Contract talks for New York City teachers come at a challenging time
Place: New York City
Voting Ends Soon in UFT Elections: A Referendum on Leadership the Past Two Years
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest teachers’ union local in the country consistently left members unsafe, confused, ill, and even dead.
Tens of Thousands of Women March for Abortion Rights
The politics of the march in NYC were progressive, with a strong presence of Democratic organizations, such as Indivisible and several independent Democratic clubs.
The Significance of Occupy Wall Street
Ten years ago Occupy Wall Street, a national mass movement against economic inequality and the influence of corporate money in politics, began in New York City and then spread across the country.
Remembering Mark Levitan: Comrade and Dear Friend
Student radical, trade union militant, and economist. Michael Hirsch pays tribute to a comrade who has gone too soon.
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.”
Fighting for teachers unions that speak back to power, defend students and social justice
School reopenings have become a point of political conflict on a national level, as parent, student, and teachers’ rights to have healthy, safe, equitable schools have been subordinated to the bipartisan consensus to put the economy and profit over human need.
When NYC Jewish Organizations Enthusiastically Supported Boycotts
The Jewish establishment has condemned the NYC Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for asking candidates if they would forgo plans to take trips to Israel as an act of solidarity with Palestinians. Of course it’s a croc. It’s also hypocrisy.
The Whitney Took Down My Mural
They never asked us to paint on the plywood barrier built to protect the building during the recent protests. But for a few nights we painted. Mine was a mural about police brutality toward protestors. Now the Whitney has taken them all down.
On the Attack on Robert Cuffy at the Mass March to Defund the NYPD
While leading Monday June 29th’s Mass March to Defund the NYPD & Abolish the Police, Robert Cuffy was filming the march when he was blindsided and tackled by an unidentified man who then slammed Robert into another car, dislocating his shoulder. Police released the attacker without charges.
In Honor of George Floyd – Thoughts in the Aftermath of the Brooklyn Protest
The Black liberation struggle is once again ripping open the pandora’s box of American capitalism. This rebellion is exposing the brutal, sick and twisted priorities of American capitalism to the entire world.
Neoliberal Healthcare Fails the COVID Test
The decades of neoliberal restructuring, combined with this specific, Trump-led incompetence and just profound callousness towards the lives of working people, is going to lead to upwards of a quarter-of-a-million people dying from this overall.
In the Tempest of Coronavirus: Racism and Class Struggle
This article was written for L’Anticapitaliste, the weekly newspaper of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) of France.
COVID-19 is now in all U.S. states with 530,026 cases and 20,614 deaths (as of April 12). Statistics suggest that the virus has peaked for . . .
The Sandy Next Time
As the water rose
to occupy Wall Street,
ten thousand helicopters
flew massed dollars out
lest all that cabbage salt to slaw
and the balance of payments
blow out to sea.
Members of the Professional Staff Congress should vote no on the proposed agreement with City University of NY
Editor’s note: Members of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union representing professional staff and faculty at City University of New York (CUNY), are voting on a proposed agreement, a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with CUNY. The argument to endorse . . .
In support of the Professional Staff Congress/City University of NY tentative agreement: Vote yes
Editor’s note: Members of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union representing professional staff and faculty at City University of New York (CUNY), are voting on a proposed agreement, a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with CUNY. In this piece, Steve . . .
Richard, We Hardly Knew Ya: A Letter to “The Chief-Leader”
With a new generation of militant radical organizers looking to industrialize into union jobs and kick-start a new militant minority in the U.S. labor movement, their effort is receiving both wide support and wary when not damning criticism. Among the . . .
Stonewall and the Early Days
The police were pelted with coins and bottles to begin with, by the crowd, and later bricks and stones from a nearby building site. Barricading themselves inside the Stonewall Inn, police were forced to call for assistance. From there on as crowds swelled in numbers over several successive nights, the whole thing escalated into a full blown riot. It took three days and nights before the Tactical Patrol Force, trained to deal with Vietnam war protests, could finally subdue the rioters.
New York City nurses threatened to strike against the Hospital Alliance—and won
But the Fight's Not Over
In late fall of 2018, nurses from five private New York City hospitals in three competing hospital systems delivered their contract proposals to management. Born from a protracted gestation of surveying democratic priorities and tracking experiences with the previous contract, . . .
A response to an Open Letter from Professional Staff Congress leaders on “$7K or Strike!”
As members of the $7K or Strike Campaign (which includes City University of New York [CUNY] adjuncts, tenure-track/tenured faculty, HEOs, CLTs, students, and other NYC union members) we are deeply disappointed by the March 21, 2019 letter signed by PSC . . .
New York Progressives Must Demand More
I campaigned for governor with the slogan of “Demand More!” because Gov. Cuomo has governed as a social liberal but as an economic conservative. Although he touts the agenda he outlined in his January 15 State of the State and Budget presentation as “progressive,” New York progressives should not be satisfied. It is still a conservative economic program. Progressives must demand more.
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Our Winter 2023 issue has now been published!