Belabored

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been known as a bully for years, particularly by his political opponents. This past week, as investigations into his withholding of data on nursing home deaths linked to COVID-19 heated up, three women came forward with allegations that the governor had sexually harassed them. This week on Belabored, we talk about sexual harassment in Albany and beyond. We also talk about what is being done at the state and federal levels to protect workers from harassment on the job with Rita Pasarell, a former Albany legislative staffer and co-founder of the Sexual Harassment Working Group, a collective of workers who experienced harassment on the job. We also look at strikes against the coup in Myanmar with organizer Andrew Tillet-Saks, a collective bargaining agreement in tech, the UK Supreme Court’s decision that Uber drivers are workers, not self-employed, and the potential for U.S. gig work to go in the other direction as scholars and activists speak out against a possible deal with Uber and Lyft. For Argh, we consider the history of organizing in the South as the Bessemer union drive continues, and look at Biden’s not-so-great personnel choices. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News Myanmar’s civil servant strikes start to bite (Channel News Asia) Myanmar Workers and Unions on the Front Lines in Fight Against Coup (Labor Notes) Strike fund for Myanmar workers Sectoral Bargaining: Principles for Reform Uber drivers are workers not self-employed, Supreme Court rules (BBC) The Gig Economy Is Coming for Millions of American Jobs (Bloomberg) How to Win (Dissent) Glitch workers sign tech’s first collective bargaining agreement (Verge) Conversation “It’s The Cuomo Way”: Former Staffers Describe Toxic Workplace Under Governor’s Relentless Thumb (Gothamist) #HarassmentFreeNY New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Faces Sexual Harassment Accusations (NPR) Crude Cuomo’s No Trailblazer, but Just Another Abusive Creep (DARVO Dudes) (Daily Beast) ‘Hard to see the path out’: Cuomo besieged as crises grow (Politico) The Sexism at the Heart of Cuomo’s Boss State (The New Republic) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Michelle: Jamelle Bouie, The Deep South Has a Rich History of Resistance, as Amazon Is Learning (The New York Times) Sarah: Edward Ongweso, Jr., Biden’s Top Labor Advisor Helped Uber Gut Workers’ Rights (Vice) The post Belabored: Changing a Culture of Harassment appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] When Joe Biden was campaigning for president, he never came across as the most pro-labor candidate. Indeed, the left flank of the Democratic (or rather, anti-Trump) vote tended to gravitate toward Bernie’s full-throatedly populist, democratic socialist agenda. But in the end, Biden rode into the White House with a lot of the labor movement’s hopes—along with some healthy skepticism—pinned on him. Now that his administration is starting to roll out its labor agenda—which includes a number of progressive demands such as a $15 minimum wage, expansion of workers’ right to organize, and beefed-up health and safety protections—we’re taking a hard look at what the landscape will look like under Biden, especially now that the Democrats control both chambers of Congress. We talked to Celine McNicholas, Director of Government Affairs and Labor Counsel with the Economic Policy Institute, to get the low-down on what we can expect, and dare to hope for. In other news, we remember Karen Lewis of the Chicago Teachers Union, and look at Amazon’s hiring practices in Britain, a new movement to organize influencers, the Fight for $15 strikes, and a transnational lawsuit against enslaved child labor in the chocolate trade. With recommended reading on teachers in the scramble for vaccines and Indian farmers in the streets of New Delhi. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News SAG-AFTRA Approves New Influencer Agreement (Backstage) While DC Keeps Debating a $15 Minimum Wage, Fast-Food Workers Are Striking for It Now (Mother Jones) Hershey, Nestlé, Mars and Other Chocolate Makers Named in Child Slavery Class Action Lawsuit (EcoWatch) Amazon’s Empty Pledge Leaves Agency Workers Without Shifts and Pay (Bureau of Investigative Journalism) Conversation Why workers need the Protecting the Right to Organize Act: How the PRO Act solves the problems in current law that thwart workers seeking union representation (Economic Policy Institute) CBO analysis confirms that a $15 minimum wage raises earnings of low-wage workers, reduces inequality, and has significant and direct fiscal effects (Economic Policy Institute) The economy Trump handed off to President Biden: 25.5 million workers – 15.0% of the workforce – hit by the coronavirus crisis in January (Economic Policy Instute) Biden Moves Fast on Pro-Labor Agenda (nwLaborPress) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Michael Sainato, ‘It’s been scary’: getting vaccinated akin to lottery for US teachers, (The Guardian) Ullekh N.P., In India, Farmers Are Resisting Narendra Modi’s Propaganda Machine, (The Nation) The post Belabored: What’s Joe Biden’s Agenda for Labor? appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] Belabored co-host Sarah Jaffe has a new book out! Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Leaves Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone is about how loving your job is a scam designed to get you to work harder for less money and in worse conditions. It covers the work—and organizing—of a variety of workers in fields from domestic work to teaching to nonprofits to academia to art, sports, and tech. This week, for our 215th episode, we bring you an excerpt from an event hosted by Pilsen Community Books in Chicago, which featured friends of the show Micah Uetricht of Jacobin and Kenzo Shibata of the Chicago Teachers Union. In addition to the book, we discussed what loving your job has to do with the expectation that teachers in Chicago and elsewhere will march back into the classroom and expose themselves and their students and their families to COVID in order to keep capital accumulation going. In other news, we look at oppression and corporate malfeasance at Amazon, a boost for working parents through child tax credits, the inspiring victory of the essential workers’ strike at Hunt’s Point, and a breakthrough for New York’s street food vendors. With recommended reading on the warped meaning of “essential worker”, and the stock market insurgency of Gamestop. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News Why the Hunts Point Strike Was a Win for Labor Activists (Grubstreet) The Essential Worker Strike Wave (New Republic) Amazon using AI-equipped cameras in delivery vans (CNBC) Amazon To Pay $61.7 Million to Settle FTC Charges It Withheld Some Customer Tips from Amazon Flex Drivers (FTC) Amazon intensifies ‘severe’ effort to discourage first-ever US warehouse union (Guardian) $20,000 for a Permit? New York May Finally Offer Vendors Some Relief (New York Times) Child tax credit in Biden stimulus package gets drafted by Democrats (Washington Post) Conversation Work Won’t Love You Back – How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe An open letter to parents from the Chicago Teachers Union Sarah Jaffe, Kenzo Shibata and Micah Uetricht at Pilsen Community Books (YouTube) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Michelle: Sarah Lazare, The “Essential Worker” Swindle (In These Times) Sarah: Grace Blakeley, The Mutiny of the Mini-Capitalists (Tribune) The post Belabored: Labor Unloved with Sarah Jaffe, Kenzo Shibata, and Micah Uetricht appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] California’s Proposition 22 locked in a second-tier status for gig economy workers through a ballot initiative in November, but Uber and Lyft drivers, among other gig workers, haven’t stopped organizing for better, in California and around the country. In today’s episode we dig into the issue in depth, first with Nicole Moore, a California driver with Rideshare Drivers United, who tells us about the organizing going on to fight for workers’ rights after Prop 22, and then with economist Marshall Steinbaum, who has studied the bill and its potential to spread across the country, and shares some thoughts about how to stop it. Since we have a new administration taking office this week, we also look at our incoming Secretary of Labor and consider the damage Trump did to workers on his way out the door. And we discuss a new ban on products from China’s Xinjiang region, where forced labor is estimated to be rampant, and the arrest of striking essential workers right here in New York. For Argh, we point out that COVID-19 is a workplace disease, and the collective organizing of musicians. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News 1,400 Workers in the Bronx Are on Strike for a Livable Wage (Jacobin) The Business Rules the Trump Administration Is Racing to Finish (New York Times) Tracking the Trump Administration’s “Midnight Regulations” (ProPublica) The US is intensifying its crackdown on forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region (Quartz) For ex-union official turned mayor, priorities have shifted (Boston Globe) Five reasons Marty Walsh could be an excellent choice for secretary of Labor (The Hill) OPINION: We Can Do Better Than Marty Walsh (Strikewave) Conversation Rideshare Drivers United Rideshare Drivers United on Twitter Marshall Steinbaum Marshall Steinbaum on Twitter Michelle: A Blow for Labor Rights in California (Dissent) Uber brands gig companies’ efforts to reshape labor laws as ‘IC+’ (Marketwatch) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Michelle: Josephine Shetty interviewed by Alexander Billet, Musicians Need to Organize Collectively, as Workers (Jacobin) Sarah: Justin Feldman, Coronavirus Is an Occupational Disease That Spreads at Work (Jacobin) The post Belabored: Stopping the Spread of Prop 22 appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] In recent days, Big Tech has been at the center of many disturbing controversies, from social media pandemic disinformation to the president stoking insurrection on Twitter. But in this episode, we’re focusing on a rare good news story coming out of Silicon Valley: Google workers have unionized! The Alphabet Workers Union has been long in the making, organized with the support of Communications Workers of America in the midst of many conflicts at the company over not just labor issues, but also institutionalized racism, gender discrimination, and ethical debates about artificial intelligence and the social influence of algorithms. For our 213th episode, Google sociologist and AWU member Alex Hanna joined us to talk about Google’s labor politics, how a minority union can mobilize through direct action, and the future of organizing in the tech industry. In other news, we look at a pandemic uprising by teachers in Britain with London teacher James Kerr, delivery workers organizing across New York City with Gustavo Ajche of Los Deliveristas Unidos, new research on how paid leave has helped flatten the curve with Nicholas Ziebarth, and job losses in the wake of California’s corporate-sponsored gig worker law. With recommended reading on a card check breakthrough for New Mexico’s public employees, and how worker ownership could transform post-pandemic livelihoods. