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A Wisconsin story
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.
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Prof. Richard Wolff: inflation, imperialism & worker resistance
Inflation, Imperialism & Worker Resistance
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Cuba’s new Family Code: made possible by socialism
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.
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Stop the Ukraine War—refuse to handle military cargo
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.
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The need for alienation
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.
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While rail unions meet with Biden to avert strike, 500 railroaders attend meeting to organize rank-and-file opposition
With the specter of a national rail strike in the United States looming, two meetings took place on Wednesday night.
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Sex work: a contemporary identity rooted in labour
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.
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Viewpoint: Confronting the nature of work
Work Work Work: Labor, Alienation, and Class Struggle
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Indian workers defend their steel with their lives: The Thirty-Fourth Newsletter (2022)
The long and distant epoch of pre-history, dated to the time before the start of the Common Era, is conventionally divided into three periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.
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Who is Mick Lynch?
The rail workers’ leader offers the most visible opposition to Britain’s Tory government.
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Child labor is alive and well in the United States
A Hyundai subsidiary used up to fifty underage migrant workers at an auto plant known for hazardous conditions, according to former and current employees.
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The value of the federal minimum wage is at its lowest point in 66 years
The value of the federal minimum wage has reached its lowest point in 66 years, according to an EPI analysis of recently released Consumer Price Index (CPI) data.
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Rebuilding collective intelligence
Human capital theory cannot solve our economic woes. David Ridley says we need a socialist alternative.
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Registering the ‘Labour Upsurge’ in North America
After a long four-year hiatus, the Labor Notes Conference is back, and bigger than ever with a record-breaking 4,000 registering.
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The Future of Work (Part 3) – automation
In this third part of my series on the future of work, I want to deal with the impact of automation, in particular robots and artificial intelligence (AI) on jobs. I have covered this issue of the relationship between human labour and machines before, including robots and AI. But is there anything new that we can find after the COVID slump?
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The Future of Work (Part 2) – working long and hard
In the first post of my Future of Work series, I looked at the impact of working from home and remote work which has mushroomed since the COVID pandemic.
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The Fed’s austerity program to reduce wages
To Wall Street and its backers, the solution to any price inflation is to reduce wages and public social spending. The orthodox way to do this is to push the economy into recession in order to reduce hiring. Rising unemployment will oblige labor to compete for jobs that pay less and less as the economy slows.
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Jacobinism and the labour theory of value
The U.S. social democratic journal Jacobin recently published an article by Ben Burgis that was a half hearted defence of Marx’s theory of exploitation.
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Captive labor: Exploitation of incarcerated workers
Our nation incarcerates more than 1.2 million people in state and federal prisons, and two out of three of these incarcerated people are also workers. In most instances, the jobs these nearly 800,000 incarcerated workers have look similar to those of millions of people working on the outside.
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Slip slidin’ away—the disappearing practice of overtime pay
Slip slidin’ away—that is what tends to happen to pro-worker reforms in our economic system. Things are structured so that without constant vigilance and struggle on our part, gains are gradually undone. A case in point: overtime pay.