Wouter van de Klippe is a freelance journalist and writer based in Europe. He is particularly interested in organized labor, social and environmental justice, and social welfare states.
Congress will soon vote on an $850 billion military budget that would lavish over $400 billion on private contractors. It would be a massive redistribution of wealth to for-profit hands — at the same time millions of workers are struggling to pay the bills.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Brazilian footballer Sócrates used his sport as a vehicle to challenge military dictatorship and fight for democracy. Qatar’s ugly World Cup needs more of that heroic spirit today.
After decades of stagnant wage growth and the collapse of enterprise bargaining, Australia is in crying need of industrial relations reform. The Labor Party’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay Act promises this — the question is whether it can actually deliver it.
As Canadian workers face down rising living costs on stagnant wages while corporate profits soar, the country’s financial press is raising the alarm over a coming “labor Armageddon.” Such a reckoning would be both unsurprising and fully warranted.
Joe Biden’s betrayal of railworkers is a case study in everything that’s wrong with the Democratic Party: a party that talks about workers’ rights while governing in the interests of capital.
The booming railroad industry has delivered multimillion dollar payouts to CEOs and shareholders in recent years. The industry has also shoveled millions of dollars into campaign contributions — no wonder Congress knocked down pro–rail worker legislation.
Paid sick leave is a right we all deserve — and an urgent public health issue. Win or lose, we’re indebted to the railworkers for their fight to achieve it.
We spoke with a train engineer about President Biden undemocratically forcing a union contract on rail workers, the failures of rail unions’ leadership during negotiations, and why he thinks progressives in Congress should be “commended” for their role in pushing for seven paid sick days.
The EU is watering down its tepid plans for ecological reform as energy prices soar. The Left has to escalate the struggle for social and environmental justice in Europe and oppose attempts to shift the burden of climate chaos onto the Global South.
It’s not just Starbucks anymore: workers at two California Peet’s Coffee stores announced their intention to unionize. The worker-driven model at the heart of Starbucks Workers United is spreading.
Socialists have unique advantages in California, where a “jungle” primary system elevates the top two candidates to the general election regardless of party affiliation, and the Republican Party is moribund. Let’s take advantage of it.
Rising inflation doesn’t affect everyone equally. The way this current bout of inflation is playing out isn’t a law of nature but a result of political decisions to protect investors while hanging workers out to dry.
The Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade was a blow to reproductive rights. But fortunately, new data suggest that most of those seeking abortions still seem to be getting them.
The death of cleaner Refat Süleyman at a Thyssenkrupp steel plant has put the spotlight on Germany’s exploitation of migrant workers. It’s also a story about deregulation — and how outsourcing is letting corporations cut corners on working conditions with impunity.
When my coworkers and I decided to organize a union at our workplace, we had a whole list of tangible goals we hoped to achieve. But organizing also gave me something more ineffable that I’d been desperately missing: a sense of hope.
To understand today’s protests in Iran, we need to look at the history of the Islamic Republic since 1979. Iran has a tradition of popular mobilization with few parallels in the modern world, and that tradition underpins the current wave of discontent.
The eminent philosopher Raymond Geuss wants us to think about ways of being that exist entirely outside of liberalism. But the most feasible egalitarian project is not one that rejects liberalism, but one that goes beyond it — through democratic socialism.
The owner of Zara is worth $50 billion, and this year net profits at Zara’s parent company Inditex increased 41 percent. Workers are demanding a bigger share of the profits they created.
Democrats were ready to throw railworkers to the wolves, letting even Republicans outflank them on labor rights. But thanks to a last-minute legislative push by Bernie Sanders and his allies today, railworkers may be getting the sick leave they’re demanding.
The UK Supreme Court has blocked an attempt to hold a new referendum on Scottish independence. The setback has exposed the limits of SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon’s strategy, which channeled the independence movement’s radical energies into a centrist cul-de-sac.