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News COVID-19 Emergency Sick Leave Has Helped Flatten The Curve In The United States (Health Affairs) Teachers’ Unions Won Big This Week. They’re Just Getting Started (Novara) National Education Union NYC Food Delivery Workers Band to Demand Better Treatment. Will New York Listen to Los Deliveristas Unidos? (The City) Worker’s Justice Project – Proyecto Justicia Laboral Vons, Pavilions to Fire “Essential Workers,” Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors (KNOCK.LA) Albertsons ditches in-house delivery in some areas, pivots to contractors after Prop 22 (Business Insider) Conversation Alex Hanna, member of Alphabet Workers Union Google’s New Union Will Put an Unconventional Organizing Model to the Test (Jacobin) Google Workers Say the Endless Wait to Unionize Big Tech Is Over (In These Times) Google’s new union shows tech worker activism is getting organized (Vox) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Sarah: C.M. Lewis, The Stunning Workers’ Victory in New Mexico That You Haven’t Heard About (In These Times) Michelle: Osita Nwanevu, The Case for Giving Workers Ownership Rights (The New Republic) (For more on this subject, see Belabored Podcast #182: (Slowly) Seizing the Means of Production) The post Belabored: Going Union at Google appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] This past Monday, we gathered our favorite thinkers on labor and unions for a live recording of our 212th episode. With the help of Jane McAlevey, Bill Fletcher Jr., and Rebecca Dixon, we looked back on 2020, a tumultuous year for workers. Jane McAlevey is the Nation‘s strikes correspondent, an organizer, author, and scholar, and a senior policy fellow at the University of California at Berkeley’s Labor Center. Her most recent book, A Collective Bargain, Unions, Organizing & the Fight for Democracy, is out now from HarperCollins. Bill Fletcher Jr. is the executive editor of www.globalafricanworker.com, the former president of TransAfrica Forum, and long-time writer and activist who has spent most of his adult life in the left and the trade union movement. Rebecca Dixon is executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP). We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org Further Reading Learning to Strike and Win (Jacobin) Organizing for Power (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung) The PRO Act Protects Worker Democracy, and That’s Good for All of Us (NELP) Will Biden Resuscitate the NLRB? (Labor Notes) Michelle: Trump’s National Labor Relations Board Is Sabotaging Its Own Mission (Nation) The post Belabored: How the Pandemic Changed Our Working Lives appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] Elections come and go, but some major problems continue to plague labor unions on both sides of the Atlantic, and many of those problems have their roots in the financialization of our economy. Yet unions are often stuck in a playbook that was written in a different period of capitalist development, and it shows in their struggles. How do unions adapt to a financialized world? Alice Martin and Annie Quick have some suggestions, and they wrote them down in an eminently readable book, Unions Renewed: Building Power in an Age of Finance. They’re our guests this week on the 211th episode of Belabored. We also look at a strike of essential workers who keep hospitals supplied and clean, another strike of nursing home workers, with Rosalind Reggans, the potential for lots of new green union jobs in offshore wind, and the pandemic’s impact on migrant workers’ rights in the Gulf, with Mustafa Qadri of Equidem. For Argh, we look at the struggles of retail workers as virus numbers spike, and a slow-burning public health crisis in a Southern town. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News Laundry, Distribution, and Food Service Joint Board, Workers United/SEIU SEIU-Backed Workers Plan Strike in Perth Amboy (New Jersey Globe) Nearly 700 nursing home workers strike for hazard pay, better conditions at Infinity centers (Chicago Sun-Times) Nearly 700 nursing home workers walk off job, begin strike in fight for better wages, hazard pay, PPE (ABC 7) Ørsted strikes deal with labor union on U.S. offshore wind development (Reuters) North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) and Ørsted Sign Landmark MOU for U.S. Offshore Wind Workforce Transition The cost of contagion: the human rights impacts of COVID-19 on migrant workers in the Gulf region Conversation Unions Renewed: Building Power in an Age of Finance by Alice Martin and Annie Quick Martin and Quick: Our Financialised Care System is Built on a House of Cards – We Urgently Need to Rebuild It (Novara) Replacing rentier capitalism is one of the defining challenges of our age (openDemocracy) Martin and Quick: Solidarity is in the Details: Unions Adapt to a COVID-19 World (Democratic Left) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Sarah: Michael Corkery and Sapna Maheshwari, Virus Cases Rise, but Hazard Pay for Retail Workers Doesn’t (New York Times) Michelle: Alexis Okeowo, The Heavy Toll of the Black Belt’s Wastewater Crisis (New Yorker) The post Belabored: Renewing Unions in the Age of Finance, with Alice Martin and Annie Quick appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] Election Day has finally come and gone, and we’re going to take stock of the aftermath. While the presidential race ended with a narrow victory for the Democrats, the electorate revealed how sharply divided it was. And traditional labels like “union voter” no longer provide a coherent framework for analyzing the politics of working people. There were some notable labor victories at the ballot box. Florida voted to increase the state minimum wage to $15 an hour; in Colorado voters said yes to paid family and medical leave; and in Arizona, teachers helped push through a measure to generate fresh revenue for public education through a tax on rich households. But voters also gave Uber and Lyft the greenlight to make rideshare and delivery drivers second-class workers. We discuss what these outcomes mean with Stephanie Luce (who last joined us for a post-election analysis in 2016) of the School of Labor and Urban Studies at the City University of New York, Joe Thomas of the Arizona Education Association, and Geoconda Argüello-Kline of UNITE HERE. In other news, we cover ballot initiatives with Nicole Moore of Rideshare Drivers United, the plight of unionized nonprofit workers with Kayla Blado of the Nonprofit Professionals Employee Union, mobilizing to get out Pennsylvania voters, and standing up for Philadelphia nurses. With recommended reading on the the “sacrificial” victims of the COVID-19 crisis and the inadequacy of voting out Trump. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News Ballot Measures: Mixed Results for Workers (Labor Notes) Support The Democracy Collaborative Workers’ Union in their layoff negotiations A difficult but necessary time at TDC: The truth about our reorganization PA Stands Up At least 1,500 nurses in the Philadelphia area may be on the verge of going on strike (CNN) PASNAP Conversation Viewpoint: This Election Shows Labor’s Ground Game Matters (Especially During a Pandemic) (Labor Notes) Arizona Proposition 208, Tax on Incomes Exceeding $250,000 for Teacher Salaries and Schools Initiative (2020) Michelle: A Blow for Labor Rights in California (Dissent) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Michelle: Sarah Jones, COVID Took My Grandfather. But It Wasn’t What Killed Him (New York Magazine) Sarah: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Voting Trump Out Is Not Enough (New Yorker) The post Belabored: Labor at the Ballot Box appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] Donald Trump won the presidency on naked white nationalist appeals to the worst in America; that is absolutely true. But four years ago he also ran on a message of hope: he promised to bring industrial jobs back to the places that had been shedding them for years. We followed up with some of the workers and union leaders from some of those plants to see what the feeling is. As Trump and Pence bluster about saving jobs, about Carrier and Lordstown “booming,” what’s it really like? We spoke with Chuck Jones, formerly president of United Steelworkers Local 1999 in Indianapolis, which represents workers at Carrier and Rexnord, Shannon Mulcahy, a former Rexnord worker and now an activist with Our Revolution, and Tim O’Hara, former president of United Autoworkers Local 1112 in Ohio and former Lordstown autoworker. We also look in at a co-op of cafe workers with barista activist Matthew Soliz of Slow Bloom and the potential for foster parents to unionize. Before the election, we discuss the latest on Uber and Lyft and California’s Proposition 22 with Nicole Moore of Rideshare Drivers United, and some thoughts from some friends of the show on what happens if there’s an attempt to steal the election. For Argh, we consider the hell that is the nursing home industry, and the struggle to parent in a pandemic. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News Coffee Workers Form Worker Co-Op in the Wake of Mass Firings (UE) Massachusetts Foster Parents Could Be First To Unionize (CBS Boston) Uber can continue to push pro-Prop 22 messages at drivers in its app, court says (The Verge) Ballotpedia, Proposition 22 (Ballotpedia) Getting Out of Tight Corners (The New York Review of Books) Unions are Beginning to Talk About Staving Off a Possible Coup (Labor Notes) Conversation Sarah: Despite Trump’s ‘Jobs, Jobs, Jobs’ Bluster, the Rust Belt Is Still Reeling from Plant Closures (The Progressive) Sarah: The Last Stand in Lordstown (The New Republic) Sarah: The Road Not Taken (The New Republic) Sarah: Back at the Carrier Plant, Workers are Still Fighting On Their Own (The Nation) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Sarah: Maureen Tkacik, “The Corporatization of Nursing Homes” (The American Prospect) Michelle: Hadas Thier, “Parenting Is a Job. During the Pandemic, It’s Impossible.” (Jacobin) The post Belabored: Trump’s Broken Promises appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] Six months into the COVID-19 crisis and the economic lockdown, millions of workers are still left behind. The pandemic relief package that’s currently languishing in the Senate excludes millions of workers, including undocumented immigrants, as well as many other types of workers who do not qualify under the criteria for federal and state aid schemes—perhaps because they are formerly incarcerated, or because they worked off the books. Community and labor groups have been campaigning for equal benefits for excluded workers, particularly since so many are working low-wage jobs that leave them especially at risk of getting sick or losing their jobs. Although California has managed to provide some relief for undocumented workers, New York has so far failed to pass a similar measure. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) held a rally in New York on Indigenous People’s Day, calling on Governor Andrew Cuomo to support relief legislation that would cover excluded workers, to offer benefits parallel to the pandemic unemployment assistance other workers have received. We speak with Nadia Marin-Molina, co-executive director of NDLON, about the grassroots push to include the excluded, not just during the pandemic, but across the economy and public benefits system. In other news, we cover layoffs at the New School, Dr. David Michaels on the failures of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under Trump, mourning workers in Minnesota, and Bay Area hospital workers on strike. With recommended reading on a Kafkaesque customer service job scheme and Trump’s trickle-down economics. