Sickouts and Strike Threats Stopped the Government Shutdown
Just last night, there was no end to the government shutdown in sight. But when airport workers started calling in sick and raising the threat of a strike, everything suddenly changed.
19633 Articles by: Opal Lee
Opal Lee is a writer.
The Dead Remind Us
Italian researcher Giulio Regeni was murdered for his work in support of Egypt’s trade unions. The failure to bring his killers to justice shows the power of the interests he and his comrades sought to challenge.
Unions Still Haven’t Rebounded
Despite a string of encouraging strikes and labor victories, the latest numbers show that union density fell to a new low last year.
Never Trust a Billionaire’s Antiracism
The Los Angeles strike wasn’t just a teachers’ victory. It was also a tale of two competing antiracist visions — one upheld by privatizing billionaires and another pushed by working people.
Sorry, AOC Is Right
The Washington Post tried to fact check Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez yet again. And yet again, the paper instead made a fool of itself.
A Model for Us All
The eminent Marxist sociologist Erik Olin Wright was serious about understanding and changing the world — and was generous, curious, and kind while doing it.
Erik Olin Wright (1947–2019)
Erik Olin Wright was radicalized in the 1960s and remained a Marxist because his moral compass simply wouldn’t allow him to drift away. With his death, the Left has lost one of its most brilliant intellectuals.
A Strike by Flight Attendants, Pilots, or Air Traffic Controllers Could Stop the Shutdown
We don’t need a full-on general strike to stop the federal shutdown. A strike by small groups of workers — pilots, air traffic controllers, and flight attendants — would force the government to reopen.
Fight at the Museum
The white-collar art world isn’t a hotbed of labor radicalism. But at the New Museum in Manhattan, workers are unionizing. We spoke to a museum worker about it.
How to Make the TVA a Clean Energy Juggernaut
A Green New Deal is now on the agenda. Activists should embrace the public ownership option: mass decarbonization, using the Tennessee Valley Authority.
After LA’s Strike, “Nothing Will Be the Same”
The Los Angeles teachers’ strike was big, it was united, and now it’s victorious. We interview UTLA chief negotiator Arlene Inouye about how the strike turned the tables on the billionaire privatizers.
Sinn Féin Is Having a Good Brexit
Thanks to the dogmatism of Northern Ireland’s Unionists, Sinn Féin gets to have it both ways: shielding its voters from a hard Irish border while boosting the chances of reunification.
Aaron Sorkin’s Road to Nowhere
Aaron Sorkin wants to give Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez advice. Yet The West Wing creator’s worldview remains a vision of liberalism at its hollowest and most ineffective.
It’s Still Bernie
Don’t listen to the media and think tank clowns — it’s still Bernie.
The Future of the Supreme Court in the Liberal Imagination
With the Right firmly in control of the Supreme Court, elite liberals’ veneration of the undemocratic body might finally be coming to an end.
Divided We Fall
5 years ago, Podemos made a thunderous first entrance into Spanish politics. Now, clashes between leaders Pablo Iglesias and Íñigo Errejón threaten a lasting split and acute demoralization.
Cancerous Growth
The US cancer mortality rate is finally falling. But the gap in outcomes between the rich and the poor is actually widening — another reason why we need Medicare for All.
When King Was Dangerous
Martin Luther King Jr is remembered as a person of conscience who only carefully broke unjust laws. But his militant challenges to state authority place him in a much different tradition: radical labor activism.
Honoring Dr Du Bois
Shortly before his death, Martin Luther King delivered a speech at Carnegie Hall in honor of another legendary black radical: W. E. B. Du Bois. We reprint it here in full.
Without Workers, We Wouldn’t Have Democracy
All around the world, it wasn’t capitalist elites who gave us democracy. It was organized workers.