William G. Martin teaches at SUNY-Binghamton and is co-author of After Prisons? Freedom, Decarceration, and Justice Disinvestment (2016) and a founding member of Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier; he covers local justice matters at www.justtalk.blog
They may have criticisms of him today, but the British media was all in for Boris Johnson when they saw him as a necessary alternative to Jeremy Corbyn’s socialism. And despite everything, they would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
When the Supreme Court’s right-wing justices tried to block Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, he took the court head-on — and won. There’s a lesson there today: directly attacking the court’s power is the only way to rein it in.
Amazon wants to be both “Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company” and “Earth’s Best Employer.” But it can’t have both. In fact, its customer-dazzling business model is predicated on worker exploitation and endangerment.
The Supreme Court’s attack on abortion rights will strengthen employers seeking to maintain their unilateral power over workers within and outside the workplace. Luckily, the labor movement knows that abortion rights are workers’ rights.
Margaret Thatcher’s war on the mining industry was a concerted attack on the trade union movement. It was a successful class war waged from above — and its ill effects are still felt in every corner of Britain.
Boris Johnson handed Britain’s ruling class just about everything they could have wanted. Savor his fall from grace, but just for a moment: his Tory replacement won’t be any better.
In Mexico, water has been transformed from a public resource into a commodity to be sold for profit. It means that corporations can consume water in high quantities while people lack basic access to drinking water.
Abortion bans aren’t a capitalist plot to increase the labor supply. But they are an outgrowth of the brutal inequalities of capitalism, which systematically subordinates women to men.
Belgium has finally returned Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba’s gold tooth — his only remains after his brutal murder. But there will only be justice when the Congolese win back what was truly killed in 1961: his politics of self-determination.
As if the Electoral College weren’t antidemocratic enough already, the Supreme Court now looks poised to rule in favor of state legislatures deciding the outcome of the presidential election. That’s good news for Republicans and bad news for democracy.
In response to the tidal wave of unionization at cafés, Starbucks has engaged in a scorched-earth union-busting campaign across the country. The situation is extremely dire — and the Biden administration is not doing anywhere near enough to stop it.
In Mostar, Bosnia, fascists destroyed the graves of 700 Resistance fighters. The shameful attack is part of a Europe-wide effort to crush the anti-fascist legacy of World War II.
Today marks 50 years since Israeli agents murdered Ghassan Kanafani in Beirut. Their terrorist attack silenced the Palestinian writer — but failed to extinguish his people’s spirit of resistance.
When 35 people were murdered by a lone gunman in Tasmania in 1996, the conservative government did something the American government hasn’t: it quickly banned automatic and semiautomatic weapons.
Labor has seen a jolt of new energy recently. Across the United States, museum workers are part of that upsurge.
Boris Johnson’s disastrous time in office has spluttered to an ignominious conclusion. Many of those now deploring his record sided with Johnson when it really mattered because they wanted to block a left-wing government that could transform British society.
The climate movement must be rooted in the labor movement. Otherwise we get individualistic solutions that throw workers under the bus and only grant reliable, green energy to those who can afford to pay for it.
The Canadian senior men’s national soccer team has recently gone on strike. The players want sweeping changes in Canadian soccer, including for the women’s team pay to be raised to equal men’s.
Trying to win progressive change without rebuilding the labor movement is a fool’s errand. That’s why the union victories at Starbucks and Amazon are so promising: the current uptick in labor militancy could become a transformational upsurge.
Boris Johnson has been brought down by Tory ministers who damn his lack of integrity. But the obsessive focus on his personal conduct obscures his disastrous political record — one that Keir Starmer’s Labour also isn’t challenging.