All of Us Should Be Working Four-Day Weeks
A mass experiment in Iceland found that workers with four-day weeks became happier and healthier and got just as much done. It’ll take worker organizing to win a demand like that.
19274 Articles by: Frances Abele
Frances Abele CM is Distinguished Research Professor and Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy Emerita at Carleton University. She is a research fellow at the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation and the Broadbent Institute. Much of her work focuses on indigenous-Canada relations.
Miners in Ontario Are Mobilizing Against Another Corporate Rip-Off
Mining multinational Vale is trying to strip its workers in Sudbury of vital benefits using the pandemic as cover. They’ve responded with strike action, building on a long tradition of militant trade unionism in the region.
Socialists Actually Did Very Well Among Black Brooklyn Voters
Democratic Party hacks love to accuse socialists of lacking support from black and brown New Yorkers. But a look at the numbers in Brooklyn reveals the opposite: socialism won among black working-class voters. Support from white liberals, on the other hand, was missing.
The Fight to Transform Peru Has Only Just Begun
A month since teacher and labor activist Pedro Castillo was elected Peruvian president, his far-right opponents are still trying to stop him from taking office. The attempt to overturn the election shows the elites’ refusal to accept defeat — and the dangers the Left faces as it seeks a break from the country’s neoliberal model.
Jessica Hopper Rescues Music From the Forces Sucking the Life Out of It
Music gives tangible shape to the best and basest in all of us. Yet under capitalism, it’s just another commodity. That artists and critics continue making and writing about music despite the industry’s vampiric drive for profit shows our stubborn unwillingness to give up a key piece of our humanity.
When America’s Red States Were Red
This month marks 120 years since the founding of the Socialist Party of America. The party was especially strong in rural areas like Oklahoma — success that the socialist movement could actually replicate today.
The Rust Belt’s New Working Class Is Just as Exploited as the Old One
In the Rust Belt, heavy industry has been replaced by health care. But even though the working class has changed, exploitation at the hands of their bosses haven’t.
Britney Spears Is Being Exploited for Profit
The exploitation and abuse of Britney Spears, justified by her legal conservatorship, is an extreme example of practices that are common in the entertainment factory.
The Canadian Mining Company Dominicans Call “Worse Than Columbus”
We traveled to the Dominican Republic to talk to rural farmers and workers battling a Canadian mining company. “We had no concept of what the devil was until Barrick Gold came to our lands,” one person told us.
Everyone Wants Health Care Reform. Industry Lobbying Won’t Let Them Have It.
It’s often said that politicians pander to polls. Not so for health care: despite repeated lopsided majorities in polls favoring a public system, leaders in both parties don’t seem to care.
When Detroit Was Revolutionary
In the 1960s and 1970s, when Detroit was home to a vibrant radical Left, photographer Leni Sinclair, cofounder of the White Panther Party and the Detroit Artists Workshop, stood at the center of a local scene where political and cultural ferment merged. We spoke to her about those years of upsurge.
A United Ireland Needs Economic Justice, Not Identity Politics
The Six Counties look closer than ever to reuniting with the rest of Ireland, and neoliberals are arguing for the new state to institutionalize Protestant-Unionist representation. But working-class people don’t need backward-looking identity politics — we need Ireland to stop being a low-wage tax haven.
Wall Street Takes Workers’ Retirement Money and Uses It Against Them
Workers’ retirement savings aren’t usually thought of as a stimulating topic. But we should pay closer attention, because public pensions are a key way for Wall Street to steal wealth from workers and hoard it for themselves.
How Sweden’s Left Party Stopped the Social Democrats’ Undermining the Welfare State
Sweden’s Social-Democratic prime minister Stefan Löfven has just been voted back into office — now having dropped proposals to abandon collective bargaining over rents. The change was thanks to pressure from the Left Party.
The Decline of UK Mining Unions Undermined Labour’s “Red Wall”
Since the 2019 election, commentators have noted the demise of Labour’s “red wall” in the heartlands. But few have focused on the central role once played by miners unions in sustaining a strong sense of working-class community.
Australia Is Making a Bid for Power in the Pacific
As the US continues its slide toward cold war with China, pressure on Australia to maintain its dominance in the South Pacific has only grown. Ever the dutiful ally of the US, Australia is now earning accusations of imperialism from its Pacific neighbors.
How DSA Won — and Lost — in New York City Elections
In this year’s New York City Council elections, the Democratic Socialists of America chapter elected two of its six candidates after the Democratic establishment entered the elections fully prepared to fight the Left. It’s a stark reminder of how hard it will be to take on elite interests and win.
Fake Accounts Does What Literature Is Supposed to Do
Most novels today allow little room for moral ambiguity and take great pains to avoid even considering the inner lives and motivations of people whose politics we find abhorrent. Thankfully, Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts doesn’t.
How Germany’s Far Right Is Building Up Anti-Immigrant Parties in the Balkans
When the far-right Alternative für Deutschland is reelected to the German parliament this fall, its party foundation will receive up to €80 million a year in state funding. The party already has nationalist and fascist allies across ex-Yugoslavia — and now, it will use federal funds to support their reactionary organizations.
Hillary Clinton Wants Nina Turner to Lose
The special election in Ohio’s 11th congressional district, where Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment are struggling to defeat former Bernie Sanders surrogate Nina Turner, is the latest illustration of how Democratic elites prioritize defeating the Left over strengthening their own party.