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Working Class

Attacks On Public Workers Are An Attack On The Entire Working Class

March 23, 2025 Samuel Karlin and Julia Wallace, Left Voice. , , ,
Despite contradictions in the U.S. regime and emerging opposition, Elon Musk and Donald Trump are moving forward with their goal of gutting the federal workforce and attacking public sector unions. Both their method of carrying out the attacks and the impact so far have been an absolute shitshow, with many attacks quickly being halted by interventions from the courts, leading to changes by the day. It is clear though that the Trump administration and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are hellbent on gutting services that working communities rely on, destroying tens of thousands of jobs in the process.

The Fog Of Class War

March 14, 2025 Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, Black Agenda Report. , , , , ,
The primary weapon of the ruling class is capitalism, and the greatest anathema to the capitalist construct is multiracial, multiethnic, and, intergenerational/intergenderational working class solidarity and militancy. This has been known since the 1786 Shays’ Rebellion, which occurred just ten years after the colonies’ so-called Declaration of Independence from the British empire. The significance of Shays’ Rebellion is multifaceted - not only did it represent a coordinated class struggle against the newly minted ruling class of the independent states, it also exposed the fickleness and abject hypocrisy of so-called revolutionaries like Samuel Adams.

The Anastasis Of Marx

February 20, 2025 Arnie Saiki, oni’s Substack. , , , ,
If Karl Marx were to experience an anastasis and rise from the grave today, he might be both astonished and vindicated by the enduring relevance of his critique of capitalism in the modern world. Upon his first visit to a mall, how long would it take for him to get past the manufactured happiness that drives consumer culture and perverts his critique of production? Capitalism no longer simply estranges workers from their labor; it engineers desire, making consumption feel like fulfillment. The act of purchasing, of acquiring, is not just an economic transaction but an addiction, a temporary salve for an alienation that he once attributed to the separation from one's own production.

Chris Hedges Report: Virtue Hoarders And The Rejection Of Liberalism

February 13, 2025 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , , ,
The material needs of working class people in America continue to be obscured and co-opted by politicians and people claiming to know what’s best on both sides of the political aisle. While Republicans and right-wingers address some of these needs head on, they do so by luring people through empty rhetoric and culture war distractions. On the other side, Democrats and liberals police and enforce a cancel-culture paradigm built by elites that also distracts and divides the proletariat from ever engaging in meaningful connection and change.

Eight Ways States Can Fight Inequality And Build Worker Power

February 4, 2025 Sarah Anderson, Inequality.org. , , ,
With each passing day, we’re seeing more signs of our federal government becoming on oligarchy that puts the economic interests of the ultra-rich above the needs of ordinary Americans. In the face of this billionaire takeover in Washington, state governments need to step up and fight for the working class. Here are eight ways states can combat inequality and support economic justice. President Trump’s administration and right-wing judges are expected to repeal or block many of President Biden’s new labor protections, including safeguards against working in extreme heat, broader overtime pay coverage, and new organizing rights.

Can A Labor-Backed Candidate Inspire More Working-Class Independents?

January 21, 2025 Steve Early, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
While running for U.S. Senate in Nebraska, working class candidate Dan Osborn characterized the Senate as “a country club of millionaires that work for billionaires.” In November, he almost crashed their party. Osborn, a 49-year old former local union president who helped lead a multi-state strike against Kellogg’s cereal company, was recruited by railroad workers to challenge two-term incumbent Senator Deb Fischer, a Republican. Rail is a major industry in Nebraska, and Fischer had voted to break the 2022 national railroad strike. She also opposed the Railway Safety Act.

Dr Victor Frankenstein Disavows His Monster

January 10, 2025 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , ,
Very few humans have had the good fortune to descend into the depths of the world’s oceans. The deepest such place – 11 kilometres below sea level at its deepest point – is the Mariana Trench, which is located just north of the 607 islands of the Federated States of Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean (by comparison, Mount Everest is nearly nine kilometres above sea level). Down there, in the depths below six kilometres in what is called the hadal zone, there is no light. It is called the hadal zone after Hades, the ancient Greek god of the underworld.

The Crisis Of The Neoliberal University

October 30, 2024 Maryam Alaniz and Tatiana Cozzarelli, Left Voice. , , , , , ,
This past year in the U.S., a new chapter in class struggle has been written. Students, many from the Palestinian diaspora, anti-Zionist Jewish people, leftists, and people of conscience of all stripes have stood up against the genocide in Gaza. They have built encampments and questioned universities that run like businesses with investments in Israel. They have faced off the repression of university administrators while unmasking the imperialist character of both the Democrats and Republicans in office who help to send the police to beat up students and workers.

