How Labor Advocates Pushed the Democratic Party Left
The cultural-political influence of unions is rising even as membership declines.
Fall 2025
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Gulf Dreams for Justice: From Rescue to Solidarity
The Gulf countries’ migrant labor regime is brutal. But calling it “slavery” obscures what is really a highly modern system of exploitation—and the struggles of workers themselves to change it.
Belabored Podcast #96: Sick of Austerity in Detroit and Flint
Joel Berger, a second-generation Detroit public school teacher, talks about teacher protests over the city’s dilapidated schools and the water crisis in Flint.
Belabored Podcast #95: Campaigning for Families with Ellen Bravo
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have both announced plans to give workers paid family leave. Ellen Bravo of Family Values @ Work joins us to explain how this policy became central to both candidates’ campaigns.
Belabored Podcast #94: Disrupting Uber
New legislation in Seattle could pave the way for Uber drivers to unionize. We explore the legal and political road ahead with Rebecca Smith of the National Employment Law Project and Takele Gobena of the App-Based Drivers Association.
Gutting Public Unions
Attacks on public-sector unions are setbacks not just for organized labor but for anyone who believes the state should ensure access to basic social needs.
Belabored Podcast #93: The Good, The Bad, and the Hopeful
A look back at year’s best and worst moments for labor, and what there is to look forward to in 2016, for workers from China to Chicago and everywhere in between.
What Should Unions Do Now?
For U.S. labor, this is a moment of great peril but also great potential, unmatched since the New Deal era.
Collective Bargaining 3.0
In addition to reimagining who workers bargain with, we must expand what they bargain for. Public sector unions often address similar issues at the bargaining table that community organizations tackle legislatively.
Labor Needs New Ideas
Labor needs to argue more. Unions always need solidarity, but it should not be the solidarity of the stolid and defeated.
How a Group of Migrants Fought for $15 and Worker Power—And Won
“You feel free—you feel this is your business,” says trafficking survivor Judith Daluz of the cleaning cooperative where she is now a worker-owner.
Beyond the Polluters
Bernie Sanders’s climate plan offers a welcome alternative to the vagueness of the Paris Agreement. But to win over a broader public, a leftist climate agenda will require a vision of a “just transition” that goes beyond our energy system.
Belabored Podcast #92: Don’t Mourn, Organize!
A celebration of pioneering union activist and radical troubadour Joe Hill.
The High Toll of Fast Fashion
The True Cost vividly documents the labor and environmental cost of our cheap clothes. The challenge it poses is direct: how can we stop this? But a deeper question remains: which “we”?
Belabored Podcast #91: Fasting for $15 and Full-Time
This Black Friday, Walmart workers and their allies have undertaken a “Fast for $15.” Belabored spoke with Dan Schlademan, co-director of OUR Walmart, and Tyfani Faulkner, who was in the middle of her fifteen days without food.
