Roseanne and the Changing Working-Class
When ABC’s Roseanne premiered in 1988, it arrived in the era of Reaganomics with policies that stripped power from unions, sent blue collar jobs overseas and... Read More
Janus v AFSCME:
What the Supreme Court May Strip from Workers The roar of the approaching storm can be both heard and felt in workplaces across the United... Read More
Mirroring Administrative Attitudes: One Year Into Trump’s Rhetoric
Kalkaska, or Trout Town USA, is a picturesque northern Michigan town touting a population of just over 2,000. Located in the snow belt with its... Read More
Trump Supporters: Why Our Attitude Towards Them Matters
Not Stupid. Not Crazy. Those are the two most important things for progressives to remember about rightwing people, says Chip Berlet. He has tracked U.S.... Read More
Trump One Year Later: Most of Us Live in Dread
I had a discussion with my doctor late spring 2017. I was having gastrointestinal issues, and I said to him that I kept wondering whether... Read More
President Trump, One Year Later
After 12 months that have felt like an eternity, Mr. Trump remains as greedy and volatile as ever. Donald Trump campaigned on the pledge to... Read More
Trump’s First Year: Did the Working-Class Benefit?
Donald Trump ran for president on a populist and inclusionary platform. As he campaigned across the country, he appealed to increasingly larger numbers of Americans... Read More
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Statement Voted 2017 Most Classist Comment
For Immediate Release: December 31, 2017 Contact: Anne Phillips, 617.477.8635; Denise Moorehead, 781.608.4608 BOSTON – For the eighth consecutive year, Class Action has asked people... Read More
Trump’s War on the Poor, Working-Class and …
When explaining why his cabinet is filled with billionaires, President Donald Trump uttered what might just earn him Class Action’s 2017 Most Classist Comment of... Read More
Trump’s Presidency: What We Deserve
Type “Trump voters deserve” into your search bar, and the two suggestions that pop up are “Trump voters deserve what they get” and “Trump voters... Read More
Five Classist Pitfalls to #Resist in Your Activism
In a moment of potentially revolutionary activism and mobilization, don’t let classism undermine your efforts. The past few weeks have been both terrifying and inspiring.... Read More
Text, Lies and Videotape
It might be 2017, but it sure feels like 1984 to me. When terms like post-truth and fake news are used to explain what we used to... Read More
Beyond Trump: Creating Class-Race Alliances
Part of the White, Working Class, and Worried about Trump (#WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump) Campaign*: I grew up in economically depressed, though beautiful, northeastern Vermont. My family was on... Read More
Beyond Trump: Donald Trump Needs Our Racism
Part of the White, Working Class, and Worried about Trump (#WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump) Campaign*: Throughout the 2016 election cycle, the U.S. electorate has subjected to overt and systemic racism... Read More
Beyond Trump: Building a Coalition for Change
Part of the White, Working Class, and Worried about Trump (#WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump) Campaign*: I grew up in South St. Louis City in a multi-racial, working-class neighborhood. My... Read More
Brexit – A Class Issue
Two weeks on, a lot of progressive people in Britain are still in deep shock or fury or despair – or alternating rapidly between all three... Read More
SCOTUS: Public Sector Unions Safe for Now
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it was deadlocked in the case of Friedrichs v California Teachers Association (representing 325,000 teachers in 1,000 school... Read More
We need more than holiday charity to reduce income inequality
The holidays are a time of joy for many. They are when families celebrate being together with loved ones, workplaces honor the accomplishments of employees,... Read More
Class Inequality and Transgender Communities
Transgender issues have received more sympathetic media attention in the past few months than ever before. While so many people are paying attention to trans... Read More
Another Supreme Court decision threatens workers
If you are like me you may have had trouble keeping up with all the bad news U.S. Supreme Court opinions issued in recent months.... Read More
Class Issues in “The Wretched of the Earth”
Frantz Fanon, in his classic account of colonialism and violence, The Wretched of the Earth, went to great length and detail explaining the elements needed... Read More
Economist Piketty Offers Bold New Perspective on Inequality
In a tour de force of economic analysis that has swept Washington, a 42-year-old French economist has upended conventional wisdom about the causes and consequences... Read More
Grassroots Voices Rising for a New Economy
Imagine an event where the people in control were the house cleaners, the nannies, the family farmers and the unemployed! A little over two weeks... Read More
Solutions for servers subsisting on tips
There are plenty of industries out there that we wish would do better by their workers, but the restaurant industry poses a very specific problem.... Read More
Black History and White History are Inseparable
The schoolhouse version of Black History Month has rightfully focused on elevating African-Americans who have made great achievements in American history: writers, inventors, and public officials.... Read More
SOTU: Quick reactions to class themes in President’s speech
Half of Americans are working-class or poor, yet all I heard about in the State of the Union address was the middle class, and now... Read More
The Unity of Class and the Division of Nationality
This world is divided into unrepresentative and irrelevant categories. Rather than looking at what we have in common with others, we are told to focus... Read More
Pension Cutbacks: The New Normal or Fightback?
