Kendra Strauss is director of the Labour Studies Program and associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University.
Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that the recently shot-down Chinese balloon was indeed spying. The US doesn’t like other countries snooping on them — something the US is constantly doing all over the planet.
The Scottish writer Tom Nairn, who died last month, was the most perceptive critic of the pathologies of the British state. His writings on nationalism and the Labour Party are essential for anyone attempting to understand British society.
Every time a member of the ruling class passes away, we’re expected to bow our heads in reverence and sing their praises. Writing in 1901, Eugene Debs offered a different approach: tell the unvarnished truth about the tyranny of the rich and powerful.
In South Africa, popular disillusionment with the inequality of the postapartheid order runs so deep that support for authoritarianism is on the rise. It’s a striking reminder that democracy must deliver material gains for the masses to remain a vibrant force.
Semiconductors are as important for global capitalism today as access to energy resources. Only a handful of countries can produce the most advanced microchips, and control over their supply is becoming a key battleground in the US-China trade war.
In the UK, housing prices are thankfully forecast to drop this year. But without a serious investment in social housing from the government, the housing crisis isn’t going to end.
The proliferation of noncompete agreements in even low-wage jobs keeps wages low by preventing workers from finding new jobs in their field. For a Minnesota couple allegedly fired for unionizing, such agreements may also make them homeless.
Upcoming Christian Super Bowl ads are framed as diverse and inclusive. But the money behind them comes from a rabidly antiabortion and antigay organization.
Workers at OnPoint NYC, one of the country’s leading harm-reduction centers, are organizing. Their efforts could lead to union shops becoming the norm in overdose prevention and wed organized labor membership to harm-reduction advocacy.
Following its failed crypto scheme, authoritarian president Nayib Bukele’s cash-strapped government is making moves to reverse El Salvador’s metal mining ban. Its reintroduction would be a disaster for the nation’s already contaminated water supply.
American unions’ members are down, but their finances are through the roof. The labor movement can’t rebuild its dismally low membership unless unions start spending their resources on aggressive new organizing campaigns.
Several new memoirs from disillusioned military veterans reflect on the horrors of war. They’re essential tools for challenging US empire.
Matt Karp on class dealignment and why the Left’s weakening connection to blue-collar workers isn’t a problem we can wish away.
French president Emmanuel Macron plans to hike the retirement age to 64, sparking massive protests. The government claims the current retirement age is unsustainable: but what French workers really can’t afford is to work till they drop.
Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is expected to announce her bid for president this month. As a South Carolinian, I can tell you that having her in the White House would be a disaster for workers and their families.
In Russia, mounting authoritarianism and the wartime crackdown on dissent have hobbled trade unions. A five-day strike by food couriers showed that at least some workers are refusing to be muzzled.
House Republicans have wasted no time in red-baiting the Left, and the centrist leadership of the Democratic Party has apparently been happy to join them.
Some Democrats apparently thought voting for the GOP’s ludicrous anti-socialism resolution would keep them safe from Republican attacks. They’ll find out soon enough how wrong they were.
Rosa Parks was born on this day in 1913. Far from being a face of respectability politics, she was a defiant and seasoned working-class organizer who despised the cringing submission that Jim Crow induced and who doggedly fought oppression in all its forms.
The US-dominated economic order constructed after Bretton Woods did not take the Global South into consideration. A new, just system will have to change that.