A New Debs For a New Era
The tagline “Before Bernie Sanders, before Zohran Mamdani, America’s favorite socialist was Eugene Debs” adorns the back flap of Shawn Gude’s American Socialist. It’s an obvious hook to entice the double-digit percentage of socialist-curious voters turning up in surveys, but it actually sells its subject—who was so much more than a perennial political candidate—short.
Mamdani’s Labor Policy Worsens Inequality
Walking my kids to their first day of school brought the unwelcome news that PS 45, on Staten Island, is down to two crossing guards. We used to have (and still need) four. This is a system-wide problem, as the city reports nearly 200 unfilled posts, even after former Mayor Eric Adams cut 500 vacant crossing guard lines as a budget gimmick in 2024.
Crossing guards’ pay starts $18 an hour. One reason why the pay barely exceeds minimum wage is the Office of Labor Relations’ strict policy of pattern bargaining over wages across city agencies, in which the first union to settle a contract with the city — be it teachers, cops or DC37 — sets the pattern for the upper-most across-the-board pay increase that the city will pay any other union.
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