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.
After a hard-fought, five-year organizing campaign, the largely immigrant workforce at Genwa, a Korean BBQ chain in Los Angeles, has won a first contract — a first-of-its-kind agreement in an almost entirely nonunion sector.
Developing countries are undergoing an unprecedented combination of currency crises, debt, famine, and political unrest — and the US decision to raise interest rates risks adding fuel to the fire. A stable system of global economic governance is needed.
German public debate is often marked by self-congratulation at “coming to terms” with the country’s past. Yet comparisons between antisemitism and other racisms are increasingly being demonized — and it’s stifling discussion of Germany’s colonial crimes.
New York governor Kathy Hochul has the power to crack down on Amazon and help Amazon Labor Union workers get the contract they deserve in Staten Island. But her ties to the union-busting retail giant might get in the way.
Finance’s conquest of the supports necessary to deal with the universal human fate of growing old spells certain disaster for our golden years. The retirement-financial complex should be fought tooth and claw.
Australia’s Labor government is promising Pacific countries a new and friendlier era in diplomatic relations. But without challenging the vested interests and right-wing politics that dominate the region, these promises are altogether empty.
The Hillside Villa Tenants Association has successfully forced a municipal government to approve the public purchase of a building to preserve affordability. The victory, a historic first in the US, creates a blueprint that can be followed across the nation.
Despite years of employer attacks, unions still have vast resources at their disposal. This moment of worker upsurge is the time to use those assets to fund aggressive organizing.
Platform Socialism is a vital contribution to a left vision for tech, but it fails to fully account for the ways Big Tech is wedded to finance capital. Socializing giant platforms may only be possible in the context of broader political transformations.
A new left-wing coalition is leading polls for June’s French parliamentary elections. Its popularity shows that working-class France wants a government that resists Emmanuel Macron’s destruction of the country’s social welfare provisions.
In 2014, Australian Labor PM Julia Gillard’s Clean Energy Act tried to use market mechanisms to take climate action. Its failure underscores the fact that only public investment in climate action will do.
After participating in 1960s progressive movements, Jon Melrod took his activism to the factory floor, becoming a militant rank-and-file autoworker. Radicals like him made serious contributions to labor struggle at a time when unions were under attack.
Left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro faces a runoff against a far-right populist, Rodolfo Hernández, for Colombia’s presidency. Predictably, the traditional establishment is lining up to support his self-styled “antiestablishment” opponent.
New York’s Democrat-controlled legislature passed a bill this week to funnel an additional $54 billion in public pension funds to high-risk private equity investments. It’s most likely an unwise financial strategy — and only Wall Street will benefit.
Most of the last decade’s left-populist insurgents failed to create lasting alternatives to neoliberalized social democracy. But Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise bucked the trend — and did it through years of work building real, popular roots.
British Columbia’s decriminalization of the possession of small amounts of hard drugs is a good first step in our fight against the opioid crisis. But it does not go far enough — we need universal decriminalization, high possession thresholds, and safe supply.
While rent prices and evictions skyrocket, the Democrat-controlled New York state legislature has concluded its session without passing a good cause eviction bill. The proposed law would have protected 1.6 million people from getting evicted for no reason.
When Joe Biden became president, he ended the contracting of prisons to private corporations — with one glaring exception: ICE. Today, over 70 percent of immigrant detainees are being held in privately owned prisons.
Capitalist society can only ever legalize cannabis in a way that benefits the already wealthy. Why not put the newly legal weed industry in the hands of the public and away from the profit motive?
New legislation in Spain will ensure free, publicly provided abortions and allow menstrual leave from work. The raft of measures shows left-wing party Unidas Podemos’s strong feminist stance — but faces obstruction from the country’s hard-right judiciary.