Contributing Writers

After a year of layoffs, cuts and austerity, the faculty and staff of four unions at Rutgers University have voted in support of an unusual and pioneering agreement to protect jobs and guarantee raises after the school declared a fiscal emergency as a result of the pandemic. A key part of the deal is an agreement by the professors to do “work share” and take a slight cut in hours for a few months in order to save the jobs of other lower-paid workers.

As the first anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd approaches, we speak with author and journalist Victoria Law, who says despite the mass movement to fight systemic racism sparked by Floyd’s death, persistent myths about policing, incarceration and the criminal justice system still hinder reform.

This week at the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, numerous members of the Minneapolis Police Department have taken the stand and testified that Chauvin violated policy by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine-and-a-half minutes, and the emergency room doctor who tried to save Floyd’s life said his chances of living would have been higher if CPR had been administered sooner.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 53 years ago, on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 39. While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor, organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice, and was a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War.

We speak with economist Darrick Hamilton, founding director of the Institute on Race and Political Economy at The New School, about how U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is calling for a minimum global corporate income tax to help pay for President Joe Biden’s proposed $2.25 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan, aimed in part at combating the climate crisis and addressing racial inequities in housing and transportation.

We look at pandemic profiteering in the medical system as a new report by Kaiser Health News reveals some of the nation’s richest hospitals recorded hundreds of millions of dollars in surplus over the past year after accepting federal healthcare bailout grants.

More than a year into the pandemic and the economic crisis it generated, many workers continue to be excluded from receiving any government relief. These excluded workers include undocumented people — many of them in essential services — and people recently released from prison. Hundreds of essential workers across New York are leading marches and hunger strikes to demand lawmakers support a $3.

As the number of COVID-19 cases surges in Brazil, the country is also facing a major crisis on the political front. The heads of Brazil’s Army, Navy and Air Force all quit in an unprecedented move, a day after far-right President Jair Bolsonaro ousted his defense minister as part of a broader Cabinet shake-up.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 53 years ago, on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 39. While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor, organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice, and was a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War.

We get an update on how the Ethiopian government has announced Eritrean forces are withdrawing from the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, where harrowing witness accounts have emerged of Eritrean soldiers killing Tigrayan men and boys and rape being used as weapon of war by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. Eritrea entered the Tigray region to support Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s military offensive in November targeting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.

We look at the urgent push to ensure equal access to COVID-19 vaccines for all nations, rich and poor, and growing calls for Big Pharma to waive their patent rights, as COVID-19 cases soar in India and the Modi government has suspended exports of coronavirus vaccines to many of the world’s poorest countries that depend on AstraZeneca vaccines it produces.

As the number of COVID-19 cases surges in Brazil, the country is also facing a major crisis on the political front. The heads of Brazil’s Army, Navy and Air Force all quit in an unprecedented move, a day after far-right President Jair Bolsonaro ousted his defense minister as part of a broader Cabinet shake-up.

Protesters in Portland, Oregon, took to the streets for more than three straight months following the police killing of George Floyd. In July, former President Donald Trump threatened to jail protesters for 10 years for damaging federal buildings in Portland. But months later he praised right-wing insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol. Trump’s actions were “absolutely abhorrent,” says Oregon Governor Kate Brown.

As Republican lawmakers across the U.S. move to make it harder for voters to cast ballots by mail, we look at Oregon’s long history of vote-by-mail.

Activists are demanding accountability from Georgia-based companies in opposing a law that heavily restricts voting rights in the state, which many are calling the worst voter suppression legislation since the Jim Crow era. While some companies, including Coca-Cola and Delta, have weighed in on the Republican-backed crackdown on voting rights, Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter, says voicing opposition is not enough.