With millions of people ordering basic necessities direct to their homes, the pandemic has massively strengthened big distributors like FedEx and Amazon. But while official discourse celebrates delivery drivers as “heroes,” the logistics firms themselves have used the crisis to undermine workers’ most basic rights.
Union organizing is gaining steam in both Canada and the US, and support for unions is the highest it’s been for decades. The labor movement should take advantage of this moment.
Corporations have embraced antiracist rhetoric, but they will not eradicate the economic insecurity and inequality the investor class requires — and wants the police to uphold.
Many explanations of the United Auto Workers’ recent loss at Mercedes in Alabama don’t hold up under scrutiny. To understand the challenges the UAW ran into, we need a historical perspective on attempts to organize in the US South.
Jamie Gorelick, a high-powered lawyer who defended the city of Chicago after the police murder of Laquan McDonald and sits on the board of Amazon, is a case study of the influence big corporate law firms wield behind the scenes in Washington — and she has friends like Merrick Garland in high places in the Biden administration.
While the armed forces carry out the mission of US imperialism, millions of working people sit at the heart of that machine, drawn to become soldiers by the promise of economic stability. A Left looking to rebuild links with the working class can’t avoid them.
Twenty years ago, workers ground one of the world's largest corporations to a halt. And workers in the logistics industry could do it again today.
Joe Biden’s statement yesterday about the Amazon union drive in Alabama hit pro-labor notes. But he’ll have to back up his rhetoric with concrete action: Biden must fight to pass the PRO Act.
Politico recently attacked the Democratic Socialists of America for the high crime of looking to transform the labor movement. But for young socialists, there are few better ways of doing politics than getting a union job and working to push that union to the left.
A Teamster organizer reflects on 2023, a year of labor upsurge: “Corporate America, you’re on notice — we’re not fucking around.”
In the wake of the pandemic supply-chain shocks that revealed the fragility of lean production, US businesses are emulating Amazon by developing sprawling, adaptable logistics networks. These networks contain key vulnerabilities that workers can target.
In Ecuador, the Left is torn between urgent development needs and the costs of natural resource extraction.
The infuriating saga of UPMC, Pittsburgh’s abusive, profit-hungry hospital giant, is a cautionary tale. The lesson? Private economic power must be subjected to democratic control.
The Amazon sweepstakes is about cities valuing tech profiteers more than their residents.
Gen Z: Young people like you are winning unions at Starbucks and Amazon. The time to join the labor movement and transform the world is now.
Right now, corporations can secretly hire firms designed to destroy union efforts. A proposed rule change would expose such anti-union expenses — the last thing the union busters themselves want.
Across the US, a more militant mood among workers is beginning to make itself felt. An uptick in private-sector strikes and record numbers of workers quitting their jobs are just two signs that the pandemic has changed workers’ willingness to accept a bad deal.
Last year the Teamsters and the UAW both won historic contract victories. Those wins were made possible by government anti-corruption efforts and, more importantly, by decades of organizing by members to make their unions more militant and democratic.
Mega-companies like Amazon and Walmart are already using large-scale central planning. We can wield that tool for good. Socialists need to renew our embrace of democratic planning and fight for a real alternative to capitalism.
The Los Angeles teachers strike showed that bottom-up organizing can overcome extraordinary odds. We can do the same throughout the health and education sectors — and at Amazon.