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News The New School University Student Senate Addresses University Decision to Lay Off 122 Staff Members (New School Free Press) Halting Workplace COVID-19 Transmission: An Urgent Proposal to Protect American Workers (The Century Foundation) Remembering Those Who’ve Died of COVID-19 (CBS Minnesota) Understaffed and Unsafe, Bay Area Hospital Workers Strike (Labor Notes) East Bay Health Care Workers Strike Forces County to Disband the Boss (Labor Notes) Conversation Nadia Marin-Molina, Co-Executive Director, National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) #FundExcludedWorkers Argh, I wish I’d written that! Michelle: Ken Armstrong, Justin Elliott and Ariana Tobin, Meet the Customer Service Reps for Disney and Airbnb Who Have to Pay to Talk to You (ProPublica) Sarah: Daniel Marans, Trump Promised A Break With GOP Trickle-Down Economics. He Delivered More Of The Same. (Huffington Post)   The post Belabored: Essential but Excluded, with Nadia Marin-Molina appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] With the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we have seen what the Republican party’s priorities are: putting lifetime appointees on the Supreme Court who can further dismantle workers’ rights, abortion rights, and every other kind of right we count on. What they don’t seem to care about is the millions of people still unemployed and struggling to pay the bills without expanded unemployment benefits. The Democrats in the House have introduced a new HEROES Act and are pushing for quick passage, but what are its odds of passing? We speak to Rebecca Dixon, executive director of the National Employment Law Project and unemployment insurance expert, about what’s happening. We also look at the latest relief plan in the UK with economist James Meadway, a new study on manufacturing workers’ struggles in the Midwest, a fight for fair pay for garment workers, and gig workers getting the benefit of Seattle’s hazard pay law. For Argh, we consider the ongoing struggles of postal workers against attempts to dismantle the USPS, and the ways employers are spying on employees even while they work from home. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News Promises unfulfilled: Manufacturing in the Midwest Clean Clothes Campaign: Garment workers and the pandemic DoorDash and Postmates Pay Out More Than $350,000 to Seattle Gig Workers Due to Hazard Pay Law James Meadway: The Tories’ New Support Scheme Shows They’re Adapting to Our New Reality. The Left Must Do the Same Conversation $2.2 trillion HEROES Act would provide second round of stimulus checks https://unemployedact.com/ Long Lines for Unemployment; How Did We Get Here and What Do We Do Now? Closing Doors on the Unemployed: Why Most Jobless Workers Are Not Receiving Unemployment Insurance and What States Can Do About It Unemployed Workers and Benefit ‘Replacement Rate’: An Expanded Analysis VIDEO: Why the U.S. Unemployment System is Failing The covid-19 recession is the most unequal in modern U.S. history Argh, I wish I’d written that! Michelle: Steven Hill, In These Times, Employers Are Spying on Remote Workers in Their Homes Sarah: Jacob Bogage, Washington Post, Postal Service workers quietly resist DeJoy’s changes with eye on election   The post Belabored: The Senate Fiddles While America Burns, with Rebecca Dixon appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] School’s back in session across the country—or is it? September was supposed to herald a partial return to normalcy for communities that have been ruptured by the pandemic, as college students returned to campus and children resumed in-person classes. But city after city has been forced to walk back plans for reopening brick-and-mortar instruction. And colleges that have attempted to start the semester with students on campus have been wracked with anxiety, as administrators try in vain to contain outbreaks and restrict social activities. We talked to three educational workers about school reopening, and their struggle to protect their health and that of their students: Erin Markiewitz, Vice President of GEO, the Graduate Employees’ Organization at the University of Michigan, talks about the graduate workers’ decision to strike earlier this month, which triggered a legal attack from the administration; Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, discusses the lawsuit the teachers filed against the state’s plan to resume in-person instruction statewide; and Annie Tan, a special education teacher and member of the MORE Caucus in New York City, explains why educators like her are nervous and frustrated about Mayor Bill De Blasio’s haphazard school reopening plan. In other news, we look at how the West Coast wildfires are affecting farmworkers; a strike at the Tate London; Heidi Shierholz of Economic Policy Institute on a legal defeat for a regressive Labor Department rule; and a nonprofit unionization streak, with Kayla Blado and Katie Barrows of the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union. With recommended reading on workplace safety in the midst of a pandemic, and why urban homesteaders are rebranding tenant farming. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org News Wildfires Make Dangerous Air For Farmworkers: ‘It’s Like You Can’t Breathe’ (NPR) Michelle: No Sanctuary in Fire-Stricken California’s Immigrant Communities (The Nation) NY Court Strikes Down Significant Portions of DOL’s Final Rule Defining Joint Employment Scenarios Under FLSA (JD Supra) EPI applauds judge’s decision on joint-employer rule: Trump’s rule would have cost workers more than $1 billion annually (EPI) ‘It’s All Performative, They Don’t Care’: Why Tate Workers Are Going on Strike (Novara) Tateunited.com Sarah: Nonprofit Workers Join the Movement to Unionize (Progressive) Nonprofit Professional Employees Union Conversation University of Michigan Graduate Employees’ Organization Vice President Erin Markiewitz Graduate employees reach deal with University of Michigan to end strike (MLive) Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar Judge sides with Florida’s largest teachers’ union in school reopening lawsuit against state (WTSP) Annie Tan, special education teacher, member of Movement of Rank and File Educators I’m a Teacher in New York. I’m Doing My Job by Fighting an Unsafe Reopening. (New Republic) Note: Shortly after we interviewed Annie Tan, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio announced an updated, “staggered” schedule for the return to school, so most students would begin their classes virtually rather than in person on Monday, September 21. Middle and high school students are now due to return on October 1. Sarah: Teachers Fight for Their Lives and the Future of Public Education (Rethinking Schools) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Sarah: Kevin Reuning, OSHA complaints show workplace safety is still a concern as the economy reopens (Strikewave) Michelle: Nick Martin, The New York Times Discovers a Manhattan Makeover for Nu-Tenant Farming (New Republic) The post Belabored: Is it Safe to Go Back to School? appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-inf-ck] Last week, beginning with the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, a strike wave spread across professional sports as athletes chose not to play in order to express solidarity with victims of racist violence. The strikes may have been short-lived, but they made a huge impact, disrupting the pretense of normalcy that sports entertainment normally helps viewers create. We talk to sports reporter and author Dave Zirin about why the athletic strikes were so important, and why the media can’t seem to understand them as strikes. We also look in on the latest around New York City teachers’ strike threat with Ronnie Almonte of the MORE Caucus (and partner of Dissent‘s publishing director Flynn Murray), what farmworkers are facing under COVID-19 with Mily Trevino-Saucedo and María De Luna of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, the university workers that often get forgotten, and ask Dania Rajendra why Amazon is hiring spies. For Argh, we consider the police union and whether it is in fact a union, and question whether organizing without organizing is actually possible. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News New York City Delays Start of School to Ready for In-Person Classes (New York Times) Workers, Small Farmers and Communities of Color Especially Vulnerable Unless Congress Acts (Ms.) Amazon Is Hiring an Intelligence Analyst to Track ‘Labour Organising Threats’ (Vice) UNC housekeepers speak out: ‘They don’t give a damn about us’ (Prism) Conversation Dave Zirin Dave: The Milwaukee Bucks and Brewers Strike for Racial Justice (The Nation) Dave: Professional Athletes Are Showing America Just How Powerful Labor Really Is (The Nation) Dave: The Sports Strikes Against Racism Have Not Been Coopted (The Nation) Sterling Brown: Your Money Can’t Silence Me (The Players’ Tribune) Sarah: Don’t Call It a Boycott: NBA Players Are Inspiring a Strike Wave (The Progressive) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Sarah: Eve Ewing, Blue Bloods: America’s Brotherhood of Police Officers (Vanity Fair) Michelle: Marianne Garneau and Lexi Owens, Between Scylla and Charybdis (Organizing Work) The post Belabored Podcast #205: Wildcat Sports Strike Wave, with Dave Zirin appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] The United States Postal Service seems to be in a chronic state of crisis. But for the past few weeks it’s been at the center of a new political firestorm, as public fear rises over potential disruptions to mail-in voting in the lead-up to the election. Trump’s newly appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has been working to overhaul the postal service in the name of “efficiency,” and many fear that he is fulfilling a longstanding conservative goal of destroying and ultimately privatizing the postal service. While Trump falsely claims mail-in balloting will lead to widespread voter fraud, DeJoy provoked outrage with aggressive reforms at the agency, including the mysterious disappearance of mailboxes and mail sorting machines from many communities nationwide. Though DeJoy walked back his reform plans earlier this week, lawmakers and labor advocates are skeptical. We talk to three postal workers in Washington, DC; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon about what’s happening to our mail and the workers who handle it at this most beloved of federal agencies. In other news, we look at a fast food worker strike at Bojangles, a strike that almost happened at Detroit nursing homes, the reinstatement of graduate wildcat strikers at University of California Santa Cruz, and a British sandwich-maker’s sad sick pay policy. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News Fast food workers continue strike over restaurant’s handling of COVID-19 (ABC News) Metro Detroit nursing home workers delay strike planned for Monday (Detroit Free Press) Makers of M&S sandwiches faced pay dock if they self-isolated, says union (The Guardian) UC Santa Cruz Reinstates 41 Fired Grad Students (Inside Higher Ed) UC Santa Cruz Reinstates 41 Graduate Students After Months-Long Strike (Vice) Conversation Alex Fields, mail carrier in Knoxville, Tennessee Arrion Brown, facilities maintenance technician in Washington, DC Larry Guarnero, clerk in Portland, Oregon and steward for the American Postal Workers Union USPS Suspends Changes After Outcry Over Delivery Slowdown (New York Times) ‘Postmaster DeLay’ Takes One Step Back amid Media Scrutiny, Public Protest, and Worker Resistance (Labor Notes) Michelle: Postal Workers Want Investment and Hazard Pay (Dissent) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Michelle: Shoshana Walter, American Rehab Chapter 8: Shadow Workforce, (Reveal) Sarah: Barbara Madeloni, Educators Demand Virtual Schools as ‘Least Bad’ but Safe Option, (Labor Notes) The post Belabored Podcast #204: Protect the Post Office appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic saw governments around the world experimenting with ways to pay people to stay home, from the $1,200 stimulus check sent out by the U.S. government to the UK’s furlough scheme to more direct basic income-style programs. Now, as some of those programs wind down—even as the pandemic is far from over—what have we learned about what happens when the government just, well, gives people money? Our guest this week is Barb Jacobson from the Basic Income UK network, a longtime organizer and advocate for universal income. We also talk with New York teacher Kevin Prosen about the fight over reopening schools, and a breakthrough union vote for California childcare workers. We look at the battle over renewing expanded unemployment benefits, and the latest from Uber drivers battling misclassification. And for Argh, we consider organizing the unemployed and who has a right to the suburbs. