Jonathan Sas has worked in senior policy and political roles in government, think tanks, and the labor movement. He is an honorary witness to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. His writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, National Post, the Tyee, and Maisonneuve.
Already mired in scandal, New York City mayor Eric Adams is now pitting workers against each other by stoking resentment toward migrants and pushing new budget cuts. The city’s corporate class is laughing all the way to the bank.
After a 118-day strike, 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members are voting on whether to ratify a new agreement. AI has emerged as the key source of division, with some members unsatisfied that a ban wasn’t on the table.
British Columbia is touting a bill that will protect gig workers from the worst depredations of the sector. However, in a familiar trend of industries outsmarting employment standards in the country, the bill is poised to fall short of its lofty promises.
The number of medications eliminated from many insurance plans has skyrocketed over the last decade, jumping by some 1,600%. Part of the problem lies with pharmacy benefit managers — powerful companies that determine drug benefits for health insurers.
Across the European Union, conservatives and far-right forces are uniting around an anti-immigrant and climate-skeptic agenda. Ahead of June’s EU elections, the continent’s divided left urgently needs to put forward an alternative.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, critics accused Sweden’s Social Democrats of abandoning ordinary people. For Jacobin, a political adviser to the Swedish minister of health defends his country’s record, arguing that it prioritized the poor and vulnerable.
A wave of mass protests in Panama, organized by environmentalists, indigenous activists, and trade unions, has forced the government to hold a referendum on the contract of Canadian-owned First Quantum Minerals, the country’s largest mining company.
A new biography of Ray Dalio, billionaire founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, reveals him as an autocratic, cultish leader who conflates moneymaking with genius — a rather convenient definition for an ultrarich finance guy.
Ahead of last week’s Dutch elections, the center-left called on voters to stop far-right leader Geert Wilders — but he won easily anyway. The Left needs to give working-class people a hopeful project to rally behind, not just rhetoric about defending democracy.
Actor Susan Sarandon is the latest target of the increasingly McCarthyite attacks on pro-Palestine figures. Supporters of Israel’s brutal war, meanwhile, can apparently say anything they want, including defending the slaughter of Palestinian civilians.
David Fincher’s new movie The Killer is supposedly a metacommentary on hit-man films — and possibly on the director himself. Or that could just be an excuse for how boring it is.
It’s the job of politicians to appeal to voters. Right now what Joe Biden is selling is two wars and an economy that isn’t working for far too many ordinary people. If Donald Trump wins, don’t blame the electorate: this is Biden’s election to lose.
A Jacobin investigation explores Israel’s practice of using the bodies of slain Palestinians as bargaining chips, refusing to return them to their families. Denying the right to bury loved ones, this policy inflicts the anguish of mourning without closure.
After a hopeful start in 2022, Gustavo Petro’s leftist Colombian government has run into major obstacles from economic elites. But the powerful mobilizations that brought him to power, paired with parliamentary negotiating, may be able to turn that around.
A recent fake controversy stoked by right-wing forces on Chicago’s city council led to socialist alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa losing two key positions. The antics would be laughable if they weren’t a major blow against Mayor Brandon Johnson’s working-class agenda.
US billionaires are trying to establish a libertarian city-state in Honduras to evade democratic constraints. As progressive president Xiomara Castro resists their efforts, the Peter Thiel–backed firm Próspera is suing the country for constraining its profits.
Pro-Palestine “Block the Boat” actions, where dockworkers block the transport of arms to Israel, have proliferated in recent years. Recalling actions against apartheid South Africa, they’re an effective way for labor to oppose Israel’s war on Gaza.
For several years, California has had a rule requiring three days of backup power at many telecom sites in areas with high fire danger, to help prevent communication outages during emergencies. But companies are not fully complying with the requirements.
Calls for a general strike usually skip over the hard work of organizing one. But UAW leader Shawn Fain is urging unions to align their contract expiration dates for May 1, 2028 — setting up the possibility of a mass May Day strike.
Critics of Marxism say it cannot explain why nationalism is such a powerful force in the modern world. But the Austrian socialist thinker Otto Bauer developed a sophisticated, illuminating theory of nationalism in the 1900s that is ripe for rediscovery today.