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.
The standoff between Naomi Osaka and the French Open is more than a sports drama — it’s about how much control workers have over their own labor. And we could all learn a thing or two from her gutsy decision to draw a line in the sand.
For years, Bernie Sanders took trips to Canada to spotlight how Big Pharma was ripping off US patients. Now, Joe Biden has the chance to allow lower-priced imported drugs — giving patients much-needed relief and reining in Big Pharma’s exorbitant profits.
Tesla has announced plans for a nonunion factory in Berlin. Auto manufacturing going green was supposed to help workers, not hurt them.
In 1975, an Australian constitutional coup brought down Gough Whitlam’s reforming Labor government, with the Queen’s governor-general delivering the fatal blow. Whitlam’s fate was a crucial lesson for left-wing movements everywhere: capitalists will only allow so much democracy before pushing back.
More than just a set of free-market policies, neoliberalism has always sought to alter society’s balance of power in favor of bosses. Its assault on democracy and undermining of unions is now playing straight into the hands of the far right.
Downtown Chicago’s wonderfully futuristic, bizarre Thompson Center integrates government, business, public art, affordable eating, and public protest space — and it’s currently in danger of demolition. The Thompson Center must be preserved; its architectural spirit is too interesting — and the public space it provides too exceptional — to discard.
House prices and rents in Canada are skyrocketing. There’s only one solution to the social crisis this has caused: a massive expansion of public housing, releasing people from dependence on a rigged market.
A new study shows that mass incarceration hasn’t just created a public health nightmare within US jails and prisons — COVID-19’s spread inside jails and prisons has spread through the rest of society. Ending mass incarceration is a dire public health concern for everyone.
Barack Obama is now trying to pretend he was a finance industry critic who was deeply pained by being forced to bail out Wall Street — even though he was Wall Street’s biggest cheerleader and enabler.
Garbage collectors occupied Paris’s city hall last Tuesday in protest against austerity measures that will make them work more days with no extra pay. Essential workers shouldn’t be the ones to pay for local government’s COVID debts.
The Australian external territory of Christmas Island is infamous for its immigrant detention center. But the island also has a history of solidarity: in the 1970s, its Chinese and Malaysian workers led a union struggle against colonialism and apartheid.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has overseen India’s spiral into mass death during the COVID-19 pandemic. Responsibility for the country’s ongoing nightmare rests on his shoulders.
A new report coauthored by labor analyst Jane McAlevey presents overwhelming evidence that democratic unionism that puts workers at the center of collective bargaining wins strong contracts. Just as important, such unionism also has a transformational effect on workers’ consciousness.
Peru heads for presidential elections on Sunday, when voters will have a choice between two very different candidates: left-wing trade unionist Pedro Castillo and far-right politician Keiko Fujimori.
Pharma giants have spent big on lobbying European Union officials over vaccine waivers. It’s paid off: now key European power brokers oppose suspending global vaccine patents to fight the pandemic in the Global South.
In recent weeks, Instagram and Facebook have censored posts focused on COVID-19 in India and protests in Colombia and Palestine — with little explanation as to why.
48 years ago, Senegalese leftist Omar Blondin Diop died in detention under suspicious circumstances. His death triggered widespread outcry against Western-backed state repression — and it laid bare the violence of neocolonialism.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration used Central America as a testing ground to rehabilitate US imperial “hard power” after defeat in Vietnam. The results were predictable: death squads, massacres, and murderous repression of left-wing movements.
The Australian Labor Party has been bleeding support for years, and it won’t recover without active members who can engage with working-class communities. Undemocratic right-wing cliques are standing in the way of renewal, but ACT Labor shows that a different way of doing politics is viable.
The frenzied warnings of impending mass inflation are completely overblown. The inflation we’ve seen has been limited to a few specific items — and putting the brakes on the economy now would hammer the working class.