Tag: labour matters

How did Australia’s university system get so broken?

Widespread precarity has facilitated a culture of illegal underpayment, with more than $80m in underpayments since 2020 across public universities, according to the National Tertiary Education Union’s wage theft report Jeff Sparrow On Monday, unionised workers at the University of Melbourne (where I teach) will go on strike. In the faculty of arts, the Melbourne law school, student… Read More How did Australia’s university system get so broken?

Dilip

China’s recent economic woes suggest there is something seriously amiss

Underlying longer-term weaknesses in the economy are bound up with Beijing’s repressive political system George Magnus At a Politburo meeting last month, China’s leaders referred to the economic recovery this year as “torturous”. You won’t often hear such candour coming from a Chinese Communist party institution, let alone such an elevated body. They were referring… Read More China’s recent economic woes suggest there is something seriously amiss

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The deadly intersection of labor exploitation and climate change

Neither the corporate media nor our politicians who are beholden to corporate lobbyists honestly address the common root causes of (and solutions to) worker exploitation and climate change. Sonali Kolhatkar As temperatures soar in the United States this summer, some among us are lucky enough to be able to remain in air-conditioned interior spaces, ordering… Read More The deadly intersection of labor exploitation and climate change

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MKSS Statement on Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare Act), 2023

After the passage of the historic Rajasthan Minimum Guaranteed Income Law on 22nd July 2023, we write to you to share yet another significant development from the State. The Rajasthan Assembly has passed the Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare Act), 2023. In yet another series of firsts, this has become the first… Read More MKSS Statement on Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare Act), 2023

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CADTM-Newsletter: Indian labourers, France’s mobilisations, Illegitimate debts, Vulture funds…

NB: This is an excellent portal for regular political/economic commentary on world affairs. This one has many essays on South Asia. The generalised implosion of political institutions is a symptom of the endemic unsustainability of global capitalism. Unfortunately this state of affairs will continue (ie the ruling establishments will carry on with their ‘austerity economics’; violent… Read More CADTM-Newsletter: Indian labourers, France’s mobilisations, Illegitimate debts, Vulture funds…

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May 1968 – March 2023!

by Yorgos Mitralias At a time when those who declare, even among the French elites (!), that we are witnessing the emergence of a “new May 68” are multiplying, while noting that in the country now reigns …. “an insurrectional atmosphere”, one can now reasonably ask: to what extent does March 2023 resemble May 1968? [1]… Read More May 1968 – March 2023!

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In Largest May Day Turnout Since Pandemic, Workers Around the World March for Better Conditions

By Olivia Rosane / Common Dreams Workers from Japan to France took to the street on Monday for the largest May Day demonstrations since Covid-19 restrictions pushed people inside three years ago. Marchers expressed frustration with both their nations’ policies—such as French President Emmanuel Macron’s raising of the retirement age in March—and global issues like the rising cost… Read More In Largest May Day Turnout Since Pandemic, Workers Around the World March for Better Conditions

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Alessandra Mezzadri: Informal labour, the majority world and the need for inclusive theories and politics

First posted June 28, 2019. Reposted in memory of MayDay The majority of people on this planet labour in the informal economy, or are subject to labour relations that are greatly informalised. According to the International Labour Oganisation, 85.8% of total employment in Africa, 71.4% in Asia and the Pacific, 68.6% in the Arab States… Read More Alessandra Mezzadri: Informal labour, the majority world and the need for inclusive theories and politics

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Harry Belafonte’s staggering musical and screen career

Harry Belafonte obituary NB: He sang songs of plantation workers in the Caribbean, I remember hearing them through my childhood. What a great man. RIP Harry Belafonte (1927-2023) Harry Belafonte in a recording studio in the late 1950s. Photograph: Pictorial Parade/Getty Images Day O! The Banana boat song Day-o, day-oDaylight come and we want go homeDay,… Read More Harry Belafonte’s staggering musical and screen career

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“Hurrah for the Time Man!” Tribute to David Montgomery (1927-2011)

The labor historians of the 1960s were born into the culture of unity forged in the working-class movement’s classical phase, between 1890 and 1945. In one form or another, they told the story of this era, not realizing how radically it might come undone. Gabriel Winant Labor’s Mind: A History of Working-Class Intellectual Lifeby Tobias… Read More “Hurrah for the Time Man!” Tribute to David Montgomery (1927-2011)

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