Rob McIntyre is a United Workers Union delegate at the Toll Kmart warehouse in Truganina.
While some US unions and many labor activists are calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, most union officials are keeping silent. They’re forgetting the old labor adage: “an injury to one is an injury to all.”
A recent military escalation in West Papua is the latest episode in a long history of repression and dispossession since the island came under Indonesian control. But the authorities in Jakarta still haven’t been able to stabilize their rule over West Papua.
Critics of Israel’s merciless war on Gaza are facing threats of government prosecution and blacklists or firings. In this neo-McCarthyist environment, anything pro-Palestine is being made to carry the whiff of bigotry or even incitement to violence.
Pro-Palestine congresswoman Rashida Tlaib is being smeared as pro-terrorism in a massive new ad by the Democratic Majority for Israel. But the pro-Israel group’s lies are transparent — and polls show that Democratic voters are more on Tlaib’s side.
Union flight attendants at American Airlines recently delivered a strike authorization vote of 99%, with 93% turnout. The staggering total was the result of not only a membership itching to walk out but a campaign that engaged rank-and-file members.
In Israel, the crackdown against Palestinian solidarity is reaching grim new heights. Activists and ordinary citizens alike are getting fired and arrested for daring to say a word in support of Palestinians.
The United Auto Workers’ strikes against Ford, GM, and Stellantis have resulted in historic wins. The union’s counterpart in Canada was negotiating with the automakers at the same time — and, despite differences in strategy and tactics, also made big gains.
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.