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In a conversation with Jacobin, Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates, city councilor Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, and editor Alex Han discuss how Chicago’s working-class movement elected one of its own as mayor and where that movement goes now.
In Chicago’s mayoral runoff last night, Paul Vallas’s vision of budget cuts and law and order lost to Brandon Johnson’s promises to tax the rich and invest in social services.
When he became Burlington’s mayor in 1981, Bernie Sanders was a socialist outsider who had to face down a hostile political establishment. His successful mayoralty may contain lessons for Chicago’s new progressive mayor, Brandon Johnson.
The most important task for Brandon Johnson, who will be inaugurated as Chicago’s mayor on Monday, will be to pioneer a new, progressive path to address crime in the city while fending off attacks from a hostile media and the Chicago Police Department.
The results of last night’s Chicago mayor election were stunning: former Chicago Teachers Union organizer Brandon Johnson advanced to an April runoff against neoliberal architect Paul Vallas — pitting working-class power against austerity.
Brandon Johnson’s mayoral victory is a first step toward transforming the deeply unequal city. If he’s going to undertake radical reform efforts in Chicago, Johnson needs protests and strikes to fend off the inevitable capitalist attacks.
Chicago’s working-class neighborhoods have been exploited by predatory financial institutions and starved of desperately needed investment. Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson could change that by creating a public bank.
When politicians threaten police power, police often take matters into their own hands, frequently causing social chaos by refusing to perform basic duties. That’s likely to occur in Chicago. In fact, it might be happening already.
Brandon Johnson spent a decade as a rank-and-file Chicago teacher and organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union before winning county-level elected office. Now, he’s running for Chicago mayor with the union’s backing. We spoke to Johnson about his campaign.
Former rank-and-file Chicago Teachers Union member and organizer Brandon Johnson advanced to a runoff election in the city's mayoral race this week. In 2014, Jacobin interviewed Johnson about the CTU's political strategy. We publish the conversation here.
Working-class reformer Brandon Johnson will soon be inaugurated Chicago’s next mayor, and already businesses are threatening to undermine his agenda. Johnson and the movement behind him should challenge those threats directly by asserting public control of capital.
Some fear Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s new mayor-elect, as a longtime union organizer, can’t serve the public. That’s exactly wrong: the public is served by electing workers and trade unionists to office.
Brandon Johnson was inaugurated as Chicago mayor today. What makes the Chicago working-class movement that elected him so remarkable is its willingness to wage audacious fights over protecting and expanding public goods that seem unwinnable.
Working-class reformer Brandon Johnson is now Chicago’s mayor. The next task, as socialist elected official Anthony Quezada argues in an interview, is to bring more ordinary people into the political process so Johnson can actually pass sweeping reforms.
With $1.6 million in his pocket from wealthy finance donors, Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas is attacking his progressive opponent Brandon Johnson’s plan to fund public schools and city infrastructure by taxing financial transactions.
A recent fake controversy stoked by right-wing forces on Chicago’s city council led to socialist alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa losing two key positions. The antics would be laughable if they weren’t a major blow against Mayor Brandon Johnson’s working-class agenda.
Brandon Johnson, the labor-backed mayor of Chicago, is poised to deliver his first major victory: scrapping the subminimum wage for tipped workers.
Progressives at the city level face all sorts of constraints, from business interests to hostile state legislatures. But we shouldn’t preemptively clip our wings: left reformers like Chicago’s Brandon Johnson can transform cities into pro-worker havens.
This May Day, don’t hang your head for the labor movement’s defeat. US unions are weak, it’s true. But there’s more excitement, more of a spirit of militancy and experimentation, and more hope in today’s labor movement than there has been in a long time.
Yesterday Chicago became the largest US city to call for a cease-fire in Gaza, issuing a challenge to Joe Biden from a Democratic stronghold. It's an omen for what could be a turbulent election season.