During the Cold War, US sociologists lionized Max Weber as a superior alternative to Karl Marx. For all his brilliance, Weber’s social theory glosses over the violent, exploitative nature of capitalism and serves as a pessimistic defense of the status quo.
Last week at Grinnell College in Iowa, undergraduate resident advisers with the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers, the first independent undergrad labor union in the country, went on strike. We spoke with two of the workers about why they walked out.
Philadelphia voters head to the polls today. All eyes are on progressive mayoral challenger Helen Gym. But longtime union organizer Seth Anderson-Oberman is also part of a suite of left-wing challengers on the city council.
A Canadian wealth tax could raise funds sufficient for universal public pharmacare, free tuition for postsecondary education, 100,000 nonmarket affordable homes per year, and a major increase in public transit investment. The country needs a wealth tax now.
Twenty-one members of Congress last week called for lifting US sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela, including most of the Squad. The pushback is needed: sanctions are a cruel economic weapon that hurts average people — and has spurred a surge of economic refugees.
A former teacher and parent organizer, progressive mayoral candidate Helen Gym is hell-bent on making Philadelphia an example for nationwide reforms in health care, public education, and affordable housing.
The US labor movement has a long way to go to reverse its decades of stagnation and decline. But it’s undeniable that things are currently looking up for unions — particularly in rank-and-file workers’ interest in organizing.
France’s interior minister has threatened to ban environmentalist groups said to represent a risk of “violence against property.” It’s part of a worrying clampdown on civil liberties that belies Emmanuel Macron’s supposedly “liberal” politics.
The Writers Guild of America is now in week three of its nationwide strike. Two key sticking points in negotiations: residual payments and the use of artificial intelligence.
The United Auto Workers is refusing to endorse Joe Biden until he commits to backing an electric vehicle transition that creates good union jobs. The union’s new reform leadership is absolutely right to hold Biden’s feet to the fire.
Brandon Johnson was inaugurated as Chicago mayor today. What makes the Chicago working-class movement that elected him so remarkable is its willingness to wage audacious fights over protecting and expanding public goods that seem unwinnable.
Turkey’s elections on Sunday brought incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the cusp of another term in office. But he now faces a runoff vote, in which prodemocratic and Kurdish forces can still inflict a historic defeat upon the authoritarian president.
In a conversation with Jacobin, Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates, city councilor Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, and editor Alex Han discuss how Chicago’s working-class movement elected one of its own as mayor and where that movement goes now.
While millions struggle to pay the bills, the European Council president’s personal budget for 2024 is set to hit a vast €2.6 million. The EU’s outlandish spending on private jets for its leaders makes a mockery of calls for Europeans to save energy.
Do you want to see a bunch of Nazis get the bloody, gory treatment they deserve in the wilds of Northern Finland? Of course you do. Then go see Sisu.
On March 29, graduate student workers at the University of Michigan began a strike over what they describe as the university’s refusal to negotiate in good faith. We spoke to striking workers about the walkout, the longest in their union’s 49-year history.
The most important task for Brandon Johnson, who will be inaugurated as Chicago’s mayor on Monday, will be to pioneer a new, progressive path to address crime in the city while fending off attacks from a hostile media and the Chicago Police Department.
Far from being a white-collar oasis, architects work under grueling conditions — which is why some are now trying to unionize. We spoke to an architect and union organizer about labor’s new efforts to organize the industry.
The Hollywood screenwriters’ strike has deep historical roots: stretching back to Hollywood’s Golden Age, writers and many others in the industry have insisted that filmmaking is a form of labor — and fought for their rights as workers.
Conservatives cast Chile as a success story in which the neoliberal economists known as the “Chicago Boys” reversed reckless socialist experimentation. This whitewashes the horrific crimes of Augusto Pinochet and the precarity his policies normalized.