Alex N. Press is a staff writer at Jacobin who covers labor organizing.
Labor has been stirring recently. That’s unacceptable for bosses, who never rest in their attacks on unions. Case in point: a new bill in Georgia that seeks to ensure the unionization process is as difficult for workers and favorable to bosses as possible.
Israel’s attacks on Palestinians aren’t only carried out through guns and bombs. They also come through its vice grip on agriculture, including its system of “water apartheid.” We spoke to a Palestinian farmer and union leader about his labor under occupation.
Two major strikes by Hollywood writers and actors dominated headlines last year. Only months after the strikes’ end, contract negotiations are now underway for the entertainment industry’s crew members — and the possibility of a strike is not off the table.
Are champagne bottles popping in Walmart’s public relations office? They should be, after the New York Times published a piece that so nakedly trumpets the company’s line on its “compassionate” managers that it reads like a Walmart press release.
At REI’s flagship Manhattan store, management has fought workers’ attempts to win a first union contract. In the meantime, workers have channeled their anger into working-class art: a play about work and organizing based on their experiences at the company.
The South has long remained a nearly impenetrable citadel for labor. Fresh off of the success of its Big Three strike last year and looking to organize an Alabama Mercedes plant, the United Auto Workers wants to storm the castle.
After years of relentless union busting — costing the company nearly a quarter-billion dollars, in one estimate — Starbucks Workers United has now forced the corporation to negotiate. It may prove the most important organizing breakthrough in decades.
A lawsuit filed by New York growers challenges the right of farmworkers on H-2A visas to unionize. Win or lose, the lawsuit is posing an obstacle to the state’s farmworkers, who only won the right to collectively bargain in 2019.
Unpredictable schedules, hazardous working conditions, and the crushing workload of Barbenheimer combined to lead workers at the Prospect Park location of independent Brooklyn theater Nitehawk Cinema to organize a union.
Trader Joe’s, the supposedly progressive grocery chain, has joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX in attacking the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board. The employer class can’t stomach any obstacles to its union busting.
The UAW announced yesterday that 10,000 autoworkers have signed union cards since it launched its drive to organize the nonunion auto workforce two months ago. It’s a high-risk campaign — and precisely the type of gambit the working class needs right now.
New figures show that US union density dropped again last year, despite high-profile strikes. We should admit that we don’t know exactly what will turn things around for labor, other than bold experimentation.
The old labor slogan “An injury to one is an injury to all” isn’t just a moral imperative. It’s the practical foundation of a strong labor movement.
After securing historic deals with the Big Three automakers, the UAW is continuing to go on the offensive.
A thousand contingent faculty at NYU, who have long worked without union contract protections, have struck an agreement with the university to hold union elections. We talked to faculty about the organizing drive and what they hope to get out of a contract.
Last year’s catastrophic East Palestine train derailment has spurred calls from a rank-and-file labor group for public ownership of rail infrastructure. We spoke to an expert about what that could look like in the US, which is dominated by for-profit rail.
A new report details how Islamophobia fuels conflations of criticism of Israel with antisemitism. We spoke with one of the report’s authors about the slanderous attempts to muzzle supporters of Palestinian rights.
From logistics to Hollywood to higher ed to auto, 2023 saw a promising upsurge in US labor militancy. Unions must seize this historic opening to reverse decades of decline.
More than half a million workers in the US went on strike this year, winning gains not only for themselves but for nonunion workers too. While there’s much more work to be done, 2023 was a year when the working class punched back at the capitalist class.
As I covered the Hollywood strike this year, perhaps the best guide was a 1941 novel by a former Communist Party member about the dog-eat-dog scumbaggery of movie executives and the lying and artless bragging that Hollywood runs on.