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News Sarah: How the New York City School System Failed the Test of Covid-19 (The Nation) Full Steam Ahead on Reopening Schools? No Way, Say Teachers (Labor Notes) Chicago Public Schools will go fully remote to start the fall (Chicago Sun Times) California family child care providers vote to join union (EdSource) California labor commissioner sues Uber and Lyft, alleging wage theft (LA Times) We Drive Progress Wave of evictions expected as moratoriums end in many states (AP) Why a Relief Bill is so Elusive This Time (The American Prospect) Conversation Basic Income UK Barb Jacobson on Patreon Barb Jacobson, Coronavirus and Universal Basic Income: Inoculating against the virus of insecurity (The Canary) UBI Lab Network Basic Income Conversation Citizen’s Basic Income Trust Basic Income Earth Network Income Movement Action for a “people’s stimulus” Basic Income March (September 19) US Basic Income Guarantee Argh, I wish I’d written that! Sarah: Jake Douglas and Ben Reynolds, ‘We Feed You, Don’t Let Us Starve’: Restaurant Workers Mobilize to Extend Unemployment Benefits (Labor Notes) Michelle: Richard Kahlenberg, The Low-Wage Mothers of Color Who Want to Become Suburban Moms (The American Prospect) The post Belabored Podcast #203: What the Pandemic Taught Us About Basic Income, with Barb Jacobson appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] On July 20, people across the country walked off the job, shared a moment of silence, and rallied in the streets, as part of the Strike for Black Lives, a labor mobilization to support Black Lives Matter. Although labor groups have participated variously in the nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism since May, the Strike for Black Lives was a coordinated initiative of about sixty labor organizations and other social justice groups. We spoke with three workers who participated in actions in their communities: nursing home worker Trece Andrews, fast food worker Adriana Alvarez, and adjunct professor Constance Lee. In other news, we look at a campaign to unionize employees of the Scholars Strategy Network; new research reveals the psychological impacts of working from home; AFL-CIO General Counsel Craig Becker discusses a move by the National Labor Relations Board to crush a Depression Era protection for unions; and Saru Jayaraman of One Fair Wage talks about the stunning pay disparities among tipped restaurant workers in the pandemic era. With recommended reading on the history of racism in the labor movement, and how bosses and politicians are conspiring to force workers back to dangerous workplaces. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News A Persistent Legacy of Slavery: Ending the Subminimum Wage for Tipped Workers in New York as a Racial Equity Measure (One Fair Wage, UC Berkeley Food Labor Research Center) Pro-Democracy Nonprofit Scholars Strategy Network Hires Union-Busting Law Firm to Fight Staff Union (NPEU) NLRB to review petition to decertify union at Mountaire plant (Delaware State News) Trump’s Labor Board Eyes Striking Down FDR-Era Union Protection (The Young Turks) We’re working an extra ’28 hours per month’ in lockdown (Metro) Conversation Strike for Black Lives Essential Workers Hold Walkouts And Protests In National ‘Strike For Black Lives’ (NPR) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Sarah: Bill Fletcher Jr., Race Is About More Than Discrimination (Monthly Review) Michelle: David Sirota, Republicans are forcing Americans to return to dangerous workplaces (Guardian) The post Belabored Podcast #202: The Strike for Black Lives appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] It’s no surprise that Donald Trump has used the coronavirus pandemic—even as he attempts to deny its seriousness—as an excuse to further enact some of his preferred policies. The latest proclamation temporarily bans guestworkers from coming to the United States, but what does it actually do? Is it a gesture to his base or something more serious, and what do we need to know about these guestworker programs in the first place? Daniel Costa of the Economic Policy Institute joins us to explain. We also talk with Gabi DiDonna of the new United Museum Workers union, a branch of the Steelworkers, in Pittsburgh and Dreamer and Teamster Nelson Iraheta. We also look in on healthcare workers’ attempt to take back a shuttered hospital in Philadelphia, and more coronavirus—in a Minnesota Amazon warehouse—with Amazon worker Will Stoltz. For Argh, we consider the skilled work of one London hospital cleaner, and more about Amazon workers’ struggles to organize in crisis. We are now on Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News Employees from all four Carnegie museums announce unionization drive (Pittsburgh City Paper) United Museum Workers on Twitter Supreme Court blocks Trump from ending DACA (CNN) Michelle: What DACA Means for Immigrant Workers (Dissent) Report On Attempted Occupation Of Hahnemann Hospital In Philadelphia (It’s Going Down) How the owner of Philly’s shuttered Hahnemann hospital became the internet’s coronavirus villain (Philadelphia Inquirer) Amazon warehouse in Minnesota had more than 80 COVID-19 cases (NBC News) Amazon Covid-19 Outbreak in Minnesota Was Worse Than Local County (Bloomberg) Conversation Daniel Costa, Director of Immigration Law and Policy Research, EPI Trump Suspends Visas Allowing Hundreds of Thousands of Foreigners to Work in the U.S. (New York Times) Sarah: ‘You’re Fired!’ The abuses of ‘skilled’ worker visa programs (Progressive) Michelle: Why Are Some People Paying to Work? (The Nation) Michelle: How Temporary Work Visas Hurt Migrant Women (The Nation) Michelle: These Guestworkers Just Won $20 Million Back From the Company That Trafficked Them (The Nation) Argh, I wish I’d written that! Sophie Elmhirst, ‘You have to take action’: one hospital cleaner’s journey through the pandemic (Guardian) Michelle: Shirin Ghaffary and Jason Del Rey, The real cost of Amazon (Recode) The post Belabored Podcast #201: Trump’s Latest Migration Outrage appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] When this podcast launched in April of 2013, with Sarah Jaffe and Josh Eidelson, it was the first of its kind—a left podcast that covered the ups and downs of the labor movement. Emerging in the wake of Occupy Wall Street, it set out to explore the intersection of work, politics, race, gender, and culture from a fresh perspective, and 200 episodes later, we’re still here, reflecting on the world of work in the midst of yet another wave of social upheaval. To round out our 200th epiversary, we are revisiting the topic of the first episode, the Chicago Teachers Union. Our first ever guest was CTU President Karen Lewis. This time, we speak to CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates about how the union continues to be a model for grassroots labor organizing in public education, and what it’s like to be an educator and an organizer in a city facing a global pandemic as well as a nationwide uprising against police brutality. In other news, we look at the big Supreme Court ruling on LGBTQ rights at work, with Dale Melchert; dockworkers shutting down West Coast ports for Juneteenth; a new study on hazard pay and COVID-19 risks on the job, with Larry Mishel; and the dangers of protesting as an essential worker. With recommended reading on corporate exploitation of Black Lives Matter and how the coronavirus ravaged meatpacking plants. We are happy to announce that this 200th episode also marks our first foray into the world of Patreon! You can sign up to support us with a monthly contribution, at the level that best suits you. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Justices rule LGBT people protected from job discrimination Transgender Law Center: Trans Agenda for Liberation The Most Radical Union in the US Is Shutting Down the Ports on Juneteenth A majority of workers are fearful of coronavirus infections at work, especially Black, Hispanic, and low- and middle-income workers: Those facing risks are not proportionately receiving extra compensation Caught In De Blasio’s Curfew, Essential Worker Spends Week In Jail After NYPD Mass Arrests Bronx Protesters Conversation: Stacy Davis Gates, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union Chicago Teachers Union Belabored #188: What the Chicago Teachers Won Belabored #113: Chicago Teachers Strike Back, with Sarah Chambers Belabored #1: “We will shut down your city” Argh: Michelle: Toni Gilpin, Corporations Now Love ‘Black Lives’—But What About Their Own Black Workers?, LaborNotes Sarah: Michael Grabell, Claire Perlman and Bernice Yeung, Emails Reveal Chaos as Meatpacking Companies Fought Health Agencies Over COVID-19 Outbreaks in Their Plants, ProPublica The post Belabored Podcast #200: Back to the Streets of Chicago appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] This week, as protests continue in all fifty states and in several countries around the world against white supremacist violence and police brutality, we bring you an episode that might at first not seem related: an interview with historian Cal Winslow on his book Radical Seattle: The General Strike of 1919. Even before these uprisings, many people were talking about the potential for the pandemic to bring about a general strike in America, and so we seized this opportunity to interview Winslow for Red May in Seattle. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube if you’d like. But our talk about the organization of the working class in Seattle—including the tensions over organizing black and Japanese workers alongside white ones—explored the question of what it means when, for a little while, the working class runs the city. Because that’s what happens during a general strike. And it is happening now. Friends of the show in Minneapolis and elsewhere are not just holding the line against the police but also organizing mutual aid to make sure that people are fed. The radicals in Seattle faced intense police violence and militarized crackdowns, and the deportation of organizers deemed “outside agitators.” That, too, is an important part of labor’s history. As the protests continue, labor will persist in asking which side it is on, and persist in being asked difficult questions about the role of police unions. This is not going to be an easy process, but as the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 admonished labor: “Let us never forget that the conditions that built many of our unions (including: civil unrest, widespread unemployment, mass demonstrations) are not too different from today.” In that spirit, we bring you the story of Seattle 1919. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. Further Reading: Cal Winslow: When the Seattle General Strike and the 1918 Flu Collided (Jacobin) Cal Winslow: When Being a Red Meant Risking Your Life (Jacobin) The post Belabored Podcast #199: Radical Seattle, with Cal Winslow appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] As state governments rush to “reopen the economy,” you may be wondering whether you can really trust politicians who are gunning to get people back to work even as the COVID-19 death toll continues to climb steadily. And given that bosses have been failing to comply with safety standards at the workplaces that have remained open under the lockdown, you have reason to fear that the lifting of stay-at-home orders will precipitate more devastating outbreaks. So what do you do if your workplace is reopening, and your boss is pressuring you to resume your job, but you fear that your workplace will be unsafe—that there won’t be enough gloves and masks, or that you’ll be packed together with coworkers and will not be able to socially distance? We talked to Peter Dooley, Senior Project Coordinator of National Council for Occupational Safety and Health about what you need to know about your right to a safe workplace, and how workers can take action for better protections, both for their health and their right to organize. In other news, we look at striking sanitation workers in New Orleans, striking apple packing plants in Washington’s Yakima Valley, a victory on “hero pay” for Kroger’s workers, and an organizing surge in teachers’ unions in West Virginia and Britain. With recommended reading on the essential workers threatened with deportation, and the promise and peril of the job guarantee. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: COVID-Related Strikes Hit Washington’s Apple Sheds (Capital & Main) Worker strikes continue at 6 Yakima Valley packing houses; Apple shipments not affected overall (Yakima Herald) Sarah: What Happened to Kroger’s “Hero Pay”? (Dissent) Striking New Orleans Sanitation Workers Escalate Their Fight (New Orleans Public Radio) The Growing Power of West Virginia’s Teachers (Progressive) Boris Johnson Underestimated Teachers – Now They’re Fighting Back (Tribune) requires improvement podcast Conversation: Peter Dooley, Senior Project Coordinator of National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (NCOSH) Coronavirus: Resources for Workers (NCOSH) Safe and Just Return To Work Toolkit (NCOSH) Worker Safety & Health During COVID-19 Pandemic: Rights & Resources (National Employment Law Project) Argh, I Wish I’d Written That: Michelle: Maurizio Guerrero, Thousands of Essential Workers Are at Risk of Deportation (In These Times) Sarah: James Meadway, Pandemic Labour and the Politics of Job Guarantees (Novara) The post Belabored Podcast #198: Not Safe to Work appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info-ck] We have learned that the biggest coronavirus clusters in the country are, as researcher Gina Neff pointed out, prisons, meatpacking plants, and nursing homes. Meatpacking plants have long been a target for reformers, but they remain, as our guest today tells us, workplaces where injuries are taken as a matter of course. In such conditions, is it really surprising that workers are getting sick with coronavirus? But the illness in the food chain should remind us that we are all only as healthy as the sickest person in society—particularly if that person is handling your dinner. Is the virus in food production a way to get people to care about low-paid, superexploited workers? We talk with Raj Patel, research professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin and the author of Stuffed and Starved and most recently, with Jason W. Moore, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, and Suzanne Adely, co-director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance. Around the country, workers are fighting for safety on the job, and we check in on graduate student organizing at Harvard with Nishant Kishore, school employees in Minnesota with Sarah Nichols, as well as an attempt to pass an Essential Workers Bill of Rights in New York City and an attempt to map union power around the country in order to build the kinds of big strikes that will be necessary to fight back austerity and keep workers safe in the future. For Argh, we look at the conditions of the unsung, non-medical hospital workers who are also dying of the virus, and more on meat monopolies. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Harvard Grad Students Union-UAW Hourly school employee bill passes Minnesota House, heads to Senate (Fox) Sarah: How Workers Can Win in the Age of COVID-19 (Progressive) Bargaining for the Common Good | Building Power Together: An Interactive Mapping Tool (The Forge) City Council Proposes “Essential Workers Bill Of Rights” That Includes Hazard Pay, Paid Sick Leave (Gothamist) Conversation: Food Chain Workers Alliance Raj Patel A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things Stuffed and Starved Coronavirus Has Broken America’s Food Supply (The American Prospect) Meatless May? Latino civil rights group launches meat boycott as coronavirus hits plant workers (The Gazette) Argh, I Wish I’d Written That: Michelle: Ron Knox, Monopolies in Meat: Endangering Workers, Farmers, and Consumers (The American Prospect) Sarah: Nicole Hong, 3 Hospital Workers Gave Out Masks. Weeks Later, They All Were Dead. (New York Times) The post Belabored Podcast #197: Food Workers and the Virus appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] The coronavirus crisis continues to ravage the economy, plunge millions into unemployment, and expose endemic inequalities in the workforce. Yet lawmakers are already speculating on how to “reopen” the economy as soon as possible, despite the looming public-health risks facing countless frontline workers and disproportionately harming communities of color. We speak with veteran labor activist Bill Fletcher, Jr. about what the pandemic is revealing about neoliberalism, the brokenness of our social welfare infrastructure, and how the labor movement can cope with the crisis and salvage itself. In other news, we discuss the National Health Care Day of Action, the White House’s attempt to drive down immigrant farmworkers’ wages with Evy Peña, how Asian American labor activists are defending their communities with Kim Geron and Monica Thammrath, and health hazards at a Smithfield pork processing plant. On May 1, join Sarah online for a May Day event with Sara Nelson and Stacy Davis Gates: System in Crisis: A Working-Class Vision for the Future. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: APALA Blasts Trump’s Executive Order for Inciting Hate, Lying about Immigrant Workers (APALA) Sarah: Belabored Stories: What If Nurses Ran the Healthcare System? (Dissent) Sarah: Belabored Stories: A Healthcare Worker Day of Action (Dissent) White House Seeks To Lower Farmworker Pay To Help Agriculture Industry (NPR) Smithfield Foods Is Blaming “Living Circumstances In Certain Cultures” For One Of America’s Largest COVID-19 Clusters (Buzzfeed) Conversation: Bill Fletcher, Jr., executive editor of Global African Worker Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice “They’re Bankrupting Us!”: And 20 Other Myths about Unions Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral Labor in the Time of Trump Argh, I Wish I’d Written That: Michelle: Amber Joseph, What One New York Teacher Is Learning in a Pandemic (NYR Daily) Sarah: Miranda Hall, Love doesn’t pay the bills (Open Democracy) The post Belabored Podcast #196: How the Pandemic Will Change Labor, with Bill Fletcher, Jr. appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] Amazon is poised to become an even bigger part of many people’s lives during lockdown, but its workers aren’t celebrating. That’s because they’re working in frightening conditions, without enough time to wash their hands or room to practice proper social distancing. Amazon workers have been walking off the job and organizing protests to demand more sick time, safer workspaces, and more consideration for their needs. We talk to Amazon workers Tonya Ramsay and Jordan Flowers about the recent protests in New York and Detroit, and then to Dania Rajendra, director of Athena, a coalition of labor and social justice organizations fighting the concentrated power of Amazon. We also hear from a GE worker who took part in protests demanding the company use idled manufacturing capacity to make desperately-needed ventilators, service workers who are campaigning with Denver DSA to cancel rent, Barnes and Noble warehouse workers also challenging unsafe conditions, and we look back at the labor organizing of the Bernie Sanders campaign as it draws to a close. For Argh, we consider farmworkers who, you guessed it, are picking the food we eat without proper protections against COVID-19, and look at the ways capitalism created the healthcare crisis we face. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Sarah: Belabored Stories: On the Picket Line for Ventilators (Dissent) Workers Protest at Barnes & Noble Warehouse Where 9 Have Tested Positive for Covid-19 (Vice) How Bernie’s Iowa Campaign Organized Immigrant Workers at the Factory Gates (Jacobin) How Bernie Sanders’ fight for Amazon warehouse workers is winning California voters (Guardian) Baristas For Bernie: Sanders’ Service Worker Strategy To Win Iowa (Iowa Starting Line) Group petitions to cancel Denver rent, mortgage payments for 90 days (KDVR) Michelle: Belabored Stories: “I Have to Feed My Family” (Dissent) Conversation: Dania Rajendra (with Amazon workers Jordan Flowers and Tonya Ramsay) Athena Dear Jeff Bezos, instead of firing me, protect your workers from coronavirus (Guardian) Sarah: Nationalize Amazon (Outline) Michelle: Belabored Stories: The Amazon Walkouts Continue and Belabored Stories: “I Have to Feed My Family” (Dissent) Michelle: Your Rent or Your Life (The Nation) Argh, I Wish I’d Written That: Sarah: Susie Cagle, California’s farm workers pick America’s essential produce – unprotected from coronavirus (Guardian) Michelle: Andrej Markovčič, Capitalism Caused the COVID-19 Crisis (Jacobin) The post Belabored Podcast #195: Delivering Us from Coronavirus, with Dania Rajendra appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the economy, push the healthcare system to a breaking point, and leave millions of workers jobless. Today President Trump signed into law a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill in response to the economic crisis, but it is loaded with giveaways to big business and falls woefully short of what communities need. We are joined by Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute to discuss the highs and lows of the pandemic package, and what the government could do to protect the most vulnerable while addressing endemic inequality. In other news, we talk to workers who are struggling to cope with the metastasizing public health crisis in the rideshare sector and auto industry, the Amazon supply chain and healthcare system. With recommended reading on healthcare workers who dread going to work, and supermarkets spiraling into logistical breakdown. