Articles by: Kim Scipes

The Union Makes Us Strong: Understanding Trade Unionism in a Global Context

The Union Makes Us Strong: Understanding Trade Unionism in a Global Context

One of the encouraging things this long-time labor activist has been watching over the past several years is the emerging development of unions across the world and in the United States.  We’re hearing about new organizing efforts in Argentina, China, Iran, Mexico, South Africa, Vietnam, and other places, including the United States.  And while I’m aware of the global context,[Read More…]

by 03/12/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Labor Activists Launch New Organization to Challenge AFL-CIO Foreign Policy

Labor Activists Launch New Organization to Challenge AFL-CIO Foreign Policy

Labor activists from across the country, members of a number of unions, publicly announced the creation of LEPAIO, the Labor Education Project on the AFL-CIO International Operations, over the weekend of April 9-10.  They held a press conference outside of AFL-CIO Headquarters on 16th Street in Washington, DC on April 8th, and followed with a four hour educational conference at[Read More…]

by 05/06/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Dying for an iPhone

Dying for an iPhone

Dying for an iPhone:  Apple, Foxconn, and the Lives of China’s Workers By Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai Chicago:  Haymarket Books, 2020 ISBN: 978-1-64259-124-8 Paperback Like many of you, I use an iPhone.  It is a technological wonder and allows me to do things unimaginable even a few years ago; it has more computer power than NASA had[Read More…]

by 27/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Cuban Health Care:  The Ongoing Revolution by Don Fitz

Cuban Health Care:  The Ongoing Revolution by Don Fitz

Cuban Health Care:  The Ongoing Revolution by Don Fitz Monthly Review Press, 2020 ISBN:  978-158367-860-2 (paper) –Reviewed by Kim Scipes   Don Fitz has written a fascinating account of the development of the Cuban health care system.  Placing developments in their historical context—and emphasizing Cuban internationalism throughout—Fitz has illuminated how the Cubans have developed a health care system that is[Read More…]

by 18/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The AFL-CIO’s Foreign Policy Program:    Where Historians Now Stand

The AFL-CIO’s Foreign Policy Program:    Where Historians Now Stand

Moving from being an area of study that had received only minimal and sporadic academic attention prior to 2010, the study of AFL/AFL-CIO foreign policy and operations (hereafter, critical US labor foreign policy studies) has taken a qualitative leap in garnering academic attention over the past ten years:  this foreign policy program is increasingly being seen as an important component[Read More…]

by 01/11/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Honor the Warrior, Not the War…

Honor the Warrior, Not the War…

Donald Trump has just gotten caught saying those who served, and especially those who died in combat, were “losers” and “suckers.”  Not a terribly astute thing to say when you’re the Command-in-Chief of the US Empire. Now, obviously, the men and women who have served in this nation’s military have not been losers and suckers; while some have been folks[Read More…]

by 17/10/2020 1 comment World
A Message To Students In Times of COVID-19

A Message To Students In Times of COVID-19

Dear Folks– [This message is going out to students in my Purdue Northwest University(PNW) courses this semester] I hope each of you are safe and well. I want to say hello and touch base with each of you. I am sharing some very serious information below.  Please read.  I do this to get your attention, but not to cause you[Read More…]

by 20/03/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Is it Time for a New Labor Center in the United States?

Is it Time for a New Labor Center in the United States?

The failures of the labor movement in the US are legion over the past 40 years.  It’s not needed to repeat the failures nor the efforts to revitalize the labor movement, most of the latter which have been unsuccessful to date.  (For the best compilation of writings on these and related issues, while not complete, please see the “Contemporary Labor Issues” bibliography,[Read More…]

by 20/02/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Film on the CIA “On Company Business”

Film on the CIA “On Company Business”

There is a new version of a 1980 film on the CIA called “On Company Business” that is now posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyRUlnSayQE . It is a history of the CIA told by men and one woman who have worked for the CIA, and later turned against the CIA. There is a lot of amazing real-time video included. I have heard[Read More…]

by 30/09/2018 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Zinnophobia:  The Battle over History in Education, Politics and Scholarship by David Detmer

Zinnophobia:  The Battle over History in Education, Politics and Scholarship by David Detmer

Zinnophobia:  The Battle over History in Education, Politics and Scholarship by David DetmerWashington, DC:  Zero Books, 2018.  ISBN: 978-1-78535-678-0 (pbk) It is rare to get an intelligent, well-sourced and coherent discussion of issuestodaysuch as the role of history in education, politics and scholarship, but David Detmer of Purdue University Northwest has provided such with this book.  Detmer has very carefully[Read More…]

by 20/08/2018 2 comments Book Review
Observations from a Week in the Philippines, July 21-27, 2018, and Possible Ramifications

