https://znetwork.org/category/topic/economy/labor/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:55:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/category/topic/economy/labor/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/why-working-class-consciousness-is-the-real-threat-to-elite-power/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/why-working-class-consciousness-is-the-real-threat-to-elite-power/#respond Tue, 30 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1292927 Paul Jay and host Barry Stevens analyze rising progressive movements, from Mamdani’s victory in New York City to Sanders and AOC drawing massive crowds in red states, and why working-class consciousness has always been the real threat to American elites. They discuss why fossil fuel companies have known about the climate crisis for decades but [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/why-working-class-consciousness-is-the-real-threat-to-elite-power/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/chicagos-mayor-brandon-johnson-is-caught-in-a-trap/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/chicagos-mayor-brandon-johnson-is-caught-in-a-trap/#respond Mon, 29 Dec 2025 19:06:55 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292886 When labor activist Brandon Johnson upset Paul Vallas in Chicago’s 2023 runoff mayoral election, the Left had good cause for optimism. One of their own, a former Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) activist, had just won the highest elected office in the third largest city in the United States. And, even better, he did so with [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/chicagos-mayor-brandon-johnson-is-caught-in-a-trap/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whatever-happened-to-trumps-golden-age-for-american-workers/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whatever-happened-to-trumps-golden-age-for-american-workers/#respond Fri, 26 Dec 2025 19:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292794 Although Donald Trump’s Department of Labor announced in April 2025 that “Trump’s Golden Age puts American workers first,” that contention is contradicted by the facts. Indeed, Trump has taken the lead in reducing workers’ incomes. One of his key actions along these lines occurred on March 14, 2025, when he issued an executive order that scrapped a Biden-era regulation [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whatever-happened-to-trumps-golden-age-for-american-workers/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-gutting-this-agency-amounts-to-playing-with-fire/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-gutting-this-agency-amounts-to-playing-with-fire/#respond Wed, 24 Dec 2025 18:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292704 Paul Wines helped to kick in the door of the warehouse and heard a sound like a freight train crashing through town. A blaze fueled by leather goods and other flammable materials burst through the opening in an instant, momentarily stunning Wines, then on his first big call with the all-volunteer Walton Community Fire Department [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-gutting-this-agency-amounts-to-playing-with-fire/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-unions-provide-a-counterweight-to-the-epstein-class/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-unions-provide-a-counterweight-to-the-epstein-class/#respond Tue, 23 Dec 2025 17:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292675 Gary Cunningham remembers sitting at the dining room table as a boy, listening to his father relate stories about his work as a union grievance chairman. One especially resonates with him today. A woman, sexually harassed by a manager, appealed to the union for help. Cunningham’s dad took careful note of her pain and distress. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-unions-provide-a-counterweight-to-the-epstein-class/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/portugals-general-strike/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/portugals-general-strike/#respond Tue, 23 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292694 December 11 saw a massive general strike in Portugal. This was not just a workplace dispute but a political strike, directed against the government’s planned labor reform. Trade unions widely see this as a devaluation of labor and a profound attack on labor rights — in short, a class offensive. The massive participation in the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/portugals-general-strike/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/global-complicity-who-kills-in-the-congo/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/global-complicity-who-kills-in-the-congo/#respond Tue, 23 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292689 In recent years, more people around the world have begun to encounter images of Congo’s suffering on their phones: a child emerging from a cobalt mine, a collapsed tunnel, families fleeing violence. Viral clips of displaced communities and reports of mass killings circulate across our screens. Yet even as this visibility grows, what remains almost [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/global-complicity-who-kills-in-the-congo/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mark-davison-slaps-retired-oregon-teamsters-with-31-out-of-pocket-medical-hikes-2-years-after-historic-ups-contract-so-what-went-wrong/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mark-davison-slaps-retired-oregon-teamsters-with-31-out-of-pocket-medical-hikes-2-years-after-historic-ups-contract-so-what-went-wrong/#respond Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:30:11 