Brother Stanley Aronowitz was always ahead of the curve, with his criticism of the shortcomings of old labor and his envisioning of “a new workers movement” that might replace it.
Category: Labor
The Inaugural Historical Materialism East Asia Conference – Information Here
We think readers of New Politics may want to know about (and participate in) the inaugural Historical Materialism East Asia conference (online).
“Conscious Linkage”
The Proletarianization of Academic Labor in the Algorithmic University
The attempt to deskill teaching in higher education is hardly new. Technology is being used to transform the academic worker into a “conscious linkage” of the machine.
Nigeria: #EndSARS, Workers’ Power, and War
In October 2020, millions in Nigeria marched for two weeks in a revolt that shook the world. From Badagry to Yola, youth and workers rose in unity against the barbarism of police brutality and bad governance. Raising radical slogans and . . .
South Africa
“The Masses Are Not Protected”
Post-Apartheid Symptoms of Morbidity
Everyone’s focus is on trying to save what is dying in South Africa. Few are paying attention to what is struggling to be born.
How Contingent Faculty Organizing Can Succeed in Higher Education
Power Despite Precarity is not just a solid guide to best practices in day-to-day trade union work within higher education. It’s also a rousing call for the contingent faculty movement to embrace grassroots, rather than top-down, organizing.
Democratic Socialists of America Faces Challenges at Convention
Without fear of Donald Trump and hope in Bernie Sanders, DSA seems to have lost some of its energy. There has been less membership participation in preparation for this convention.
Learning from Industrialization’s Mixed Legacy
Notes on Class Struggle Unionism under Biden
In my remarks I look back at the tradition of the Third Camp, articulated in publications of and about the Workers Party and Independent Socialist League, as well as my involvement in Berkeley with the Independent Socialist Club and the International Socialists.
The Unions Our Educators & Communities Deserve
This action dialogue on Monday, May 3 will focus on the many roles of unions during these increasingly complex times for educators, learners, families, and communities. Speakers include New Politics editorial board member Lois Weiner.
Postmortem on Bessemer Amazon Defeat
It is important to look at the union’s strategy, comparing it to both other failed campaigns (especially of the UAW in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky), but also to a variety of mostly less publicized campaigns which were in fact successful.
Heads up! Chins down! Resisting the New Bipartisan Neoliberal Project in Education
Teachers’ work is being transformed beneath our collective nose. We have missed an opportunity to combat the project in its earliest stages but we cannot delay in understanding and combating the new iteration of neoliberalism’s global project in education.
Union Democracy and “The Final Goal”
Union democracy or more accurately the transformation of major unions into living democratic participatory organizations and cultures is a necessity precisely because of the corporations’ massive powers of resistance.
Can Amazon Be Organized? In Alabama They’re Trying
In Bessemer, Alabama, 5,800 warehouse workers will vote this month on whether or not they want a union at the Amazon facility there. If they vote to unionize, it will be the first successful union campaign at Amazon in the United States.
Mumia Time or Sweeney Time
Dave Roediger wrote in 2000, “[T]he extent to which Abu-Jamal knows that he needs to identify with the labor movement, and that some in the labor movement know that they need to support him, signals what the working class movement is becoming and can be.”
State-Corporatist Alliance and Farmers’ Unrest in India
The ongoing Indian farmers’ protest in reaction to corporatisation of agricultural land and access to Mandis (open markets) demands an urgent legal reexamination of its impact on agrarian labour and small-scale farmers.
Union Democracy is Our Goal But Is It Practical? Responding to Nelson Lichtenstein
Nelson Lichtenstein and I agree on two major ideas that I think distinguish our shared viewpoint from the practice of many union officials and some of their supporters on the left.
Unions and Democracy: A Response to Lois Weiner
When I think of the tasks before the labor movement, and even more so the left in general, I think not of how to shift the policy program of the AFT or even of SEIU, but of what it will take to organize Walmart and Amazon and now Google.
Reply to Klyczek
We shouldn’t assume that union and community efforts will inevitably succumb to corporate co-optation.
Community Schools and the Dangers of Ed Tech Privatization
Bottom-up democracy through community schools sounds like a great idea, but there are many dangers from these ‘charter schools on steroids.”
Community Schools Will Help Unions and Education
Community schools are a way to address the challenges faced by low-income school districts; they also provide a unique opportunity to create bottom-up, democratically controlled school governance.
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