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. I would like to discuss one of those opinions, Noel Canning, because I think it had some real social class dimensions that may not be immediately noticeable. Noel Canning is […]
Politics and Class
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 to overthrow a colonial oppressor. Most obvious in his writing is his acceptance for, and at times the encouragement of, violence. This violence is to be directed at those foreigners […]
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 of inequality. Tom Piketty’s new book, “Capital in the Twenty-first Century,” quickly hit the New York Times best seller list and earned its author a seat at the table with […]
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 ago I attended the joint organizing summit and member assembly of National People’s Action (NPA) and National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA). Entitled Rising Voices for a New Economy, the four-day […]
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. Here’s the largest and fastest growing economic sector in the US producing 6 of 10 lowest paying jobs in the country. Why? The majority of their workforce don’t get paychecks. […]
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. Giving kids a sense of the possible is an important part of inspiring young people to strive to be the best they can be. However, a true understanding of Black […]
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 on the differences. It was in Austria, whilst staying with friends of mine in Vienna, that this became apparent. The only divide I had with these people was that of […]
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 telegraph, which in a moment spreads its inventions over the whole earth, fabricate more myths in one day…than could have previously been produced in a century.” And so, for example, […]
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 community-based and community-led organizations that engage in a combination of service, advocacy, and organizing activities to provide support to low-wage workers. The vast majority of the Centers were created primarily […]
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 Council. Recently, I exchanged emails with her assistant, Anh Tran. Rather than repeat widely-known facts, I’ll include some of our email Q & A, which I was grateful to receive […]
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 of “Breaking Bad” but at last, Walter White admitted that he was in to the meth cooking for the money. I’ve been frustrated since season 3, by that time the […]
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 All Trades,” the protagonist does outdoor work, carpentry, auto repair and farming (“I’ll harvest your crops”). Given the recent one day strikes in some 60 cities by fast food workers, […]
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 War. The petition, co-sponsored by other peace and progressive groups, lays out clear rationales for its opposition to US military action: it will not solve the crisis nor make Syrians […]
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 the last year or so President Obama’s recess appointments to the labor board have also been widely discussed. But I am not especially interested in the details of the latest […]
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 and others worked hard for passage of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) three years ago. Despite its failure to take health insurance issues off the bargaining table, as a […]
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, the powers-that-be in City Hall, Harrisburg and D.C. did nothing to avert an educational crisis that awaits 150,000 mostly poor and working-class students when school is due to open in […]
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 dozen grass roots organizations are petitioning congress to implement a welfare policy which prioritizes the elimination of child poverty and enables mothers and other caregivers to choose to raise their […]
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 mainstream LGBTQ fight for marriage equality. While thrilling for many reasons, these rulings do not redress the many daily injustices facing the LGBTQ community that, frankly, gay marriage is incapable […]
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 in the last century. Each of those fights was strengthened and more effective as they became more inclusive of people of color. One of the most effective tools we have […]
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 and Roses group’s goal is to convince the Traverse City Human Rights Board that class should be included as a protected category, like race, gender, ability, age, and sexual orientation. […]