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292630 With less than a year before the next Teamsters general election; and less than two-and-half years since the catastrophic 2023 UPS-Teamsters agreement negotiated by Sean O’Brien was sold and ratified—the chickens have come home to roost. Ironically, the first casualty of the concessions filled deal has hit the state of Oregon which is home to [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mark-davison-slaps-retired-oregon-teamsters-with-31-out-of-pocket-medical-hikes-2-years-after-historic-ups-contract-so-what-went-wrong/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peddling-lord-ram-as-a-slick-commercial-acronym/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peddling-lord-ram-as-a-slick-commercial-acronym/#respond Mon, 22 Dec 2025 15:43:56 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292616 The revanchist government of the day was clearly canny enough to understand that removing Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the rural employment guarantee scheme (MGNREGA) which was an enforceable right-to-work budgeted endowment would be seen as an egregious enormity, a veritable red line even for compliant Hindu followers. So, they pressed into service the only entity that could [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peddling-lord-ram-as-a-slick-commercial-acronym/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/2025-in-review-stark-battle-lines-big-potential/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/2025-in-review-stark-battle-lines-big-potential/#respond Fri, 19 Dec 2025 14:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292523 Already before Donald Trump was inaugurated in January, there were dire omens. Poultry workers reported that their supervisors were using Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric to divide workers up—allowing white workers bathroom breaks but denying them to Hispanic workers. “The more people are afraid to organize, the more the bosses will take advantage to create worse working [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/2025-in-review-stark-battle-lines-big-potential/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/workers-in-germany-strike-at-avnet-usa/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/workers-in-germany-strike-at-avnet-usa/#respond Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292419 It is October 2025, and one room in southern Germany was in a rage. The discontent of workers over the loss of industry-wide collective bargaining had escalated at a local technology company. Workers at Avnet and Tria had been excluded from Germany’s traditional collective bargaining regime covering the entirety of the metal industry. Avnet’s management [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/workers-in-germany-strike-at-avnet-usa/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/seiu-california-sits-out-fight-against-classroom-censorship/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/seiu-california-sits-out-fight-against-classroom-censorship/#respond Mon, 15 Dec 2025 18:53:38 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292395 SEIU California routinely uses fighting words. Unfortunately, when was time to “stand up” and “fight back” against legislation that threatens the working conditions of tens of thousands of SEIU education workers, our union’s spirited rhetoric dissipated. SEIU California stood down. In the final days of the legislative session, AB 715, a dangerous censorship bill with broad [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/seiu-california-sits-out-fight-against-classroom-censorship/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/were-making-tax-the-rich-more-than-a-slogan/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/were-making-tax-the-rich-more-than-a-slogan/#respond Sun, 14 Dec 2025 17:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292361 Taxing the rich should bring a smile to your face. It certainly brings one to mine. Here’s what passing the Fair Share Amendment in Massachusetts allowed us to do, in just the first years since its passage in 2022: Offer free community college tuition to every resident (bringing a 40 percent increase in enrollment), free [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/were-making-tax-the-rich-more-than-a-slogan/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/labor-isnt-a-special-interest-it-promotes-the-common-good/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/labor-isnt-a-special-interest-it-promotes-the-common-good/#respond Sun, 14 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292359 Perhaps no one spends more time on Starbucks workers’ picket lines and helps turn away more Starbucks deliveries than Lenny Lamkin. The seventy-three-year-old retired government worker has been a force of nature during the strike by Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) at stores across Chicago. His heartfelt pleas (and occasional reprimands) have convinced countless would-be Starbucks [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/labor-isnt-a-special-interest-it-promotes-the-common-good/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/to-get-on-offense-offer-workers-many-ways-in/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/to-get-on-offense-offer-workers-many-ways-in/#respond Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292257 To fight back against authoritarianism and the billionaire takeover, the labor movement must get on offense. We must have our own agenda, set by rank-and-file members, rooted in the issues that members care most about—issues that unite us and build power. Maybe our