labor

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  6/27/2022
  

  The Labor Upsurge Calls Us to Rethink Organizing Rules

  by Chris Brooks

  Do the successes of organizers at Amazon and Starbucks mean the age of slow, methodical and gradual organizing is over? Can workers use a union vote itself as an organizing tool to move quickly and defeat union-busting? 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/8/2022
  

  Anti-Sweatshop Crusader Charles Kernaghan, 74

  Kernaghan waged war against the dark side of free trade: the ruthless exploitation of workers in overseas factories. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Drift
  6/9/2022
  

  The Dark Underside of the "Family-Like" Business

  by Erik Baker

  The history of businesses cloaking their labor practices in paternalism is long; the most recent chapter dates back to the spiritual explorations of the 1960s counterculture and the surveillance practices of Henry Ford. 

• 
• 6/12/2022
  

  Should the USPS Honor the Sabbath, or Amazon?

  by Rebecca Brenner Graham

  A Pennsylvania postal worker's lawsuit claims religious discrimination because he was scheduled to deliver Amazon packages on Sunday. The history of Sunday mail service shows the case is about anxiety over power in society as much as religious obligation. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  6/6/2022
  

  Three Paths for Labor after Amazon

  by Harmony Goldberg and Erica Smiley

  The organizers of the Staten Island Amazon union mobilized a broad sense of justice politics not limited to the workplace. It remains to be seen how they can win allies in labor and the government to continue to organize against a wealthy and hostile company. 

• 
• SOURCE: The American Prospect
  4/14/2022
  

  New NLRB Cases Seek to Overturn Anti-Worker Precedents

  The new cases would address the ability of employers to force employees to attend anti-union meetings, prevent employers who committed unfair labor practices to use delay tactics to avoid recognizing a union, and close a loophole that would allow employers to refuse to recognize unions.

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  4/5/2022
  

  Meet the Socialist Librarian Running to Lead the American Library Association

  Libraries are just one example of vital community institutions decimated by austerity politics and culture war battles; Emily Drabinksy says enough is enough. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  2/17/2022
  

  The Revolt of the Super Employees

  by Erik Baker

  The business managerial ethos established in the 1980s destroyed the idea of solidarity and replaced it with a fantasy version of meritocracy. Now, upper-middle management is having the rug pulled out from under it, and they're mad. Are they mad enough to recognize the faults of the system? 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  1/26/2022
  

  Don't Make Dorothy Day a Saint

  by Garry Wills

  As an admirer of the left-wing activist Dorothy Day, Garry Wills argues that the process of canonization would "miniaturize" her work and associations to fit within the narrow confines of sainthood, making her an object of prayer instead of a model for action. 

• 
• 1/16/2022
  

  Can a New Labor Movement Grow and Win with Direct Action Instead of Collective Bargaining?

  by Lawrence Wittner

  "In this time of growing corporate domination of the United States and of the world, William E. Scheuerman's A New American Labor Movement illuminates a useful path forward in the long and difficult struggle for workers’ rights."

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  1/11/2022
  

  Healthy Democracies Don't Scapegoat Their Teachers

  "The failure to confront authoritarianism and the failure to defend public schools and educators from Covid is the same failure. When an institution is a cornerstone of democracy, you fight for it, you fund it, and you respect it."

• 
• 12/19/2021
  

  Biden's Virtual Summit Is Only the Beginning of Securing Democracy

  by Leon Fink

  Biden's virtual "Summit for Democracy" was not without faults, but it made important nods toward the idea that the power, health and security of labor in the global economy is a vital part of functioning democracy. More needs to be done. 

• 
• SOURCE: Labor and Working Class History Association
  12/13/2021
  

  Exchange: The Violence of Work

  by Emily E. LB. Twarog

  A group of labor historians consider whether violence – manifested in workplace injury and death – is an inevitable part of capitalist labor relations. 

• 
• SOURCE: Dissent
  10/4/2021
  

  The "Eds and Meds" Sector Needs a New Deal

  by Ian Gavigan and Jennifer Mittelstadt

  COVID has given university administrators license to escalate their war on unionized labor in all facets of operations, from instruction to food services. All university workers need to recognize their common interest and organize to make universities pay living wages, offer fair benefits, and support equitable community development.

• 
• SOURCE: In These Times
  9/29/2021
  

  Could a College Football Union Be the Biggest Force for Progress in the South?

  "There are huge numbers of conservative Southerners who would fight against all important progressive reforms — unless doing so threatened their access to college football. Then, they would at least be willing to negotiate."

• 
• SOURCE: MSNBC
  8/7/2021
  

  Black Amazon Workers Keep Finding Nooses on the Job. The Company Owes them Action

  by Keisha N. Blain

  The incidents are part of an old and familiar story of resentment against Black advancement. 

• 
• 7/18/2021
  

  The 1906 Decision in Hodges v. United States Shows the Error of Leaving Fundamental Rights to the States

  by William H. Pruden III

  The Court ruled that the 13th Amendment did not create a federal right to fairly contracted labor, and called for Black workers to "take their chances with other citizens in the states where they should make their homes," despite the plain determination of those citizens to oppress and expolit them.

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  5/26/2021
  

  How Cruelty Became the Point of Our Labor and Welfare Policies

  by Gail Savage

  The persistence of Malthusian thinking in social welfare debates is leading to policies that create needless suffering and a corrosion of the common bonds of humanity that sustain a society.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/3/2021
  

  A New Deal, This Time for Everyone

  The New Deal emphasized that American democracy must be healthy for its economy to enjoy legitimacy, and vice versa. It's time, says NYT editor Binyamin Appelbaum, to extend that commitment to the economic participation of women. 

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  5/1/2021
  

  FDR’s Second 100 Days Were Cooler Than His First 100 Days

  by Jordan Weissmann

  The first 100 days of the New Deal could be described as disaster response. The second 100 days, according to historians William Leuchtenberg, Erich Rauchway and David Kennedy, were when the administration took steps that transformed labor relations and birthed a modern social welfare state.