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labor



  • The Police Aren't Part of Change in Chicago

    by Dan Berger

    A historian critiquing a recent book on Black Lives Matter argues that the political, fiscal and cultural influence of police is so broad that it's impossible to think of meaningful social reform in a society that includes modern police departments. 



  • The 4-Day Work Week is an Idea Whose Time Has Come (Again)

    While workers have long expressed a preference for a shorter work week, the labor market issues of the COVID pandemic have recalibrated the balance of power between workers and management in ways that have made the idea more appealing to policymakers. 



  • Rutgers Unions Suspend Strike after Big Gains

    Although unions representing graduate workers, lecturers, and full-time faculty must approve them, a framework for agreement has been reached that would deliver significant gains in wages and other demands. 



  • Beyond Quiet Quitting: The Real Crisis of Work

    by Erik Baker

    Impressionistic accounts of worker withdrawal and labor militancy both fail to capture a deeper issue: Work is failing to deliver on the promises the state has made as an avenue of meaning and fulfillment. 



  • Why LAUSD Teachers Walked Out

    At the heart of the walkout of 60,000 education professionals is the reality that the school district's policies are keeping teachers and students in poverty that makes it harder to teach and learn, says a union official. 



  • Can a "Return to Normal" Happen Without Repairing Sociability?

    by Nate Holdren

    The push to return to many pre-pandemic modes of working and living is taking place without sufficient provision for mitigating risk, and with seriously damaged bonds of trust and mutual support; people are again in proximity to each other, but far from being together. 



  • Why We Need Pirates

    by Paul Buhle, Marcus Rediker and David Lester

    Though vilified in popular culture, the history of piracy shows that many crews were egalitarian bands of maritime workers escaping their exploitation at the hands of merchant companies and navies. A new graphic adaptation of a recent history of piracy tells the story. 


  • Revisiting Kropotkin 180 Years After His Birth

    by Sam Ben-Meir

    The rise of automation and the concurrent squeeze of workers in the name of profit offer an opportunity to revisit the ideas of Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin as a forward-looking critique of power. 



  • The University of California is Also a Landlord

    The system, which approximates a real estate investment firm that also confers degrees, is squeezing its graduate students both as their wage-payer and as a large-scale landlord that contributes to a housing market that is unaffordable to graduate assistants and postdoctoral researchers. 



  • Grad Workers: Choose Solidarity with New Haven

    by Adom Getachew and Sarah Haley

    Two former Yale PhD students argue that the university's graduate student union offers not just benefits and protection to graduate student workers, but the chance for them to work in solidarity with other university and New Haven workers across the vast racial and socioeconomic divides separating city and campus. 



  • Can the UC Strike Remake Higher Education?

    The strike is driven by the crises in both academic labor and housing costs, which make poverty wages for graduate student workers far less tolerable than they used to be. Historian James Vernon is one faculty member cancelling his classes in solidarity. 



  • What's at Stake in the UC Grad Strike

    by Jay Caspian Kang

    While public support for unions has grown in recent years, it's not clear if the public understands that the working class is now likely to be involved in knowledge work. The strike by University of California graduate workers hopes to change that.