agenda includes a starting wage of no less than $30 an hour, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/to-get-on-offense-offer-workers-many-ways-in/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/home-care-workers-are-losing-minimum-wage-protections-and-fighting-back/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/home-care-workers-are-losing-minimum-wage-protections-and-fighting-back/#respond Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:52:00 +0000 Three million care workers, many of them Black and Latina women, could be classified as “companions” instead of professionals. For more than two decades, Denise Lugo has worked as a home care worker in Fayetteville, North Carolina, caring for elderly clients in their homes. Workers like Lugo provide intimate care for seniors and people with disabilities [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/home-care-workers-are-losing-minimum-wage-protections-and-fighting-back/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/six-jobs-for-union-organizing-in-german-europe/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/six-jobs-for-union-organizing-in-german-europe/#respond Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:48:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292246 German trade unions, like any form of unionism, can be viewed from three political perspectives. From a unitarist viewpoint, trade unions are irrelevant – merely disturbing management’s self-appointed “right to manage.” Their demands are irrational, as workers and bosses supposedly share the same interests. Set against such hallucinations is the pluralist perspective, which sees trade [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/six-jobs-for-union-organizing-in-german-europe/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/get-on-the-job-and-organize-a-qa-with-jaz-brisack-2/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/get-on-the-job-and-organize-a-qa-with-jaz-brisack-2/#respond Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292207 After years and years of declining union density in America, the beginning of the 2020s felt like a sea change. Upstart labor campaigns notched huge wins at Amazon, public support for unions reached new heights, and new organizing election petitions with the National Labor Relations Board soared. Halfway through the decade though, the surge in [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/get-on-the-job-and-organize-a-qa-with-jaz-brisack-2/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-one-black-labor-union-changed-american-history/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-one-black-labor-union-changed-american-history/#respond Mon, 08 Dec 2025 21:22:40 +0000 The fact that the meeting was even happening was enough to produce an air of subversive excitement. On August 25, 1925, a century ago this year, black sleeping car porters hoping to form a union at the Pullman Company packed the room at the Elks Hall in Harlem. Though we’ll never know how many, Pullman [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-one-black-labor-union-changed-american-history/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/maybe-a-general-strike-isnt-so-impossible-now/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/maybe-a-general-strike-isnt-so-impossible-now/#respond Sun, 07 Dec 2025 15:53:04 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292119 Trump’s attacks on working people—threats to send troops into major U.S. cities, ripping collective bargaining rights from a million federal workers, an immigration enforcement terror campaign that borders on unconstitutional—have been so extreme that many people are talking about a general strike. These calls are coming not just from the usual suspects, but even from [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/maybe-a-general-strike-isnt-so-impossible-now/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/todays-labor-movement-needs-a-bigger-vision/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/todays-labor-movement-needs-a-bigger-vision/#respond Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:51:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292022 [This article is part of a Labor Notes roundtable series: How Can Unions Defend Worker Power Against Trump 2.0? We will be publishing more contributions here and in our magazine in the months ahead. Click here to read the rest of the series.—Editors] During the Cold War, many of the people with a radical vision [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/todays-labor-movement-needs-a-bigger-vision/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/social-strikes-can-general-strikes-mass-strikes-and-people-power-uprisings-provide-a-last-defense-against-maga-tyranny/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/social-strikes-can-general-strikes-mass-strikes-and-people-power-uprisings-provide-a-last-defense-against-maga-tyranny/#comments Fri, 05 Dec 2025 17:15:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291991 Jeremy Brecher is a co-founder and senior strategic advisor for the Labor Network forSustainability. He is the author of more than fifteen books on labor and social movements,including Strike! Common Preservation in a Time of Mutual Destruction, and The GreenNew Deal from Below. The mission of the Labor Network for Sustainability is to be a [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/social-strikes-can-general-strikes-mass-strikes-and-people-power-uprisings-provide-a-last-defense-against-maga-tyranny/feed/ 2 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/get-on-the-job-and-organize-a-qa-with-jaz-brisack/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/get-on-the-job-and-organize-a-qa-with-jaz-brisack/#respond