We should be as wary now of the mainstream media as Marx was in 1871 when he wrote the following: “The daily press and the... Read More
The Worker Center Boogyman
Lately the Chamber of Commerce (the Chamber) has been complaining loudly that Worker Centers are a kind of front group for unions. Worker centers are... Read More
Now Showing in Seattle: A Multicultural Working Class Movement!
Any American interested in the working class should know about Kshama Sawant, an open Socialist (and immigrant), who was recently elected to the Seattle City... Read More
Money Changes Everything: The Ascent of Walter White
“I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it, and I was alive.” –W.W. I had to wait until the finale... Read More
Labor Day, 2013: Realities and Hopes
I like to listen to Bruce Springsteen’s “Wrecking Ball” album from time to time, at moments when my spirits need lifting up. In “Jack of... Read More
Labor Against the Next War, Too
With the drumbeat of war sounding once again, the first petition I was sent opposing US strikes on Syria came from United States Labor Against... Read More
Imagining a Labor Day without a Labor Board (It isn’t Hard to Do)
Recently there has been much congressional skirmishing over the funding of the National Labor Relations Board, often referred to as simply the “labor board.” During... Read More
Labor’s Love Lost Over Obamacare?
Like many labor negotiators, I looked to health care reform for legislative relief from endless haggling with management over employee benefit costs. My own union... Read More
Philly School Crisis Meets Pushback
While a group of determined teachers, parents and community activists rallied a small crowd in front of South Philadelphia High School on a rainy weekday,... Read More
Tell Congress to End Child Poverty – Support the RISE and WORK Acts
The Global Women’s Strike, Women of Color in the Global Women’s Strike and the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network and more than two... Read More
Class and the Fight for Gay Marriage
The recent US Supreme Court rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 bring to light the intersection of class issues with the... Read More
Race and Class: The more we get together the stronger we are
Labor unions, welfare rights campaigns, and the fight for pay equity are historical struggles for justice that have impacted the shape of the wealth distribution... Read More
Inspiring examples of legal protections from classism
At least two cities make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of class, and we’re determined to add one more. The Traverse City Rice... Read More
Student Leaders Lobby for Affordable Education
Emily Dickinson once wrote, “why not have a big life?” These are the words I kept close to heart when I joined the Seattle Education... Read More
President Obama’s Middle Class: the Rhetoric and the Reality
It should come as no surprise that President Obama focused on the “middle class” in his State of the Union speech. He mentioned that term... Read More
Obama’s State of the (Dis-)Union Speech, 2013
If you ain’t poor (by America’s low poverty standards), you are “middle class.” That is the current political and pundit mode of understanding the USA.... Read More
Lance Armstrong and the Illusion of Meritocracy
The psychology of the “Anti-Lance Armstrong Brigade” illustrates exactly why socioeconomic inequality is increasing so much in this country. While Lance Armstrong is privileged by... Read More
Anti-Classism and the Populist Right
Within the past two decades, the American professional and business world has begun to develop into a caste system based on the college that one... Read More
Cautionary notes about liberals’ election self-congratulations
The election and reelection of Obama is a historical milestone in race relations. It is a definitely an achievement we should be proud of. We... Read More
Union Vote Declining But Still Crucial
In the past decade unions have greatly improved the way they do electoral politics, and if they hadn’t, Barack Obama would probably never have been... Read More
Race & Class & November 6
On the one hand, it is difficult to believe that Romney did not win. After all, when you think about it, we are in the... Read More
The Invisible Majority: Class and the National Election
Working class people are approximately 63% of our population, but they are all but invisible in the upcoming national election. What you don’t see can... Read More
Ward Morehouse 1929-2012
A wonderful friend of Class Action has passed away. Ward Morehouse, 83, an internationally known human rights and anti-corporate activist, author, publisher, international educator, union... Read More