The Condition Of The American Working Class Today

September 2, 2024 Jack Rasmus, LA Progressive. , , , , , , ,
On Labor Day this writer has summed up the condition of the American working class over the past year. This national election year it is perhaps useful to review not only the past year but what has happened since the last election in 2020. How has the American worker fared the past four years—in terms of wages, benefits, inflation and jobs? How have their unions, now a mere 10% of the labor force, also fared during the period of recovery since the deep Covid era recession of 2020, the uneven recovery of 2020-21 that followed, and the past thirty months of what has been a modest economic growth.

48 Years After The Military Coup, Argentinians Take To The Streets

March 27, 2024 Left Voice. , , , , ,
This Sunday, March 24, tens of thousands of people filled the streets of Buenos Aires and Argentina’s biggest cities to demand “memory, truth, and justice” for the victims of state violence. This annual day of action is held in remembrance of the 30,000 people who were disappeared, murdered, or tortured during the military dictatorship of 1976 to 1983, whose atrocities are most recognizably embodied in the figure of Jorge Rafael Videla, the leader of the military junta that seized control of the government.

Dan Osborn Challenges Nebraska’s Political Establishment

March 16, 2024 Steve Early, Barn Raiser Media. , , ,
Recent studies of lawmakers in the United States have found that less than 2% of those serving on Capitol Hill held blue-collar jobs before they were elected. That percentage drops even further among the nearly 7,300 state legislators across all 50 states, according to researchers at Duke University and Loyola University Chicago, who found that only 81 of those legislators were previously employed in working-class jobs. Dan Osborn, a 48-year-old building trades worker, is a rare example of a candidate working to increase those numbers.

Argentinian Working People Fight Milei Government With A General Strike

February 28, 2024 Clara Marticorena and Julia Soul, Labor Notes. , , ,
More than 1.5 million people took part in a general strike in Argentina on January 24 against a new president and his aggressive anti-union “reforms.” Self-described “liberal-libertarian” Javier Milei, who won the November 22 presidential elections, is an economist who became popular as a panelist on a TV show. He advocated for ending the “privileges” of the “casta”—defined as corrupt politicians and social and union leaders taking advantage of “good people.” With a new party, Freedom Advances (La Libertad Avanza), Milei won the votes of a range of people, from working-class people disappointed and angry with the incumbent Peronist government to the middle and ruling classes opposed to state intervention in the economy and income distribution.

The 2023 UAW Strike: A Turning Point In Labor History?

February 23, 2024 Nelson Lichtenstein, New Labor Forum. , , , , , ,
How transformative was the strike that the United Auto Workers concluded in November 2023, when it shut down factories at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, which now incorporates Chrysler? The UAW has been in existence for nearly 90 years, during which three contests with capital have defined the character of the union and–because of its vanguard role–the expectations and standards for millions of other workers. Should we add last Fall’s brilliantly led and highly successful “stand-up” strike to that list? The great sit-down strikes of 1937 founded the UAW and ensured that, for more than a decade, shop militancy and leftwing politics would define a union representing upwards of a million workers in America’s most important industry.

Building Cleaners Rally For Fair Wages And Life-Saving Benefits

November 17, 2023 Bella DeVaan, Inequality.org. , , ,
Just this year, we’ve seen UPS Teamsters secure a historic $30 billion new contract that abolishes tiers and substantially raises wages. We’ve seen the UAW successfully strike for contracts that boost pay, protect benefits, and crystallize the prospect of a green auto industry. Now, building cleaners across the country are next up to negotiate equitable deals and notch new victories for a labor movement confronting an uncertain future. On the line? Their ability to keep living and working in their home cities with ease and dignity. All told, contracts covering more than 134,000 SEIU cleaners nationwide are up for renegotiation over the next year with different SEIU locals, over half of whom belong to 32BJ SEIU locals on the east coast.

APEC Summit In San Francisco Met With Mass Protests

November 14, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
10,000 people took to the streets on Sunday, November 12 to protest the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meetings taking place in San Francisco this week. The APEC summit will run from November 11 to 17. The protest took place following a 1,000-person APEC counter-summit on November 11. The mobilizations have been organized by the No to APEC Coalition, which represents almost 150 organizations across the United States. “APEC is the epitome of all that is wicked and corrupt in our society today,” said Simon Ma, a family doctor and member of the anti-imperialist Korean-American organization Nodutdol. He described APEC as a “cabal of billionaires and politicians scheming behind closed doors, trying to come up with new and innovative ways to further exploit the working class of our planet.”
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