Worldwide, over 500,000 content moderators work for global internet corporations. The work is performed by an increasingly female and young adult workforce in low-income countries. They have been organizing unions to deal with the job’s hazards.
labor unions
Starbucks workers on strike
November 17, 2025Two Starbucks workers speak about their strike that began Nov. 13. Workers demand resolution of their unfair labor practice complaints and better wages, staffing, hours, and working conditions.
VW workers in U.S. South unionize!
April 24, 2024Workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., voted three to one to join the United Auto Workers. This gives hope that racial, ethnic and sexual divisions will not slow down the drive for auto worker solidarity in the South and across the country.
World in View: Thousands protest Argentina’s Milei
February 6, 2024Argentine President Javier Milei aims to privatize state institutions; eliminate regulations on businesses; prevent strikes; and seek full executive powers. Less than two months after taking office, he was confronted by a one-day mass general strike. What kind of society do Argentinians want to create?
World in View: Garment workers protest in Bangladesh
November 16, 2023Garment workers poured out of factories in Dhaka and other cities in Bangladesh to demand a wage of about $200 a month. The police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Bangladesh is the second largest garment-producing country in the world after China.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The African Revolutions and the World Economy
September 19, 2023The contributions and contradictions of the African revolutions of the 20th century speak to today’s very different situation. These excerpts from Dunayevskaya’s ‘Philosophy and Revolution, from Hegel to Sartre and from Marx to Mao’ aim not only to recapture the greatness of those revolutions, but also grapple with why they retrogressed after independence, so as to aid the creation of new beginnings now.
Teachers Union on ballot in mayoral race
March 19, 2023The race for mayor of Chicago is now between Brandon Johnson, a teacher endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), and Paul Vallas, a former boss of the Chicago Public Schools who trashes the CTU at every opportunity. The runoff election on April 4 will be in part a referendum on rank-and-file unionism.
Drive for profit derails lives in Ohio
The Norfolk Southern train that derailed on Feb. 3, 2023, in East Palestine, Ohio, threatening the health and lives of thousands of residents, can’t be called an accident. Not when railroad workers were cut out of negotiating over safety, and not when decisions by the railroad made this and other ecological disasters predictable rather than surprising.
School workers defy anti-union law to win
January 24, 2023School support workers in Ontario, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, ratified a four-year contract on Dec. 6, after weeks of defying both school administrators and provincial politicians.
Handicap This!: January-February 2023
Takes up: Vanuatu, a Pacific island country, developed a national sign language, Storian wetem han; in Minnesota personal care assistants have won a wage increase through the SEIU Healthcare Minnesota union; the UN celebrated the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Dec. 3.
National Costco pact
November 12, 2022Unionized Costco workers achieved their first national master contract. This needs to form the basis for reaching out and organizing the majority of Costco warehouses that remain non-union.
Amazon Prime Day is for job actions
November 8, 2022On “Prime Day,” Amazon warehouse workers in Moreno Valley, Calif., filed enough signatures to schedule a union vote at their facility. On the same day, dozens of non-union Amazon workers walked out of warehouses in Stone Mountain and Buford, Ga., to rally for $24 per hour.
‘Women, Life, Freedom!’ The transformation of Iran
September 28, 2022The Iranian hardline regime should be very afraid. The cries of: “Women, life and freedom!” “Death to the head scarf!” “Death to the dictator!” fill the streets. Iranian women have inspired the world and put Iran’s oligarchs on notice that their repressive regime is in grave danger.
Apple workers unionize
July 19, 2022Workers at the Apple Store in Towson, Md., outside Baltimore voted in June to unionize. Organizers of the successful union drive have reached out to employees at other Apple locations.
Starbucks union wave
May 20, 2022A unionization wave at Starbucks continues to percolate. As of April, workers at 28 stores have had their unions certified. Workers at about 200 other stores are still in the process of getting to a certification vote.
Youth in Action: May-June 2022
May 19, 2022Takes up: student workers at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, who struck on March 3 to protest the elimination of a farm residency program; graduate students at Indiana University went on strike April 13 for better wages, benefits, and to stop fee hikes, and for recognition of their union; and on April 25, about 20 students at Tufts U. held a protest against General Dynamics recruiting on campus.
