Yi San is a freelance writer based in New York.
Last year Kenyan courts ruled that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, broke the law by firing workers who had attempted to unionize. Meta responded by refusing to pay its employees for over eight months and fighting labor law.
Old-money WASPs once ruled America with an air of clannish exclusivity. Then the economic crises of the 1970s upended their world, opening the corporate floodgates to new-money barbarians — and replacing elite social norms with wanton money lust.
Each February 14, tourists flock to Terni, Italy, hometown of third-century martyr Saint Valentine. Yet Terni’s “city of love” identity is itself rather new, as politicians seek tourist dollars to replace its once-mighty steelworks.
Cynical politicians like John Fetterman and Benjamin Netanyahu are trying to pit calls for a cease-fire in Gaza against efforts to bring Israeli hostages home. The reality is a cease-fire is the only way to do just that.
Last fall, democratic socialists in Tacoma, Washington, led a victorious campaign to establish robust protections for the city’s renters. Jacobin spoke with two campaign leaders about the effort.
The growing swell of American unions demanding a cease-fire in Gaza is heartening. But labor will have to take its antiwar commitments further than issuing statements to stop Israel’s wanton slaughter.
Some states have taken on the cost of prison phone calls to keep private equity–backed telecom companies from price gouging inmates and their loved ones. Yet these companies have found new ways to exploit prisoners.
For 50 years, bosses have extorted concessions from workers while saying we’re “lucky to have jobs.” Now, Association of Flight Attendants president Sara Nelson writes in Jacobin, workers need to make bosses understand they’re lucky to have our work.
Last month, Passional Boutique and Sexploratorium, a Philadelphia sex shop with a reputation for “inclusivity,” laid off its entire staff after they asked the store to recognize their union. Jacobin spoke with one of the workers.
Labor has enormous power to demand an end to Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza. The AFL-CIO’s call for a cease-fire is a huge step toward the entire labor movement using that power.
Socialists in the US are more likely to be experts on the Russian Revolution than the American civil rights movement. That’s a mistake: this homegrown revolution is a strategic guidebook for winning social change today.
French workers vote for the far-right Rassemblement National more than for other parties, but more often, they don’t vote at all. Rather than laying down roots like the old workers’ parties, Marine Le Pen’s party has exploited the vacuum left by their decline.
After scrapping its pledge to invest £28 billion in green energy, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has no real climate policy — just platitudes about shrinking the deficit and promoting economic growth.
While Republicans cry “invasion” and Democrats placate them with hard-line border policy, immigrants languish in prisons or die in dangerous passage. A rational approach to immigration must both address the causes of displacement and protect those who migrate.
In the 1970s and early ’80s, NYC’s racially and ethnically diverse working-class neighborhoods nurtured groundbreaking rap, salsa, and punk music. Real estate speculation did away with the social conditions that made those scenes possible.
Consumer confidence is up, and inflation is down. But will the economy improve enough by November to buoy Biden’s flagging reelection prospects?
Jenin camp in the West Bank has become a flash point in the ongoing Israeli assaults on Palestinians, with raids occurring near daily. Civilian victims of this violence say that Israeli forces are not coming to fight combatants, but for revenge.
Across Europe, platform workers have won a series of court cases ruling that they are employees, not self-employed. Moves for new EU-wide legislation have faced serious resistance from lobbyists but now look set to deliver some new protections.
Last month in Chicagoland, 130 Teamster food-service drivers went on strike and secured major contract gains. The workers won by extending the picket line nationwide, hitting employer US Foods at dozens of distribution centers across the US.
After being found responsible for starting a deadly wildfire last summer, Hawaii’s for-profit energy utility is set to receive a public bailout. The episode makes a powerful case for bringing utilities under public ownership.