The strikes that spread from Chicago across the nation are happening because energetic, smart rank-and-file workers are finally taking back their own organizations—their unions—after too many years of risk-averse leaders whose unwillingness to use the strike weapon contributed to the downfall of the working class. Read More
Few people know what’s really happening behind closed doors as General Motors executives and UAW officials try to hammer out an agreement to end their now seven-day-long strike. Against the backdrop of the United Nations Climate Summit, and with the excitement still palpable after 4 million young people marched to demand bold solutions to the climate crisis, it is vital to understand what is going on. Read More
On August 24, at midnight, 20,000 AT&T workers walked off the job. Big strikes are surprising enough in the post-Reagan era, but this one spanned nine of the 13 states that once made up the Confederacy. Read More
In less than three months, rank-and-file teachers and educational support staff in five states—West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona—have turned the entire country into their classroom. They haven’t just pushed for—and won—better pay and working conditions for themselves. They’ve also mounted a direct challenge to decades of bipartisan tax cuts for corporations, helping us all understand what austerity means. Read More
The teachers understood that to win, to not go down in the record books as another huge defeat, they had to stay on strike and escalate the crisis. They could not have achieved the victory without having the community firmly on their side. Educators, like health-care workers, have an incredibly powerful, organic relationship with their communities—relationships so strong they are durable against sophisticated right-wing attacks. Read More