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Sarah: ‘Horror Story After Horror Story’: A Frontline Nurse Discusses the Crisis (The Nation) Rideshare Drivers United Crisis Response (Rideshare Drivers United) Drivers Say Uber and Lyft Are Blocking Unemployment Pay (New York Times) Ford building ventilators with UAW Ford partnering with GE, 3M to build ventilators, respirators, face shields (Automotive News) Ford, 3M, GE and the UAW to build respirators, ventilators and face shields for coronavirus fight (TechCrunch) Amazon warehouses are getting hit with coronavirus cases (CNN) Michelle: Belabored Stories: “I Have to Feed My Family” (Dissent) Conversation: Mike Konczal, Director of Progressive Thought at the Roosevelt Institute Mike Konczal: Our Political System Is Hostile to Real Reform (Dissent) Mike Konczal: A Forward-Thinking Policy Response to the Coronavirus Recession (Roosevelt Institute) Argh, I Wish I’d Written That: Sarah: Craig Gent, When Logistics Run Out of Time (Novara) Michelle: Thomas Kirsch, What Happens If Health-Care Workers Stop Showing Up? (The Atlantic) The post Belabored Podcast #194: The Coronavirus Bailout, with Mike Konczal appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] As the coronavirus pandemic spreads across the world and across the United States, as we are all told to practice “social distancing,” we are reminded that the way we work has everything to do with how we interact as humans and how infections spread through society. In our return episode after our February break, we discuss the spread of coronavirus, what it’s meant for healthcare workers, gig economy workers, the rich, and other frontline employees, what it says about the climate crisis, and more.We also hear from Debra L. Ness, President of the National Partnership for Women and Families, about the need for paid sick days. And since labor hasn’t stopped since the outbreak began, we also check in on the Saint Paul Federation of Educators strike and the ongoing graduate employees’ cost-of-living battle that began at the University of California at Santa Cruz and has spread across the UC system. We hear too about the latest on nail salon workers, and the art of the sex workers’ movement. For Argh, we look at what a basic income trial has meant to its participants, and the questions of organizing in a time of multiple apocalypses. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Michelle: The Nail Salon Industry is Rife with Exploitation and Abuse (Progressive) New York Nail Salon Workers Association New York Healthy Nail Salons Coalition Saint Paul Teachers Strike for Their Students’ Mental Health (Labor Notes) Sarah: How to Halt Labor’s Slow Death (The New Republic) The Sex Workers’ Pop-Up UC graduate students threaten more strikes as movement grows (Los Angeles Times) Become Unreasonable (Commune) The Grassroots Wildcat Strike for a COLA and the Fight for a Democratic, Militant Union (Medium) Support Fund for Striking Workers at UCSC! (GoFundMe) Pay Us More UCSC Open Letter to the Wildcats of UCSD UC Davis 4 COLA IG/Twitter/Venmo: @ucd4cola Conversation: Michelle: Stopping the coronavirus requires health care access and paid sick leave. America’s in trouble. (NBC News) Coronavirus divides tech workers into the ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ sick (The Guardian) Stopping the coronavirus requires health care access and paid sick leave. America’s in trouble. (NBC) Inmates are manufacturing hand sanitizer to help fight coronavirus. But will they be allowed to use it? (The Washington Post) Demands from Grassroots Organizers Concerning COVID-19 (Transformative Spaces) Argh, I Wish I’d Written That: Michelle: Kelly Hayes, “What to Do When The World Is On Fire” (Truthout) Sarah: Bryce Covert, “Can $500 A Month Change Your Life?” (The New Republic) The post Belabored Podcast #193: Work in the Time of Coronavirus appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] This week, workers with SEIU Local 26 rallied in the streets of Minneapolis to call for #UnionsforAll. As union contracts expire for about 8,000 union members, who work in the janitorial and security sectors across the Twin Cities area, workers called for “jobs that support joyful families.” We speak with the current and former presidents of SEIU Local 26, Iris Altamirano and Javier Morillo, about the labor movement in the Twin Cities, which includes not only SEIU workers but also a robust network of grassroots worker centers, and what the union is looking forward to in the coming contract negotiations. In other news, we look at a new collective bargaining agreement for women basketball players, and we also talk to Zara Nasir and M. Ndigo Washington on their quest to unionize New York City Council staff, Gawain Kripke on Oxfam’s report on global economic and gender inequality, and Sharon Block and Ben Sachs on their new blueprint for overhauling labor law to fit the twenty-first century. With recommended reading on the unions fighting to organize in the gig economy, and mothers struggling to find decent childcare. Note for our listeners: we’ll be taking February off as we work on other projects, but we’ll be back in March! This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Oxfam “Time to Care” report (Oxfam) City Council staffers gather signatures, small donations to create NYC’s first large new union in decades (NY Daily News) Clean Slate for Worker Power (Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School) W.N.B.A. Makes ‘Big Bet on Women’ With a New Contract (New York Times) Conversation: Iris Altamirano, new president of SEIU Local 26, and Javier Morillo, former president of SEIU Local 26 U of M research offers rare look at the lives of janitors (MinnPost) Argh, I Wish I’d Written That: Michelle: Ashley Fetters, The Working-to-Afford-Child-Care Conundrum (The Atlantic) Sarah: Bethan Staton,The upstart unions taking on the gig economy and outsourcing (Financial Times) The post Belabored Podcast #192: Unions for All, with SEIU Local 26 appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] Workers across France have been on strike over pension reforms for six weeks now—what began with railway workers spread throughout the public sector and has given us dramatic photos of striking ballerinas and massive marches across Paris, but also extends into the energy sector and even to Amazon warehouses. This week saw the first big march since the holidays, as negotiations pick back up, and we talk with Dissent‘s own Colin Kinniburgh, now living in France as a freelance reporter who’s been covering the strike. He explains what President Macron wants to do with the French pension system, why protesters are occupying BlackRock offices, what this has to do with the gilets jaunes, and much more. We also look in on a new effort to organize video games workers, the union-busting of Honduran fruit workers with Gabriela Rosazza of International Labor Rights Forum, the effects of California’s AB5 gig worker law on freelancers with Tia Koonse of UCLA Labor Center, and the closure of auto plants on opioid-related deaths. For Argh, we consider whether work is driving us to therapy (and whether therapy will solve our workplace problems) and the problems with treating sex workers as victims in need of intervention. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Auto plant closures may lead to more opioid overdose deaths, Penn study finds (WHYY) Freelancers fear California’s new gig worker law will wipe them out (LA Times) Major union launches campaign to organize video game and tech workers (LA Times) Fyffes’ Women’s Day Announcement Attempts to Distract Consumers and Investors from Union-Busting on its Farms (ILRF) Conversation: Colin Kinniburgh Colin Kinniburgh: Climate Politics after the Yellow Vests (Dissent) Colin Kinniburgh: Don’t Mess With French Pensions (The Nation) France’s Pension Battle Heats Up (The Nation) French women may be the biggest losers under Macron’s pension reform plan (France 24) Why France’s ‘unsustainable’ pension system may well be sustainable (France 24) Crowdfunding and solidarity: How French rail workers sustain a record-long strike (France 24) Argh, I wish I’d Written That: Sarah: Josh Gabert-Doyon, Why Work Is Driving More of Us to Therapy (VICE Canada) Michelle: Melissa Gira Grant, Human Trafficking Courts Are Not a Criminal Justice ‘Innovation’ (The New Republic) The post Belabored Podcast #191: A Mass Strike Against Macron, with Colin Kinniburgh appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] We round up 2019 with the good, the bad, and the ugly of the year in labor. From the Green New Deal to the gig economy, from Lordstown autoworkers to Los Angeles teachers, from new media unions to the National Labor Relations Board, from the Google uprising to the government shutdown. In other news, we look at transit worker strikes in the UK; the demand for union democracy at UAW; noncompete agreements, with Heidi Schierholz and Stephanie Russell-Kraft; and Harvard graduate workers on strike, with Ege Yamusak. With recommended reading on the imaginary British working class, and existential climate crisis for Australian workers. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. Thank you to CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies for loaning us recording space. News: RMT to protest at Parliament tomorrow over threat to ban transport workers from taking strike action (RMT) Boris Johnson has issued declaration of war on railway workers, unions warn (Morning Star) Sarah: Even in Defeat, Labour Mobilized the Working Class (Progressive) Experts Say Harvard Internal Email About Grad Union Strike May Violate Labor Law (The Crimson) #hgsustrike (Twitter) Six UAW Locals Back Direct Elections of Top Officers (Labor Notes) Noncompete agreements: Ubiquitous, harmful to wages and to competition, and part of a growing trend of employers requiring workers to sign away their rights (EPI) Michelle: Hell No, You Can’t Go (Work Somewhere Else) (Progressive) Conversation: Sarah and Michelle talk about this year’s biggest labor stories Belabored Podcast #168: Victory in L.A., with Arlene Inouye (Dissent) Sarah: ‘This Is Much Bigger Than Us, Than Our Union, Even Than Our City’ (The Nation) Belabored Podcast #169: Shutting it Down, with Sara Nelson (Dissent) Belabored Podcast #172: Putting Climate Justice to Work, with Rusty Hicks (Dissent) Michelle: “Hardhats vs. Hippies”: How the Media Misrepresents the Debate Over the Green New Deal (In These Times) Belabored Podcast #175: Shut off the Apps, with International Striking Uber and Lyft Drivers (Dissent) Michelle: Hey, Uber and Lyft: Gig Work Is Work. California Just Said So. (In These Times) Belabored Podcast #187: After the GM Strike, Now What? (Dissent) Sarah: The Last Stand in Lordstown (New Republic) Belabored Podcast #188: What the Chicago Teachers Won (Dissent) Michelle: Can Google’s Soul Be Saved? (Progressive) Why Newsrooms Are Unionizing Now (Nieman Reports) Unprecedented: The Trump NLRB’s attack on workers’ rights (EPI) Argh, I wish I’d Written That: Michelle: Zacharias Szumer, Instead of Choking on Smoke, Sydney Workers Are Walking off the Job (Jacobin) Sarah: Dawn Foster, The great myth of the British working class (Huck) The post Belabored Podcast #190: The Year in Labor appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] How do we reach across borders to build a truly international labor movement? How does labor beat a rising far right that pitches nationalist arguments to try to win over working-class people, and how can we learn from the international solidarity of the past? We bring you a conversation today on all of these topics and more, recorded live in Erie, Pennsylvania, between Eugenio Narcia Tovar, of the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT) in Mexico, Louise Casselman of the Public Service Alliance in Canada, and Tom Bobrowicz of UE Local 506 in Erie. We also talk to striking university lecturer Claire English and security worker Amjad Khan in London, look at union-busting inside the house at the National Labor Relations Board, and greet a new coalition dedicated to tackling Amazon. For “Argh, I wish I’d written that,” we consider labor’s ongoing fight against sexual harassment and the long fight for paid family leave. