Help Us Stay Paywall-Free

Democracy depends on the free exchange of ideas. Help sustain it with a tax-deductible donation today.

The Labor of Politics

Union wins, climate organizing, sex worker struggles, and more.

Join our newsletter to get our weekly, editor-selected reading lists delivered straight to your inbox.

This Labor Day, workers in the United States have a lot to celebrate, a lot to lament—and a lot more work to do. This week’s reading list examines recent union victories, enduring obstacles to organizing, the global and domestic forces shaping the world of work, and strategies for winning better jobs, higher wages, and dignity for all.

Lessons from the new alliances between labor and climate activism.

Erik Loomis

Following the agave trade exposes the roots of solidarity across empires.

Michelle Ha

New local labor laws aim to end worker exploitation. Can bureaucrats serve that vision?

Hana Shepherd, Janice Fine

The Israel-India worker deal resembles British indenture.

Paula Chakravartty, Michelle Buckley

The post-work movement reckons with reproductive labor.

Rachel Fraser

In Rules to Win By, Jane McAlevey and Abby Lawlor reject backroom dealmaking. Rank-and-file workers are going even further.

Ege Yumuşak

Workers will benefit from technology when they control how it’s used.

Brishen Rogers

And what today’s organizers can learn from them.

Charisse Burden-Stelly, Jodi Dean

Sex workers are labor's vanguard.

Heather Berg

How a new class of “salts”—radicals who take jobs to help unionization—is boosting the organizing efforts of long-term workers.

Mie Inouye

Recent union drives point the way to more effective action against corporate power.

Erica Smiley, Harmony Goldberg

How new approaches to worker organizing are finding success.

Joseph A. McCartin, Stephen Lerner, Sarita Gupta

FDR’s labor secretary had a vision for forward-looking labor and employment policy.

Thomas A. Kochan

A rights-based movement is the only way to save labor.

Most Recent

Introducing our Winter 2025 issue.

Boston Review

The problem is no longer “money in politics.” It’s just money.

Mark Schmitt

Our contributors have seen this moment coming. But we need your support to continue covering it.

Deborah Chasman

Subscribe to our newsletter

Newsletter subscribers get our latest essays, archival selections, reading lists, and exclusive editorial content.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Newsletter subscribers get our latest essays, archival selections, reading lists, and exclusive editorial content.