Category: Labor and labor unions

South Africa’s kleptocracy: the end is nigh for ANC?

     

As South Africa’s labor unions prepare mass protests against state capture and corruption, the country’s troubled democracy faces the prospect of “more kleptocracy, more division, fewer reforms and a path… Read more »

UN General Assembly a crucial opportunity to reassert democracy-based soft power

     

This week’s United Nations General Assembly is a crucial opportunity to reassure the world that U.S. foreign policy is based primarily on the soft power of diplomacy rather than military… Read more »

Democracy in crisis – and prospects for renewal

     

With the advent of authoritarian leaders and the simultaneous rise of populism, representative democracy appears to be caught between a rock and a hard place, yet it is this space… Read more »

Solidarity founder Walesa fears for Poland – and Europe’s ‘flawed’ democracies

     

Almost four decades have passed since Lech Walesa faced down the communist regime at the Gdansk shipyard, and he says his fears of a backlash are now a reality in the… Read more »

Schools of democracy: labor unions mobilize against authoritarian regimes, for basic rights

     

Reports that the Philippines’ labor movement is beginning to mobilize against President Rodrigo Duterte’s authoritarian regime are a timely reminder that unions are often in the forefront of actions to… Read more »

Why would labor honor Cuba’s denial of worker rights?

     

Most leaders of the American labor movement understood communism to be a “uniquely dangerous enemy of free trade unionism,” writes Arch Puddington in his sterling biography of Lane Kirkland, the… Read more »

Labor rights deteriorate, democracy diminished

     

Democratic institutions deteriorate when labor rights diminish, research suggests. Similarly, unions serve as what Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam calls “schools for democracy” and also tend to enhance democratization. In which… Read more »

How Africa’s unions enhance democratization

     

Trade unions in Africa contribute to democratization by acting as instruments of political socialization for their members, according to new research. Survey data from 22,000 respondents in 18 African countries… Read more »

Domino Effect: The AFL-CIO And The End Of Communism

     

Poland was indeed an element in the political strategy of the Reagan administration as part of the destabilization of the Soviet empire (at least during President Reagan’s first term), notes… Read more »

Iran – one of the world’s worst countries for workers

     

Iranian women confront an array of restrictions, such as on their ability to travel, prohibitions on entering certain jobs, and an absence of basic legal protections, Human Rights Watch said in… Read more »