Exhausted and alienated Chinese students and white-collar workers are “lying flat” to register discontent with the status quo. For their protest to produce change, they’ll need to transform individual passivity into collective activity.
It’s easy to look enviously at strikes in other countries and bemoan American workers’ apathy. But even the most dramatic forms of mass resistance are the product of years of commitment to changing people’s minds and understanding workplace politics.
In Hollywood, sex workers have become the ultimate girlbosses. The message is clear: there’s no need for collective empowerment when one can escape the low-wage economy by cashing in on the power of bootstrapping entrepreneurism.
Regulating finance won’t cut it. To combat predatory lending, we need a fully public, state-owned bank.
We don’t have a labor party in the US, but as of earlier this month, we do have a Labor Caucus in Congress. We talked to Wisconsin representative Mark Pocan about the caucus’s plans.
Members of the Writers Guild of America, which represents more than 11,000 television and feature writers, have voted almost unanimously to authorize a strike. The work stoppage could begin as soon as their contract expires on May 1.
The trend of gamification — applying elements of game play to other areas of life — is the apex of the neoliberal fantasy, rendering both work and our leisure time outside of it into a series of games that we supposedly enjoy playing for their own sake.
A sudden social media blackout lit the fuse. But the youth revolt shaking Kathmandu runs far deeper, fueled by years of corruption, joblessness, and a democracy hijacked by its former revolutionaries.
While millions of Americans worked remotely during the COVID pandemic, millions more either showed up to a deadly job site or were thrown into unemployment. What will the recovery be like for them?
Firms like Uber and Deliveroo systematically deny their workers basic rights by falsely treating them as self-employed contractors. Now Europe is finally passing legislation to recognize them as employees — and the UK should do the same.
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.
China’s united response to COVID-19 is often painted as a reflection of authoritarian “Asian values.” But the collective mobilization relied on real public support — a temporary social truce that today threatens to fracture.
Since inflation started rising, British capitalists have been raking in massive profits while workers have suffered a disastrous wage slump. Yet the Bank of England still wants to boost unemployment in case workers develop their fighting strength.
The media and the Democratic Party establishment’s singular focus on paid sick leave leaves out millions of contract and informal workers. We need to think much bigger — now.
Australian workers are finally being addressed in the government’s rescue packages, but the measures go nowhere near far enough. National Secretary of the United Workers’ Union Tim Kennedy argues that the crisis offers an opportunity for genuine pushback and transformation.
Italian workers occupy an ever-lower place in the European division of labor.
The dysfunctions of modern capitalism have left us perilously exposed to a public health catastrophe. We must build on the solidarity engendered by this crisis to fight for a different world.
Amid the pandemic, Uber and Lyft drivers are more precarious than ever. Even as the companies dodge court rulings, the battle for drivers to be legally classified as employees is growing.
Jair Bolsonaro is now awaiting trial on charges of plotting a coup, depriving Brazil’s far-right bloc of its figurehead. Yet with a presidential election due next year, the Brazilian left hasn’t found a candidate who can match Lula’s popular appeal.
A decent welfare state should provide the basics of life so everyone can flourish. The United States’ patchwork of poorly funded safety net programs is doing the opposite — dropping people through a trapdoor as the pandemic ravages the economy.