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Agency Workers Stage Protest Against Labor Board Actions (Bloomberg) Universities have driven their workers into the ground. That’s why I’m striking (Guardian) Back on Strike (London Review of Books) University staff make trade union history as UCL employees and outsourced workers strike together (Morning Star) Michelle: Black Friday Amazon deals’ costs: Workers’ health, climate change and your own taxes (NBC) Athena Conversation: Eugenio Narcia Tovar, of the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT) in Mexico Louise Casselman of the Public Service Alliance in Canada Tom Bobrowicz of UE Local 506 in Erie Overcoming Fear: Creating a Trinational Workers Toolkit (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung NY) Argh, I wish I’d Written That: Michelle: Mona L. Siegel, The Forgotten Origins of Paid Family Leave (New York Times) Sarah: Kim Kelly, Labor Took on “Bad Bosses” Long Before #MeToo (The New Republic) The post Belabored Podcast #189: International Solidarity appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] After eleven days rallying in the streets, the Chicago Teachers Union ended their strike and inked a tentative agreement with many hard-fought gains. We speak with teacher and organizer Kenzo Shibata and education scholar Lois Weiner about what the recent wave of teacher strikes signifies about union militancy today, how radical rank-and-file movements have reshaped teacher unions, the struggle to protect public schools from neoliberal reform agendas, and the wider role of public-sector unions in the community. In other news, we look at Google workers taking action on climate change and immigrants’ rights, Instacart shoppers in revolt with Vanessa Bain, a labor mobilization at a Los Angeles museum, and the Little Rock teachers’ fight for bargaining power with Kimberley Crutchfield. With recommended reading about revising antitrust law and the gig economy’s new Taylorism. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Marciano Art Foundation and the value of ‘art labor’ (KCRW) Marciano Art Foundation lays off visitor associates days after union drive is announced (LA Times) Michelle: Can Google’s Soul Be Saved? (The Progressive) Google Workers For Action on Climate (Medium) Little Rock teachers to go on strike over district’s control (AP) Instacart Has Retaliated Against us — Update (Medium) Instacart Cuts ‘Quality’ Bonus After Workers Go on 3-Day Strike (Vice) Conversation: Lois Weiner, @drloisweiner Kenzo Shibata, @KenzoShibata Sarah: The Chicago Teachers Strike Was a Lesson in 21st-Century Organizing (The Nation) Sarah: How Chicago Teachers Built Power Between Strikes (The Progressive) It’s Chicago Educators Versus the Ruling Class (Jacobin) Chicago Teachers Didn’t Win Everything, But They’ve Transformed the City—And the Labor Movement (In These Times) Argh: Sarah: Josh Gabert-Doyon, I Saw the Gig Economy’s Bleak Future During a 96-Hour Work Marathon (Vice) Michelle: Sanjukta Paul and Sandeep Vaheesan, Make Antitrust Democratic Again! (The Nation) The post Belabored Podcast #188: What the Chicago Teachers Won appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] The strike at GM is over, the deal has been ratified, and what have the workers learned? What has the country learned? We pick apart the details, the history, and what remains to fight for with autoworker Sean Crawford from the Flint assembly plant, UAW local 598, and Ruth Milkman, distinguished professor of sociology at CUNY and author of, among other books, Farewell to the Factory. They discuss the past of the UAW and its future, the questions around plant closures and electric cars, what it would take to really rebuild union strength in manufacturing, and much more. We also get an update on the Chicago Teachers Union, who have a tentative agreement and are back in the classroom as we speak, and the journalists at WHYY who voted to unionize this week. We dig into the Trump National Labor Relations Board’s record with Celine McNicholas from the Economic Policy Institute, and find out what happened to the miners from Blackjewel who occupied the railroad tracks and held up the coal train when their company suddenly went bankrupt and cut them all loose. For Argh, we consider the revolt in Chile, where neoliberalism began, and from right here at Dissent, why we need a working-class media. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Unprecedented: The Trump NLRB’s attack on workers’ rights (Economic Policy Institute) Blackjewel Coal Miners to Get Millions in Back Pay After Train Blockade (New York Times) Kentucky Miners Are Camped Out on Railroad Tracks, Blocking a Coal Train, Demanding Their Stolen Wages (Labor Notes) Chicago Teachers Union reaches Tentative Agreement for new contract with Chicago Public Schools (CTU) CPS strike over, classes to resume Friday as Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Teachers Union reach deal on makeup days (Chicago Tribune) Sarah: How Chicago Teachers Built Power Between Strikes (Progressive) Workers at WHYY, Philly’s public radio station, vote to unionize (Philadelphia Inquirer) Conversation: Sean Crawford, UAW local 598 Ruth Milkman, Sociology Professor, CUNY GM Workers Ratify Contract Though ‘Mixed at Best’ (Labor Notes) Strike over! UAW workers ratify contract with GM. Here’s what’s next (Detroit Free Press) Sarah: The Last Stand in Lordstown (New Republic) Sarah: The Return of the Strike (Progressive) Argh: Michelle: Carla Murphy, Why We Need a Working-Class Media (Dissent) Sarah: Felipe Lagos-Rojas and Francisca Gomez-Baeza, Chileans Have Launched a General Strike Against Austerity (Jacobin) The post Belabored Podcast #187: After the GM Strike, Now What? appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] If you have ever been involved in any kind of campaign, social movement, labor group or volunteer project, you’ve interacted with the world of nonprofit organizations—the sector of the economy that purports to operate in service of a public-interest mission. The term nonprofit evokes a sense of charity and altruism. But at the end of the day, the nonprofit is also a workplace—one that often operates just like any profit-driven corporate enterprise, except maybe with lower pay and more thankless labor. We speak with Kayla Blado, president of the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU), and Adam Simpson, a member of the newly formed union of the workers at the Democracy Collaborative, about why workers at nonprofits should all join unions and why they often don’t. While the GM workers consider a tentative agreement, we check in with the Chicago teachers on strike. And we explore new efforts to organize workers in California’s home childcare and marijuana industries, and a budding union at a green power company. With recommended reading on bargaining for the common good in Chicago, and Big Oil’s plunder of native lands. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Signs of Discord as U.A.W. Locals Consider G.M. Deal (New York Times) GM-UAW deal calls for 9,000 jobs, $9,000 ratification bonus, e-truck at Detroit-Hamtramck (Detroit Free Press) Why Are Chicago Teachers Striking Against Mayor Lori Lightfoot? They’ve Been “Lied To” Before. (In These Times) Josh Eidelson and Sarah Jaffe: Belabored Podcast #1: “We Will Shut Down Your City,” An Interview with Karen Lewis (Dissent) The push to unionize cannabis workers, explained (Vox) Michelle: “Hardhats vs. Hippies”: How the Media Misrepresents the Debate Over the Green New Deal (In These Times) Michelle: California’s Home Day Care Workers Win the Right to Unionize (The Progressive) Conversation: Kayla Blado, President, NPEU, and Director of Media Relations at Economic Policy Institute Adam Simpson, Program Associate, Democracy Collaborative Nonprofit Professional Employees Union Democracy Collaborative Kayla Blado: The Answer To Burnout At Work Isn’t “Self-Care”—It’s Unionizing (In These Times) Nonprofit Workers Need Unions, Too (Jacobin) Argh: Sarah: Rebecca Burns, What’s at Stake in Chicago Teachers’ Strike: Whether Unions Can Bargain for the Entire Working Class (In These Times) Michelle: Nick Martin, The Connection Between Pipelines and Sexual Violence (New Republic) The post Belabored Podcast #186: “A Boss Is a Boss” appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] The gig economy gets a lot of press, but relatively little of the writing on the subject comes from the inside. Callum Cant’s new book, Riding for Deliveroo, aims to change all that. It’s a firsthand account of being a Deliveroo driver in the UK, as well as an analysis of how platform capitalism functions—or doesn’t function—and what it would take to remake it so that it worked for the workers, and therefore for all of us. Cant sat down with Belabored for an in-depth discussion of his work, from the day-to-day grind to the organizing process that is still powering waves of wildcat strikes of Deliveroo and UberEats couriers across the UK, and offers some suggestions for how better to understand the people who work in these jobs. We also bring you updates from the GM strike and from the Chicago Teachers Union, where another strike looms as well; we check in on graduate employees’ up-and-down fortunes with the NLRB, and the UK Labour party’s radical policy agenda laid out at its recent conference, including the embrace of the four-day working week. For Argh, we consider the struggles when the union’s the boss, and why the path to climate justice runs through victory for the autoworkers at GM. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Michelle: Trumpsters: Grad Students Are Not Workers, Have No Rights (The Progressive) Sarah: The Road Not Taken (on GM at Lordstown) (The New Republic) As GM strike continues, talks advance at Fiat Chrysler, Ford (The Washington Post) 3 Chicago unions, including CPS teachers, could soon go on strike together in ‘an extraordinarily disruptive moment’ (Chicago Tribune) Sarah: The Four-Day Work Week—Not Just a Daydream (The Progressive) Belabored #177: More Hours for What We Will, with Will Stronge (Dissent) Conversation: Callum Cant at Notes from Below Riding for Deliveroo: Resistance in the New Economy (Polity) Argh: Michelle: Jane McAlevey, The Path to Climate Justice Runs Through the UAW Strike (The Nation) Sarah: Hamilton Nolan, SEIU’s Nasty Fight With Its Own Staff Union (Splinter) The post Belabored Podcast #185: Riding for Deliveroo, with Callum Cant appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] General Motors workers took to the picket lines this week around the United States, in an unexpected and major strike that has long-term implications. We talk to autoworker Sean Crawford about the strike and what’s at stake. Then, from the UK, as the Labour party gathers for its annual conference and The World Transformed festival, we bring you an extended interview with Jason Moyer-Lee of the Independent Workers Great Britain (IWGB), a new union organizing everyone from foster care workers to Uber drivers to video game programmers—everyone, in other words, that the rest of the labor movement tends to say can’t be unionized. We learn how they’ve done it and more. We also check in on gig economy workers in California after a big victory, and Kickstarter employees who’ve filed charges of retaliation for union activity. For Argh, we talk about yoga instructors unionizing, and think about what stake unions have in fighting for housing justice for all. