Opal Lee is a writer.
Pushed to the brink by the COVID-19 pandemic, public school teachers in Portland, Oregon, walked out for the first time ever yesterday, calling for better pay and improved student support.
North Dakota’s Doug Bergum is a billionaire governor running an impossibly bland, popularity-free campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. Why is he running, other than that he’s rich and he can? We have no idea.
In Canada, there’s a budding crackdown on workers who have expressed pro-Palestine sentiments. While Canadian bosses have considerable latitude in who they fire, workers have legal recourse to fight back.
Pundits are still scratching their heads about why voters don’t love the state of the US economy. But many workers are in worse straits than they were a few years ago, particularly because Democrats let the COVID welfare provisions expire.
As the Israeli military uses ever more violence against Gaza’s civilian population, there have been massive demonstrations calling for a cease-fire. The protesters are taking a stand for basic human solidarity against the moral bankruptcy of Western leaders.
In Philadelphia, the local Democratic Party chairman has promised to expel party ward leaders who support the socialist city council candidates. It threatens to depress already sagging voter turnout in the 2024 presidential elections.
Radical labor leader Harry Bridges helped create one of the US’s most powerful unions, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Its founding principles were anti-racism and worker autonomy, which he learned from rank-and-file dockworkers and seamen.
With its successful strike, the UAW has broken with decades of concessions, won on pay and workplace democracy, and launched a new national labor leader. There’s much more organizing to be done, but this is an unmitigated victory for the entire working class.
When Amazon worker Magda Malinowska spoke out about a coworker’s death at a warehouse in Poland, Amazon fired her. Now a court has ruled that Amazon committed illegal union busting. Malinowska tells Jacobin why Amazon is so afraid of its workers organizing.
The Biden administration’s “humanitarian pause” is not a solution to the horrific war in Gaza, which is killing Palestinian civilians by the thousands. Cease-fires foster a path to peace, while “humanitarian pauses” facilitate continued war.
With the UAW’s historic strike wins this week, we look back at the history of US auto manufacturing in movies — with a focus on films that show how the auto industry has tried to shaft workers over the decades.
Known for prosecuting Donald Trump on election subversion charges, Atlanta DA Fani Willis is using another high-profile RICO case involving rapper Young Thug to boost her image. But critics say her popularity is obscuring the wrongful nature of the case.
Israel’s brutal war on Gaza promises to drain billions of dollars that could have funded housing, education, and more, all while exacerbating disastrous divisions among workers in the US and abroad. Workers have an interest in demanding an immediate cease-fire.
Fifty thousand UAW members are heading back to work after securing tentative agreements that deliver landmark gains. The UAW strike has been a master class in how to flex worker power.
Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi spoke to Jacobin about the horrific human cost of Israel’s war on Gaza, the growing protests in solidarity with Palestinians, and the effort by Israel’s supporters to shut down free discussion.
Medical schools in the United States used to acquire corpses for research from literal grave robbers. They don’t anymore — but in most US states, your corpse may still end up on a medical slab without your consent if no one will pick up the tab to bury you.
France is holding its first full trial of “left-wing terrorists” in decades. Prosecutors say it’d be unfair if leftists didn’t face the same charges as far-right or Islamist militants — but the terrorist conspiracy they allege is mere fantasy.
Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street movies rank among the most iconic horror films. They say more than you’d think about the decades when they were made, starting with the cultural anxieties of the Reagan era.
The UAW just reached a tentative contract deal with automaker Stellantis, which agreed to reopen a shuttered plant. By reasserting control over company investment decisions, the union is carving out a more expansive role for workers in shaping the economy.
After six weeks on strike, the UAW has secured tentative agreements with all of the Big Three automakers, including apparent wins on everything from pay and tiers to reopening an idled plant. The deals will soon go to the membership for a ratification vote.