The UAW Puts Tesla on Notice
After securing historic deals with the Big Three automakers, the UAW is continuing to go on the offensive.
Alex N. Press is a staff writer at Jacobin who covers labor organizing.
After securing historic deals with the Big Three automakers, the UAW is continuing to go on the offensive.
A thousand contingent faculty at NYU, who have long worked without union contract protections, have struck an agreement with the university to hold union elections. We talked to faculty about the organizing drive and what they hope to get out of a contract.
Last year’s catastrophic East Palestine train derailment has spurred calls from a rank-and-file labor group for public ownership of rail infrastructure. We spoke to an expert about what that could look like in the US, which is dominated by for-profit rail.
A new report details how Islamophobia fuels conflations of criticism of Israel with antisemitism. We spoke with one of the report’s authors about the slanderous attempts to muzzle supporters of Palestinian rights.
From logistics to Hollywood to higher ed to auto, 2023 saw a promising upsurge in US labor militancy. Unions must seize this historic opening to reverse decades of decline.
More than half a million workers in the US went on strike this year, winning gains not only for themselves but for nonunion workers too. While there’s much more work to be done, 2023 was a year when the working class punched back at the capitalist class.
As I covered the Hollywood strike this year, perhaps the best guide was a 1941 novel by a former Communist Party member about the dog-eat-dog scumbaggery of movie executives and the lying and artless bragging that Hollywood runs on.
A Teamster organizer reflects on 2023, a year of labor upsurge: “Corporate America, you’re on notice — we’re not fucking around.”
From launching a historic strike at the Big Three automakers to calling for a cease-fire in the war on Gaza, the UAW has had a big year. And 2024 might be even bigger: the union is pushing to organize 150,000 workers at nonunion automakers across the US.
After a 118-day strike, 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members are voting on whether to ratify a new agreement. AI has emerged as the key source of division, with some members unsatisfied that a ban wasn’t on the table.
Unions in the US have a long history of supporting Israel and suppressing rank-and-file solidarity with Palestine. Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, and the targeting of US workers who oppose it, is starting to change that.
After securing historic deals with the Big Three automakers, the UAW is continuing to go on the offensive. It has set its sights on nonunion automakers, from Toyota and Hyundai in the South to Tesla in California.
Director, musician, and organizer Boots Riley puts class struggle front and center in all his work. He spoke with Jacobin about this year’s entertainment industry strikes, Israel’s war on Gaza, and how to jam radical politics through the Hollywood pipeline.
After six weeks on strike, the UAW has secured tentative agreements with all of the Big Three automakers, including apparent wins on everything from pay and tiers to reopening an idled plant. The deals will soon go to the membership for a ratification vote.
Last night Artforum fired its editor after he published a letter from artists calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. It’s just the latest instance of the magazine’s corporate owner, Penske Media, quashing editorial independence and siding with the rich.
Forty-one days into its strike against the Big Three automakers, the UAW has reached a tentative agreement with Ford. Union leaders are calling it a major victory, but workers will have the final say about whether to accept the deal.
This morning, the United Auto Workers added GM’s largest plant to its strike, just one day after calling on workers at Stellantis’s most profitable plant to walk out. The UAW is turning up the pressure, with 45,000 autoworkers now on strike.
In his new special taking on Amazon, prankster Oobah Butler gets a job at a fulfillment center, films the brutal working conditions, and sells a drink made of Amazon drivers’ pee on the company’s platform. Amazon isn’t happy with his work.
After Hollywood writers ratified a contract earlier this month, it seemed that striking actors might get a deal soon, too. But the studio bosses are still playing hardball, and actors continue to press for a better deal on residuals and the use of AI.
Will average entertainment workers be able to eke out a living in an industry awash in cash, or will studio executives use new tech like AI to gobble it all up?