The unionization wave in higher ed continues apace, with grad student workers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles winning a union election in mid-February. Jacobin spoke to USC worker-organizers about their win and their contract demands.
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.
In preparing to strike, United Teachers Los Angeles learned how to build broad backing for common-good goals and prepare for nonviolent action to achieve them — lessons that can be used in the fight against rising authoritarianism.
Former United Teachers Los Angeles president Alex Caputo-Pearl lays out a “block and build” strategy for labor to defeat the rising right-wing attacks on workers and democracy in the coming Donald Trump administration.
The Los Angeles fires threw schools into chaos, revealing their unpreparedness for the escalating challenges of the climate crisis. Schools need comprehensive disaster preparedness systems — not last-minute plans that put students and staff at risk.
The Los Angeles teachers strike is part of a growing movement of teachers that have made gains by striking. It's an example for the entire labor movement to follow.
Thanks to its tenant unions, Los Angeles County could be on the verge of enacting an eviction moratorium to hit back against Donald Trump’s "mass deportation" raids.
In Luke Goebel’s much-hyped novel Kill Dick, a rich dropout is hooked on OxyContin, a drug manufactured by her lawyer dad’s biggest client. Aptly set in a strange and soporific Los Angeles, it captures the degradation of American society and interior life.
A recent viral video of a homeless opera singer in Los Angeles led to a happy ending. But it’s a reminder that capitalism prevents millions of our greatest talents (and everyone else too) from reaching their immense creative potential.
From California to Greece, teachers are fighting attacks on education. Striking Greek teachers write that they stand with the Los Angeles teachers strike.
Just as workers can withhold labor to halt production, tenants can withhold rent to challenge corporate landlords. In Los Angeles, a coalition of tenants and debtors is proving that housing is a site of real economic power.
TV networks turned the Los Angeles fires into a sensationalist spectacle, repeating words like “inferno” on a loop while almost completely avoiding any mention of climate change. Their coverage treated the disaster as entertainment rather than a warning.
Emma Chambers tried to unionize her Los Angeles Starbucks store. As a result, she was fired and lost stable housing and health care. But she says that if she knew all that going in, she’d still have stood up for herself, her coworkers, and the working class.
Dancers at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in Los Angeles have recently received positive signs from the National Labor Relations Board, which bodes well for their contested union drive. If all goes as expected, they will be the only unionized strippers in the country.
Companies like Shake Shack, Ruth’s Hospitality Group, the Los Angeles Lakers, and J. Alexander’s Holdings drew from the Paycheck Protection Program established to aid small businesses in paying their employees. While average workers have suffered under the pandemic, these huge corporations have helped themselves to enormous amounts of cash.
The start of the school year saw this year's teachers strikes spread to Washington. Teachers across the state defied court injunctions and won large raises — and set the stage for a potential strike in Los Angeles.
A plan for rational improvements to the city of Los Angeles.
From Calgary to Los Angeles, everyone knows that sports arenas are a bad deal for cities. But the problem isn’t just the use of public subsidies for private profit: the whole multibillion-dollar sports venue industry is built on the backs of poorly treated, underpaid workers.
The US has attempted to exclude several countries from next month’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. The move has only backfired, prompting a boycott of the summit and renewed calls for an alternative union of Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Nearly 50,000 grocery workers across Southern California have authorized a strike. Should they walk out, it would be the largest work stoppage since the pre-pandemic teachers’ strike wave.