Thu, 04 Dec 2025 16:53:00 +0000 After years and years of declining union density in America, the beginning of the 2020s felt like a sea change. Upstart labor campaigns notched huge wins at Amazon, public support for unions reached new heights, and new organizing election petitions with the National Labor Relations Board soared. Halfway through the decade though, the surge in [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/get-on-the-job-and-organize-a-qa-with-jaz-brisack/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/german-unions-and-the-working-poor/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/german-unions-and-the-working-poor/#respond Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:31:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291855 Ever since Shipler’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Working Poor: Invisible in America (2004), the term working poor has entered the realm beyond industrial sociology. Put rather simply, the working poor are workers whose income has fallen below the poverty line. They work but remain under the poverty threshold. They work but are poor – these are [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/german-unions-and-the-working-poor/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/towards-the-general-strike-in-portugal/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/towards-the-general-strike-in-portugal/#respond Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291875 The “Draft labour-law reform bill” (the so-called labour package) [1] is a set of more than one hundred regressive amendments to the Portuguese Labour Code presented by the Government of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the CDS – People’s Party (CDS-PP) [2], with the support of the Liberal Initiative (IL) and CHEGA, the far-right party. This package [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/towards-the-general-strike-in-portugal/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/donald-trump-union-buster/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/donald-trump-union-buster/#respond Mon, 01 Dec 2025 17:18:08 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291837 Although President Donald Trump has claimed that “every policy” of his administration was “designed to lift up the American worker,” he has acted consistently, since returning to office in January 2025, to undermine workers’ chosen representatives, America’s labor unions. The most flagrant Trump action along these lines occurred in March 2025, when he issued an [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/donald-trump-union-buster/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/global-black-friday-strikes-against-amazon-target-techno-authoritarian-assault-on-workers/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/global-black-friday-strikes-against-amazon-target-techno-authoritarian-assault-on-workers/#respond Sat, 29 Nov 2025 15:50:50 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291772 Amazon workers and their allies worldwide took to the streets on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, to protest the e-commerce behemoth’s exploitation of workers, relentless union-busting, contributions to the worsening climate emergency, and plans to replace employees en masse with robots. “Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and their political allies are betting on a techno-authoritarian future, but this Make Amazon Pay [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/global-black-friday-strikes-against-amazon-target-techno-authoritarian-assault-on-workers/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/the-afl-cio-and-venezuela-a-history-of-subversion-and-counter-revolution/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/the-afl-cio-and-venezuela-a-history-of-subversion-and-counter-revolution/#respond Fri, 28 Nov 2025 18:03:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1291752 The threat of another US invasion of Venezuela is on the agenda under the fascist Trump government and this panel looks at that as well as the history of the AFL-CIO and US labor in supporting US imperialist interests in controlling the country’s wealth for US profits. The panel was hosted by Alex Wise and was sponsored [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/the-afl-cio-and-venezuela-a-history-of-subversion-and-counter-revolution/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/starbucks-ignores-worker-demands-at-its-peril/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/starbucks-ignores-worker-demands-at-its-peril/#respond Thu, 27 Nov 2025 18:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291697 Baristas have launched the largest strike in their company’s history and are standing firm until their demands are met. Thousands of baristas at nearly 100 Starbucks locations are on strike this holiday season, picketing outside the iconic cafes for a contract. While the corporate coffee chain has claimed little to no disruption to its bottom line so far, the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/starbucks-ignores-worker-demands-at-its-peril/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/salt-the-earth/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/salt-the-earth/#respond Wed, 26 Nov 2025 16:02:00 +0000 The year is 2019. Tens of millions across the globe pour into the streets, demanding governments halt new fossil fuel infrastructure and pass policy that puts humanity on a path toward a relatively climate-safe world of 1.5 degrees Celsius worth of warming by 2100, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/salt-the-earth/feed/ 0