Observations from a Week in the Philippines, July 21-27, 2018, and Possible Ramifications

The news from the Philippines has been horrific over the last couple of years, especially worsening since the installation into office of President Rodrigo Duterte in July 2016.  Duterte, initially seen as a progressive hope, instead initiated a “War on Drugs,” in which somewhere over 20,000 people–some as young as 14–have been killed.  Jerome Adonis, Secretary General of the Kilusang[Read More…]

by 05/08/2018 1 comment World
“Practical Utopia: Strategies for a Desirable Society” by Michael Albert: A Review Essay

“Practical Utopia: Strategies for a Desirable Society” by Michael Albert: A Review Essay

This is an important book.  It’s important because it asks questions that rarely if ever get asked, and it tries to provide coherent answers to them.  However, whether you agree or not with Michael Albert’s answers, engaging with this book will help each of us further think out what we want to see in the future.  For as Noam Chomsky[Read More…]

by 17/07/2018 1 comment Book Review
The Epic Failure of Labor Leadership In The United States, 1980-2017 And Continuing

The Epic Failure of Labor Leadership In The United States, 1980-2017 And Continuing

  The US labor movement is in terrible shape; in 2016, union membership was only 6.4 percent of workers in the private sector, and 34.4 percent of the public sector, giving an overall percentage of 10.7 percent.[1](It had been 33.4 percent in 1954.)  But, worse than the actual numbers and percentages is the all-but-total lack of vision as to what[Read More…]

by 05/08/2017 4 comments World
Review: Black Subjugation in America

Review: Black Subjugation in America

Books Reviewed in this Essay: Theodore W. Allen, The Invention of the White Race. London and New York: Verso, 2012. Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. New York: Basic Books, 2014. Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015. On a recent visit to[Read More…]

by 20/04/2017 1 comment Book Review
A Bold, ‘Outside The Box’ Suggestion For Addressing Climate Change

A Bold, ‘Outside The Box’ Suggestion For Addressing Climate Change

Are you confused about climate change/global warming: is it real, or is it fake news? And if it is real, what can be done about it? I have just published (April 2017) a peer-reviewed article on this subject and what we can do about it in the (relatively new) journal “Class, Race and Corporate Power” on this very subject, and[Read More…]

by 03/04/2017 3 comments Climate Change, Video
Strategic Thinking And Organizing Resistance

Strategic Thinking And Organizing Resistance

The first few weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency has seen an amazing explosion of mobilizing to oppose him and his administration on oh-so-many levels.  And that has been heartening. But it is not enough. The fact is, as things now stand, Trump and his minions can outlast us.  And even if we get Trump out of there—which I think is[Read More…]

by 21/02/2017 1 comment World
The movie Salt of the Earth made a comeback by the 1970s after it was banned in the United States during the 1950s and into the 1960s...

Reflections On The Movie ‘Salt Of The Earth’ And A 1999 Book Titled The Suppression Of Salt Of The Earth by James J. Lorence …

As a university professor and a white male, I teach a course on “Race and Ethnic Diversity,” and have taught over 40 semesters of this course over the past 12 ½ years in rural Indiana. While looking at a number of white ethnic groups as well as a number of ethnic groups of color in the course — I argue[Read More…]

by 26/01/2017 1 comment Arts/Literature
Suggestion For Addressing Climate Change And Other Forms Of Environmental Destruction

Suggestion For Addressing Climate Change And Other Forms Of Environmental Destruction

During the Apollo 13 space flight in 1970, US astronaut Jack Swigert spoke to the command center in Houston, Texas, indicating a “slight problem” for the three astronauts—actually their lives were in jeopardy—and although changed somewhat for a movie, it is used here as an understated response to a severe situation.  It is argued here, likewise, that we face a[Read More…]

by 13/12/2016 3 comments Counter Solutions
Reflections On The “Apocalypse”

Reflections On The “Apocalypse”

It’s the morning after Trump’s election. I watched the election until about 2 am, Eastern time, so I knew he was going to win. Already early this morning, my friend, Karen, has called to talk—she’s an African American with a 22-year old son, and she’s scared: and this is not someone who scares easily. My daughter messaged me from The[Read More…]

by 11/11/2016 4 comments World
For Those Who Know Little or Nothing About Labor: Building Global Labor Solidarity Today

For Those Who Know Little or Nothing About Labor: Building Global Labor Solidarity Today

Earlier this year, a collection of papers was published under the title of Building Global Labor Solidarity in a Time of Accelerating Globalization (Scipes, ed., 2016).  It was a strong effort by seven labor activists and scholars from different parts of the world to think out how workers today can support each other globally; initially so as to defend against[Read More…]

by 14/07/2016 1 comment Globalisation