Tanner Howard is a freelance journalist and In These Times editorial intern. They’re also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
We’re in the middle of a devastating pandemic and economic crisis — but that hasn’t stopped both Democrats and Republicans from coming up with new ways to assault and destroy Social Security.
In 2016, the Retail and Fast-Food Workers’ Union was formed in Australia. Representing some of the most undervalued, low-paid workers in the country, RAFFWU is already among the most radical unions, challenging both employers and the conservative fiefdom of the “Shoppies.”
Latin America has always been vulnerable to shocks from the global economy. But there’s no precedent for the COVID-19-induced slump that’s about to engulf the continent.
A telltale sign of a broken society is when medical workers are forced to beg for supplies on GoFundMe and parents have to write compelling stories to convince random people to pay for their kid’s cancer treatment. Instead of crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe, we need a generous welfare state that ensures everyone’s basic needs are met.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed a deep contradiction at the heart of the US economy: immigrant labor is more essential than ever, yet immigrant workers continue to be under vicious attack by the government.
What should socialists in the United States do “after Bernie.”
Photos of Eastern Europeans flown West to pick strawberries despite the lockdown has focused attention on the plight of the EU’s migrant farm laborers. But as some of these workers told Jacobin, traveling across Europe to make ends meet isn’t new — it’s just much more dangerous now.
Ireland’s conservative establishment was on the ropes after February’s shock election result. But Leo Varadkar’s caretaker government has exploited the COVID-19 crisis to regain his authority — and is now counting on the Greens to keep the center-right parties in power as a recession looms.
Millions of people can’t pay rent because of the coronavirus-induced recession. In the absence of government action to help them, many are going on a rent strike. We talked to two Brooklyn rent strikers about why they organized their building to withhold rent and how other renters can do the same.
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected on a platform of ending corruption and fighting inequality. But he hasn’t made ending the rampant violence against women in Mexico enough of a priority since taking office.
George W. Bush and Donald Trump are both monsters. If you want to criticize Trump — which I encourage — find a way to do it without touting or pining for a war criminal.
Since 2011, Arab labor organizations and left parties have been central to movements for democracy and social justice in the Middle East. Frequently overlooked in Western media coverage, from Egypt and Tunisia to Algeria and Sudan, they’ve carried on this fight against tremendous odds.
Six months after the coup in Bolivia, Luis Arce is presidential candidate for Evo Morales’s MAS. Oliver Vargas interviewed him about the postcoup regime, its handling of coronavirus, and what the delayed election means for the Left’s chances of returning to power.
We should use digital technology to fight the coronavirus and keep people safe. But that doesn’t mean we should accept ruling elites or private companies wantonly trampling on our civil liberties.
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised around the world for her response to coronavirus. But while Ardern’s response has been much more coherent and competent than, say, Donald Trump’s, its economic protections for the country’s workers are nowhere near enough.
Colorado Democrats said they were going to pass a public option this year. And then they gave into health care industry propaganda and lobbying.
Instead of prompting the coordinated, national response that’s needed, this pandemic is exacerbating one of the most destructive and enduring themes of US political life: the sectional conflict between states, and between town and country. Progress in battling coronavirus will continue to be hamstrung by our dysfunctional federalist system.
On Monday, Italy began to ease COVID-19 restrictions, with more than 4 million returning to work. But some, like delivery workers, never stopped working — nor organizing for labor rights in an industry deemed “essential” and putting workers at serious health risk.
Decades after Upton Sinclair exposed the horrors of meatpacking, radical labor organizing transformed the industry into a bastion of worker power. Now, a century later, after decades of union-busting and the coronavirus decimating workers throughout the industry, the meatpacking industry is back to The Jungle.
The Australian Labor Party’s Kristina Keneally is using the lockdown to call for a reduction in immigration once borders reopen, citing the nativist trope that migrant workers are driving down wages. But it’s not immigrants that have driven down Australian workers’ wages — it’s the Labor Party’s own history of neoliberal policies.