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Doug Henwood edits Left Business Observer and is the host of Behind the News. His latest book is My Turn.
The war in Ethiopia has largely been ignored by the outside world, and information has been hard to come by. But what we know about the conflict is horrific: at least 500,000 civilians have been killed, and 5 million have been displaced.
Railworkers’ recent labor battle exposed their increasingly brutal working conditions. We spoke with journalist Ryan Grim about the rank-and-file effort to rebuild power in rail unions — so workers can fight the railroad bosses even harder next time.
The standard left analysis of inflation says it’s a concern of elites and not the masses. This couldn’t be more wrong: working people are the ones suffering under inflation.
For a generation, the Left dismissed any concerns about inflation as elite fearmongering. But now inflation is here. And it’s hurting workers more than anyone.
The average corporate tax rate in the 1950s was 50 percent. Today, it’s below 20 percent. Yet the US business class is still whining about the modest tax increase on corporations in the Inflation Reduction Act.
If it seems like nothing works anymore in the US, you’re not imagining things. Record-low public investment and declining private investment have given us a failing, decrepit infrastructure.
President Biden signed the bipartisan CHIPS Act earlier this week. It’s a massive giveaway to the semiconductor industry, which has spent the last decade padding the pockets of CEOs and stockholders with billions upon billions of dollars in stock buybacks.
According to Gallup polls, the number of Americans who self-identify as below middle-class, including those who identify as working-class, is on the rise — a rise especially pronounced among those age 18–34.
Talk of the “Great Resignation“ is everywhere. But a close look at the numbers reveals something interesting: more workers are quitting their jobs in Trump-voting states with low unionization rates than in states with high unionization rates that rejected Trump.
Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is a horrific, unconscionable act. NATO’s expansionist policy made such an invasion more likely. Both of these things are true.
Unions raise wages and benefits and increase job security. So, the fact that unionization rates are still in decline, despite some recent bright spots in worker militancy, is very bad news.
Everyone is desperate for signs of life in the American working class, so the breathless talk of a “Striketober” a few months back made sense. But new Bureau of Labor Statistics data throws cold water on that idea: there was no strike upsurge.
Things may not be trending in the right direction for workers in the United States.
COVID-19 sparked the worst job losses since the Great Depression. The most recent numbers make clear that while American workers are still suffering immensely, they’re also feeling emboldened to reject bad jobs.
Ten years ago, I was ready to throw in the towel on this whole politics business, writes Doug Henwood — things were too bleak. Then Occupy Wall Street kicked off. Now, thank God, we’re living in the world Occupy created.
People are right to be disgusted by giant corporations. But the liberal “antitrust” response too often valorizes small-scale competition instead of solidarity and worker organization.
Labor strategist Jane McAlevey offers her take on why Amazon workers were defeated in their recent Bessemer, Alabama union drive.
For more than three centuries, something has been going horribly wrong at the top of our society, and we’re all suffering for it.
Whatever the size and shape of Joe Biden’s proposed infrastructure bill, you can be sure to hear corporate weeping and gnashing of teeth about how they can’t afford a tax hike. The truth: they’ve got the money — they just don’t want to share.
Strikes are the labor movement’s muscle, and when unions don’t strike, that muscle atrophies. Unfortunately, the latest data shows just how atrophied that muscle is. Simply put, workers aren’t striking.