The United States has weaponized its response to the overdose crisis it helped create, using it as an excuse to further its own imperialist agenda at home and abroad.

Over 7,000 nurses struck at New York hospitals for three days, winning important partial gains. Despite attempts to avert the strike by the hospital bosses, Democratic Party politicians, and elements within the leadership of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), the bargaining committees of two major hospitals held strong.

Thousands of nurses in NYC could go on strike in the coming days. After nurses struggled to provide care during the Covid-19 pandemic, this fight could be a chance for nurses to improve working conditions. The nursing union’s past acceptance of toothless contracts helped further exacerbate staffing crises faced during the pandemic. This history is key to developing more militant fights to improve healthcare today.

Mayor Eric Adams's directive to involuntarily detain the unhoused is about hiding the uncomfortable effects of capitalism.

Just over a week after the “election to save democracy,” Senate Democrats voted with Republicans to end the Covid-19 Emergency Declaration three years after it was invoked. Both parties show us time and time again that the working class needs its own party.

Leandro Lo, a world champion in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, was recently shot and killed by an off-duty cop in Brazil. Martial arts coaches and practitioners often welcome cops into their spaces, saying they’re then less likely to use deadly force. Let’s be clear: cops have no place in martial arts schools

On July 30 activists marched and rallied in Washington, DC, calling for a more humane healthcare system. Physician and Left Voice member Mike Pappas spoke at the rally about how capitalism and health aren’t compatible. Below is the text from his speech.

Montefiore Hospital System is set to close a primary care center in the Bronx and open a boutique clinic in Manhattan, and healthcare workers are fighting back. We need a healthcare system controlled by workers and patients — not bosses.

The parent union of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has decided to formally file to disclaim interest in being associated with ICE, after ICE repeatedly expressed interest in leaving its union. But ICE, and cops more generally, should never have been part of unions in the first place. They are not workers but are instead tools of a violent state apparatus under capitalism. We say good riddance to not only ICE, but also to all cops who want to leave their unions. We must demand all cops out of our unions!

Just weeks after a nearby strike at Stanford Hospital, which led to the union winning a contract, nurses at the University of California have reached their own contract agreement with compensation and other gains for healthcare workers. When healthcare workers strike, their fight extends beyond their workplaces, helping others win too.

Starbucks has fired a union organizer at the 31st Street/Ditmars Blvd store in Queens, New York. As the company continues to union bust, the workers are continuing the fight and requesting help supporting fired workers.

The Supreme Court just gutted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s power to regulate emissions. It’s time for the climate movement to stand up and fight back against the capitalist institutions that are killing the planet.

The mass shooting at Robb elementary in Uvalde, Texas left nineteen children and two teachers murdered. Uvalde police are now being exposed as cowards, choosing to brutalize frantic parents outside the school and watch as shooter Salvador Ramos killed children and teachers in a classroom. Police do not keep us safe and must be abolished.

Amid growing pro-union sentiment in the country, resident physicians are unionizing. They need fighting unions that challenge the for-profit healthcare system.

Healthcare unions must take up the fight to make sure everyone has a right to free, safe, legal abortion on demand. Abortion is healthcare and healthcare is a human right.

In a leaked draft of its upcoming decision, the Supreme Court appears to be prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade. It is absolutely essential that we mobilize now — in the streets, in workplaces, and in our unions — to protect the right to abortion.

The so-called psychedelic renaissance is here. Proponents claim that the drugs can alleviate an array of psychological suffering. But while they try to gain medical acceptance, they ignore the structural factors that cause suffering in the first place. We need a revolutionary approach to these substances as they become more mainstream.

The teachers’ strike in Minneapolis has entered its third week. The Democrat-controlled city can find creative ways to pay out worker compensation claims for cops with PTSD, but it claims to have no funds to provide mental health resources for students traumatized by racist police violence and the pandemic.

Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Ukraine comes as tensions increase between Russia and NATO. But despite repression, many are fighting back against military escalation. Internationally, we need antiwar mobilizations that demand not just the end to war, but also sanctions, which only harm the masses.

Are your bosses issuing an “apology” for how they handled the pandemic? Are they promising to “do better” as an institution? Bosses are trying to save face after having lost workers’ trust. Well, when someone shows you their true colors, you should believe them. No one showed their colors more clearly than bosses throughout the Covid pandemic, putting profit over lives.

As a bill to pass single-payer healthcare fails for the second time in the last five years, the question remains: What path should activists pursue to finally win universal healthcare in the U.S.?

The Biden administration’s “individual responsibility” directive to “get vaccinated and boosted” is failing. The focus on vaccination only, rather than systemic solutions, is a ruling-class tactic to deflect blame away from bourgeois politicians and the capitalist system that continually places profit over lives.

The Biden administration has confirmed there will be no extension on the student loan moratorium, with repayments set to restart February 1, 2022. The working class should fight not just for extension of the moratorium, but what has always been needed: education as a right that is not commodified. We need a movement to demand the elimination of student debt altogether, along with free public college and university education for all who want it.

Deadly tornadoes ripped through the southern and midwestern United States on Friday. Reports since reveal that Kentucky candle factory bosses threatened to fire workers if they stopped to take shelter prior to their shifts ending. Under capitalism, candles are even more important than human lives.

Columbia University’s administration has denounced the “violence” at this week’s completely peaceful picket by student workers. Do not be fooled: the real violence is the university denying student workers healthcare, a living wage, and neutral third-party arbitration.

Residency training often claims to focus on training effective physicians. In reality, it’s an intricately designed conditioning process to train physicians to be tools for profit maximization. In order to be truly "effective" physicians, residents, in solidarity with other healthcare workers, must organize to challenge the systems that lead to suffering and illness both in health care and around the globe.

Healthcare workers must join the fight against attacks on the trans community. In the process, we must fight to destroy the capitalist system that oppresses us all.

Kaiser Permanente has recently averted a strike of over 50,000 healthcare workers in Southern California, Oregon, and Hawaii after reaching a tentative agreement with workers. In Northern California, though, thousands of healthcare workers from various sectors are still set to strike this week. Striking Kaiser engineers in Stationary Engineers Local 39 have been picketing since September 18. Now, starting this week, around 40,000 workers from multiple unions will walk off the job in sympathy with Local 39. Healthcare worker Mike Pappas speaks with a mental health worker who will be striking.

Within the past year, the Department of Corrections (DOC) and Correctional Health Services (CHS) have overseen 14 reported deaths and ongoing human rights violations in NYC jails. Community members have had enough. They are joining together to demand access to patients to prevent more from dying in DOC and CHS hands.

Left Voice visited the picket line at Mercy Hospital near Buffalo, New York. Nurses and other hospital workers have been on strike for three weeks, calling for safe staffing ratios and better pay.