora, to shape public opinion is significant. Iranian state media, radio and television are supposed to give the “hopefuls” an opportunity to continue campaigning for office, as they speak about their future plans and defend past performances, but they often fall short.

  • World Economi Forum on Africa, May 2017

    South Africa’s business community has not stepped up honestly

    Prof Patrick Bond from the University of the Witswatersrand (Wits) tells Business Day TV why the World Economic Forum, which held its annual Africa meeting last week, serves the interests of the ruling elite at the expense of communities.

  • The Graveyard of Progressive Social Movements

    When first encountering the “Impeach Bush” movement in 2007 I responded, almost flippantly, “why not impeach the system that gave us Bush?” Otherwise, I said, “we risk having someone in the White House who’ll make us long for Bush.” If prescient, my response was admittedly formulaic and evidentially deficient.

  • Workers at Whirlpool

    The Promises and Limitations of Radical Local Politics

    Read Michael D Yates’s informative interview with labor journalist Steve Early and Mike Parker, leader of the Richmond Progressive Alliance. The conversation focuses on both the benefits and limitations of engaging in radical politics at the local level.

  • Prison Labor

    The Return of Commercial Prison Labor

    In the decades following, the number of prisoners decreased to a historic minimum. But with cutbacks in the welfare state, the prison population exploded from about 200,000 in 1975 to 2,300,000 in 2013 (Scherrer and Shah, 2017: 37) and prison labor for commercial purposes became legal again. Today, about 15% of the inmates in federal and state prisons perform work for companies such as Boeing, Starbucks and Victoria’s Secret. Migrants detained for violating immigration laws are one of the fastest growing segments of prison labor. Under the Trump administration, their numbers are most likely to increase.