Jenny Brown is an assistant editor at Labor Notes. She is author of Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight Over Women's Work. Her latest book is Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now.
In 2023, half a million workers, including machinists, teachers, baristas, nurses, hotel housekeepers, actors, screenwriters, and autoworkers, went on strike and won. Their historic gains underscore the momentum of a rising reform movement in US unions.
Union flight attendants at American Airlines recently delivered a strike authorization vote of 99%, with 93% turnout. The staggering total was the result of not only a membership itching to walk out but a campaign that engaged rank-and-file members.
Organizing workplaces like Amazon with enormous turnover is a steep challenge. But workers there and elsewhere are experimenting with different tactics to unionize despite the churn.
A Queens Starbucks worker was one of many across the country fired in retaliation for union organizing. Thanks to NYC laws that require due process for firing fast-food workers, he was reinstated.
The American labor movement remains weak. But from the sweeping Starbucks unionization drive to UAW reformers’ successful bid for union leadership, there were serious glimmers of hope in 2022 for a stronger, more assertive labor movement.
One reason the corporate elite has an interest in antiabortion policies is because they hope to lower the price of labor — the labor of bearing and rearing children.
Since the turn of the 19th century, crackdowns on women’s reproductive rights have come in cycles. The attack isn’t only about controlling women but about pushing up the birth rate to suit capital’s needs.
A leaked SCOTUS decision draft suggests the court is planning to overturn Roe v. Wade, permitting states to ban abortion. The response from Democrats should be obvious: skirt the Supreme Court and demand federal legislation codifying the right to abortion.
Abortion rights shouldn’t be at the mercy of the judiciary. We need federal legislation codifying Roe v. Wade — and Democrats need to buck up and eliminate the filibuster to pass it.
The Supreme Court is useless. Now is the perfect time for feminists to campaign to end the filibuster and pass a federal law codifying abortion rights.
The Supreme Court’s abortion rights decision yesterday provides a brief respite to women across the South. But we’re still playing defense in the courts. Our offensive should be in the streets.
The news broke this week that Jane Roe, the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, was paid by the anti-abortion right to publicly switch sides later in life. But while the news is shocking, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that no single person was responsible for the partial victory of Roe — it takes collective action to win social change.
Texas and Ohio have ordered a stop to abortions, saying they’re not essential medical services. Other states will follow. Right-wing forces are using the pandemic as a pretext to crack down dramatically on abortion rights. We can’t let them.
After years of retreat, we need to reject the approach of conservative NGOs and fight for abortion without apology.
Abortion isn’t a “cultural” issue. The production of children, and who will pay for it, is a key economic battlefront.
With meager public support for parents, US women are having fewer children than ever. Raising the next generation is work — and American women seem to be on strike.
Feminists have been pushing for years to repeal the Hyde Amendment. But we should think even bigger: Medicare for All.
In the United States, women face the prospect of becoming mothers without necessary social protections. Many decide it’s not worth the risk.
Why feminists are calling for a national women’s strike during Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The demand for abortion has had the most success when it’s been free of preemptive compromise.