Pro-democracy activism in China takes many forms. For longtime labor activist Han Dongfang, it starts on the shop floor. In this Belabored bonus edition, the veteran of the Tiananmen Square uprising and director of China Labour Bulletin discusses his vision for social change in China, and the promise and the peril of labor organizing in the engine of global capitalism.
For Dissentniks, 2014 was a year of small miracles and stubborn injustices. Thousands of workers demonstrated for a $15-an-hour wage, but a party that hopes to destroy unions won control of both houses of Congress. Marriage equality became law in a …
A case study in the strange alchemy of disruption and sacrifice.
As protests continue to grow nationwide under the banner “Black Lives Matter,” Belabored talks to two workers about how their struggle connects to today’s racial justice movement. We also talk to three graduate student organizers and discuss a new retail workers’ bill of rights, bad news from the Supreme Court, the secret lives of airport workers, and more.
From the Gilded Age to the new Gilded Age, the lesson stays the same: charity is no solution to poverty and inequality.
Earlier this year, information scientist Simon DeDeo argued in the science magazine Nautilus that British society has slowly transitioned from one in which theft was a crime equal to or worse than murder into one in which murder and other violent …
To the editor: Jonah Raskin’s review of my collection of Mario Savio’s speeches and writings from 1964, The Essential Mario Savio, demonstrates that he does not understand even the fundamentals of Savio’s political history. Raskin’s argument that Savio did not …
The #FergusonSyllabus has organized a disparate population of scholars and students into a virtual movement using Ferguson to frame how struggle has shaped American history.
For Black Friday, Belabored talks to a Walmart labor activist and learns about a recent investigation into Walmart’s tax dodging. Plus: Ferguson #NotOneDime boycott, Obama’s executive action on immigration, the port truckers’ strike, and more.
On Thursday, November 13, port truckers struck at the nation’s largest ports, Los Angeles and Long Beach, demanding an end to misclassification and wage theft. It was the fourth strike in a campaign initiated by the Teamsters and Change to …
The comics and cartoons of Nick Thorkelson have appeared in labor and community organizing materials and the Boston Globe as well as, most recently, a series of nonfiction comics anthologies including Yiddishkeit, Radical Jesus, and Bohemians. He gratefully acknowledges the …
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, I think Sherrod Brown should run for president. I know that, barring a debilitating health problem or a horrible scandal, Hillary Clinton is likely to capture the Democratic nomination. I realize too that Brown, …
Belabored talked to Michael Mulholland, president of the utilities union AFSCME Local 207 in Detroit, about last week’s financial deal, the impact on union workers, and the political forces driving what he calls a manufactured financial crisis.
Buzz by Benjamin Kunkel Directed by Lian Walden Gemini & Scorpio Loft, Brooklyn, NY Bodies in mock hazmat suits unpack a faux Gowanus loft apartment in which everything is white, while you sit on a brown couch chatting with a …
Cross-posted from Waging Nonviolence. On November 9, 1989—twenty-five years ago—huge crowds of East Germans descended on the Berlin Wall. The restless citizens were responding to an announcement by authorities suggesting that the government would loosen travel restrictions. In truth, those …