COVID and the Diné
May 14, 2022The Diné, one of the largest Native American tribes in the U.S., show a strikingly different attitude to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have a strong sense of group responsibility as opposed to the phony “rugged individualism” that reveals a warped idea of what freedom means.
COVID and the Diné
April 30, 2022The Diné, one of the largest Native American tribes in the U.S., show a strikingly different attitude to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have a strong sense of group responsibility as opposed to the phony “rugged individualism” that reveals a warped idea of what freedom means.
Starbucks workers fight to unionize
March 19, 2022Voices of Starbucks workers around the country who are filing to start unions. As of Feb.21, the movement had spread to 103 stores, and three union elections had been finalized, with two Buffalo, N.Y. stores going union.
Starbucks workers speak about unionization
February 25, 2022Voices of Starbucks workers around the country who are filing to start unions. As of Feb.21, the movement had spread to 103 stores, and three union elections had been finalized, with two Buffalo, N.Y. stores going union.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2021, Part One
November 19, 2021Readers’ Views on Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives 2021-2022; Labor shortage?; Workers as reason; Support El Milagro workers!; Detroit women’s march; Chapelle’s sexism; Afghans dead and buried; Betrayal of Haitians; and Which side are you on?
Readers’ Views: September-October 2021
September 21, 2021Readers’ Views on: Solidarity with Palestinians; Attacks on Democracy; Iranian Revolt; Musicians’ Labor; Damage to Homeless; Covid-19 Killers; Trump and Taliban; Far Right in Portland; Critical Race Theory; Prisoners under Fire; Voices from Behind Bars; Only the Dialectic Can Save Us
Editorial: Amazon union vote hides workers’ reality
May 8, 2021In the union vote at Amazon in Alabama, the overriding issue was the dehumanization of laboring activity underlying Amazon’s brutal working conditions. The tyrannical conditions begin from an algorithm that runs an army of robots that don’t get sick in a pandemic.
Rally for Amazon workers’ union drive
March 11, 2021Participant report of a solidarity demonstration in Oakland in front of a Whole Foods store, as part of a national day of solidarity to support Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon workers struggling for union recognition.
World in View: Historic mass strike of India’s farmers
January 30, 2021An estimated 250 million Indian farmers have been on strike since last September in opposition to a series of new laws, proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
Woman as Reason: Sarah White (Sarah Hamer) 1958-2020
The movement lost a powerful voice for workers’ liberty, self-development and freedom when Sarah White died of a heart attack on Oct. 5, 2020.
Meatpacking workers sacrificed
May 1, 2020Workers in meatpacking plants across the country are being sacrificed to what Karl Marx called capital’s “werewolf hunger for surplus labor” as packing companies try to reap the benefits of the prevailing level of automation—but substituting intensified sweated labor for the capital investment of automation. If workers die from COVID-19, the capitalist doesn’t care.
Surviving at Kroger
April 29, 2020Working at Kroger grocery store, you truly appreciate the saying that “goodness is its own reward” because, despite all the news and advertisements touting grocery store employees as heroes, I sure don’t feel rewarded like one.
GM strikers fight capital’s drive to impoverish workers
October 30, 2019A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the 40-day strike by the autoworkers at General Motors and its ramifications for the labor struggle in the U.S. and abroad.
Lyft and Uber drivers demand their rights!
July 21, 2019Over 30 Lyft drivers and their supporters rallied at the Lyft office in Los Angeles for their labor rights and to reverse pay cuts forced by the company.
Amazon workers organize cross-border solidarity
June 27, 2019Excerpts of a talk by Polish Amazon worker/organizer Agnieszka Mróz, on a U.S. tour seeking cross-border solidarity among Amazon workers worldwide.
Essay: What is socialism? Socialism, labor, and the Black dimension
May 1, 2019Marxist-Humanist Bob McGuire looks through history to Marx’s relationship to labor and the Black movement for freedom and then to our day and the relationship of Marxist-Humanism to labor and the Black struggle for freedom in speaking to the question many are asking today: What is socialism?
Trump aids capitalism’s attack on labor; workers strike back
January 24, 2019A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the state of the U.S. economy and the revolt of labor in the wake of country-wide teachers’ strikes, an historically long government shutdown, and an unsteady, uncertain worldwide economy.
Review: How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics
September 27, 2018Adele reviews “How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosures to Trump,” by Laura Briggs, which discusses “reproductive labor,” “the work necessary to the reproduction of human life.”
Review: ‘Labor Notes’ on fighting ‘open shops’
The journal “Labor Notes” published a special issue on organizing strategies which aims to guide members of public sector unions to a concept of an inclusive, participatory unionism.
Jasik workers organize in China
September 26, 2018This generation of Chinese workers, going on strike repeatedly to demand wages and benefits they are owed or fighting to control their own jobs, together with young intellectuals reclaiming Marx’s work, may be a threat to today’s Chinese rulers.
World In View: Iran’s working class speaks from prison
May 9, 2018The pretenses of Iran’s greedy and murderous ruling class continue to be exposed by political prisoners like Esmail Abdi, teachers’ union activist, and Narges Mohammadi, engineer and women’s rights proponent.
II. Spreading revolt opens new doors
May 3, 2018We look at the true opposition to Trumpism: mass revolt worldwide of women, youth, Black people, labor…–the context to work for new beginnings.
West Virginia teachers extend general strike
March 12, 2018West Virginia public school teachers carried out a general strike across the state beginning Feb 22, first striking for two days with union approval, then forcing the union to extend the strike for two more days until the governor offered a 5% raise.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Rosa Luxemburg as feminist
March 8, 2018In celebration of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we present excerpts from Dunayevskaya’s “Luxemburg as Feminist; Break with Jogiches.”
Knocking on Labor’s Door book launch
November 15, 2017Report on the book launch on Oct. 14, 2017, at the Newberry Library in Chicago for “Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide,” by Lane Windham.
Judy Tanzawa (Judy Tristan) 1939-2017
November 12, 2017In Memoriam for Judy Tanzawa who was a radical union organizer, Los Angeles Local Organizer for News and Letters Committees, fighter for human liberation in all its dimensions. .
Chicago auto mechanics strike!
August 31, 2017Striking journeyman speaking on their strike against about 140 new car dealerships in the Chicago area, for a better wage and to change the structure.
Counter-fascist rally in Portland, Oregon
July 4, 2017Participant report on the June 4 rally against the fascists’ “Free Speech Rally” in Portland, Oregon, and the police intervention on the side of the fascists. .
Protesters counter fascist rally in Portland, Oregon
June 9, 2017An activist reports on the June 4, 2017, action by anti-fascist protesters against a rally of hate made up of Proud Boys, Militiamen, and Nazis who were protected by Portland cops who attacked anti-fascists.
Thousands demand Trump release his tax returns
June 5, 2017Participant report of the April 15, 2017, thousands strong protest in Los Angeles demanding that Donald Trump release his tax returns.
Time Warner Cable (Spectrum) workers striking for three months and counting
May 18, 2017When Time Warner Cable became Spectrum, the company promised a new deal for consumers and small businesses. But the new corporation launched an assault on its employees; and now, three months into the strike, the union is hanging tough.
III. U.S. forces of revolt as reason; philosophy as force of revolution
May 17, 2017The unprecedented Women’s March on Washington the day after Trump’s inauguration revealed the blossoming of a universal movement with many particulars, from women’s demand to control their own bodies, to Black Lives Matter, to the struggle at Standing Rock.
Boycott Wendy’s!
May 3, 2017Florida tomato pickers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and dozens of local supporters demonstrated in front of the Wendy’s restaurant on Division Street in Chicago.
Immigrants and allies challenge Trump’s inhumanity
April 22, 2017As the Trump administration ramps up deportations and related abuses, strikes, protests, and sanctuary cities are proliferating. The oppression of a lower caste of workers and the discrimination and violence faced by immigrants present a challenge to the Left, labor and the rest of humanity.