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Michelle: Hey, Uber and Lyft: Gig Work Is Work. California Just Said So. (In These Times) Unionizing Workers Just Accused Kickstarter of Retaliatory Firings in a Federal Complaint (Slate) Corruption Cases in the Auto Workers Complicate Bargaining (Labor Notes) Striking GM Workers Deserve Our Support (The Nation) What’s at Stake in the General Motors Strike (Dissent) Conversation: IWGB Union Jason Moyer-Lee in the Guardian Argh: Michelle: Marnie Brady, Workers and Renters of the World, Unite! (Jacobin) Sarah: Sarah Jones, The Scourge of Worker Wellness Programs (New York) The post Belabored Podcast #184: Organizing the Unorganizable, with Jason Moyer-Lee appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] There’s a whole world of labor activism outside the confines of the United States, so we’re devoting this episode to a breakthrough event in Asia last month. Our friends at Labor Notes held their first ever conference in Asia in August, bringing together labor organizers and activists from across the continent in Taipei. They discussed everything from the Hong Kong strikes to gender discrimination to the challenges of organizing across global supply chains. We caught up with Saurav Sarkar of Labor Notes and Kevin Lin of International Labor Rights Forum for a report back. In other news, we cover the southeast strike by AT&T featuring Bernie Sanders, an attack on the right to leaflet, the future of gig economy delivery workers, and catch up with Lordstown’s Chuckie Denison. With recommended reading on the secret world of art handlers, and the sick politics of worker wellness. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: #PayUp State of Pay — Doing Right By Our Shoppers (Medium) AT&T strike comes to an end after agreement is reached with union (WLOX) Bernie showed up to a Union Strike against ATT! (YouTube) Sarah: The Road Not Taken (New Republic) This May Be the Worst Trump NLRB Decision Yet (On Labor) Conversation: Saurav Sarkar and Kevin Lin Labor Notes Asia Conference Argh: Michelle: Zachary Small, The Danger Epidemic in Art Handling (Hyperallergic) Sarah: Lena Solow, The Scourge of Worker Wellness Programs (New Republic) The post Belabored Podcast #183: Troublemaking in Asia appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] How would the workplace be different if the workers owned it? This question has been asked many times in many different ways over the centuries of capitalism, but it has once again moved to the center of political discussions with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Bernie Sanders in the United States. Today we’re talking with one of the thinkers behind new policies designed to change the way businesses are owned and run, giving workers a say in the profits they create and the processes they work under. Mathew Lawrence is the director of Commonwealth, a new think tank, and he joins us to talk about why ownership models matter in this moment of crisis. We also hear updates from the Harland and Wolff occupation and ICE’s crackdown on workers who raise complaints in the workplace, and we look at Bernie Sanders’s sweeping labor law reform proposals and Trump’s crackdown on lower-income migrants. For Argh we consider why migrants pack our meat in the first place (spoiler alert: corporations like it that way) and consider the “birth strike.” This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Michelle: Fearing Trump’s New Crackdown, Immigrants Are Already Forgoing Food Stamps (In These Times) Harland and Wolff Shipyard Should be Re-Nationalized, say Unions (Irish Examiner) Gerry Carroll Undocumented Restaurant Worker Is Arrested by ICE During Deposition Against His Employer (WNYC) Bernie Sanders Unveils Sweeping Labor Plan (Bloomberg) The Workplace Democracy Plan (Bernie Sanders) Kate Andrias: A Seat at the Table: Sectoral Bargaining for the Common Good (Dissent) Conversation: Mathew Lawrence, Commonwealth Owning the Future: Toward the Democratic Economy (Commonwealth) A Cross-Atlantic Plan to Break Capital’s Control (Jacobin) Argh: Michelle: Jenny Brown, Abortion is Our Right to Strike (Jacobin) Sarah: Eric Schlosser, Why it’s Immigrants who Pack Your Meat (Atlantic) The post Belabored Podcast #182: (Slowly) Seizing the Means of Production appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] The city-state of Hong Kong, a former British colonial outpost turned reclaimed territory of mainland China, used to be known as one of the best places to do business in Asia. Now it’s the best place to wage a mass social uprising. The past few weeks have seen a protest movement against a controversial extradition bill, which would have permitted China to remove fugitives from Hong Kong to the mainland, spiral into an increasingly militant revolt against Beijing’s dominion. This past week was punctuated by intensifying street clashes between protesters and police, as well as the first general strike in several decades. We spoke with activists on the ground to gauge what these recent events signify about Hong Kong’s restive political insurgencies, the role of the left and labor, and why the latest wave of protests has mobilized people across the social spectrum, even against a backdrop of growing economic frustration and rising inequality. In other news, we look at young guestworkers in the United States, the economic benefits of abortion access, the collapse of a storied British shipyard, and the social devastation wrought by Homeland Security’s latest anti-immigrant raids. And in other news, YouTubers boost a new unionization campaign, and Kentucky mine workers demand justice from King Coal. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: ICE arrested hundreds of people in raids. Now ‘devastated’ children are without their parents. (Washington Post) Protecting your constitutional rights during a workplace raid (UFCW) The Economic Effects of Abortion Access: A Review of the Evidence (IWPR) Save Harland and Wolff (Tribune) Foreign students hired for summer jobs in US subjected to abuses, says study (Guardian) Shining a Light on Summer Work: A First Look at Employers Using the J-1 Summer Work Travel Visa (ILRWG) Conversation: L.H. Au, Workercom Jeffrey Ngo, chief researcher, Demosistō Wong Yu-loy, Organising Coordinator, Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions Michelle: One Country, Two Systems, Millions in the Streets (Dissent) Hong Kong’s Fight for Life (Dissent) The Rebellion in Hong Kong Is Intensifying (Jacobin) Other Voices from the Anti-Extradition Movement (闯 Chuǎng) Argh: Sarah: Alexandra Bradbury, Kentucky Miners Are Camped Out on Railroad Tracks, Blocking a Coal Train, Demanding Their Stolen Wages (Labor Notes) Michelle: Edward Ongweso Jr, The YouTubers Union Is Not Messing Around (Vice) The post Belabored Podcast #181: Hong Kong Pushed to the Edge appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, has resigned, in the wake of massive protests and a general strike in response to ongoing corruption investigations and the release of chat logs in which Rosselló and eleven other male administration members mocked gay people, women, and Hurricane Maria victims. One of the officials arrested is Julia Keleher the former education secretary, who was a main target of the island’s teachers unions for her push to privatize the public schools, New Orleans-style, after the hurricane. We are joined this week from the midst of the action by Mercedes Martinez, president of the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico. Martinez has been organizing to reopen schools and battle the privatization agenda for years. She joins us to talk about the corruption, its connection to privatization of public schools, the future of the island under the fiscal control board, and what mainlanders can do to support Puerto Rico. We also look at sub-minimum wages for people with disabilities with Andrew Stettner of the Century Foundation, Andy Stern’s shift away from labor, and hear about a strike at Walmart-owned grocery stores and the introduction of a national Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights. For Argh, we consider last week’s Amazon strikes and the community from which they grew, and remind you that rich people are not your friends. We also remember Hector Figueroa of SEIU 32BJ, whose sudden death has left New York’s labor community in mourning. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Workers with Disabilities Deserve a Raise (The Century Foundation) High Profile Labor Leader Has a New Gig Fighting Against Teacher’s Unions (Splinter) Kamala Harris just introduced a bill to give housekeepers overtime pay and meal breaks (Vox) Walmart Chile reaches agreement with union workers to end six-day strike (Reuters) Chile’s Walmart Workers End Strike After Winning Pay Raise (teleSUR) Conversation: ‘We Just Changed History’: Cheers and Tears in San Juan (New York Times) Puerto Rico police fire teargas on protesters calling for governor to quit (Guardian) The pillage of public funds in Puerto Rico going on behind the chat (Centro de Periodismo Investigativo) Puerto Rico’s former education secretary, others arrested in federal fraud probe (NBC) Sarah and Michelle: Belabored Podcast #149: Voices from Labor Notes Conference, with Mercedes Martinez and Liza Fournier (Dissent) Argh: Michelle: Liz Clarke, Nick French, Even Nice, “Generous” Rich People Are Not Your Friends (Jacobin) Sarah: Spencer Cox, The Amazon Prime Day strike shows how to take on Amazon – and win (Guardian) The post Belabored Podcast #180: General Strike in Puerto Rico Gets the Goods, with Mercedes Martinez appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] Samsung Electronics has been instrumental in supplying the gadgetry that keeps us all connected. But the company is also a vast, opaque empire stretching around the globe, run by a secretive circle of South Korean executives that has an enormous amount of both wealth and power, and apparently, little respect for the rights of the people who make up its global labor force. In an extensive investigation spanning nine cities in India, Indonesia, and Vietnam, reporters with the South Korean news outlet Hankyoreh examined harrowing stories of workers getting sick or dying, reportedly due to the harsh and hazardous working conditions in Samsung Factories. And they also explored widespread allegations of systematic abuse of workers who sought to organize their factories. We talk to one of the co-authors of the series, Lee Jae-yeon about Samsung’s global web of corporate impunity. In other news, we’ve got a Minnesota double-header: Amazon worker Mohamed Hassan on an impending strike on Prime Day, and SEIU’s Iris Altaminaro on charges of union busting and discrimination against airport workers; unionizing daycare workers at California; and the arrest of Puerto Rico’s scandal-ridden former Education Secretary. With recommended reading on a standoff between writers and talent agents in Hollywood, and a victory for U.S. women on the pitch. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting as we soldier on through Trumplandia, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Former Puerto Rico Education Secretary Arrested on Federal Corruption Charges (Mother Jones) Former heads of Puerto Rico Education Dept. and Health Insurance Administration arrested along with president of BDO (Caribbean Business) Workers Allege Discrimination at the Airport (Workday Minnesota) In high demand, but with little pay, day care workers hope to unionize (KCRW) Amazon Workers Plan Prime Day Strike at Minnesota Warehouse (Bloomberg) Conversation: Lee Jae-yeon, staff reporter Hankyoreh [Special report- Part I] Worked to death at the ripe age of 22 [Special report- Part II] Samsung’s labor violations gone global [Special report- Part III] Curses, verbal abuse, and impossible quotas [Special report- Part IV]Samsung’s systematic dismantlement of its first overseas labor union [Special report- Part V] Samsung has come under fire worldwide for its union-busting tactics Argh: Sarah: Liz Clarke, After a World Cup victory like no other, one chant stands out for the U.S. women: ‘Equal pay!’ (Washington Post) Michelle: Keli Goff, Democratic Candidates Are Ignoring One of the Year’s Biggest Labor Disputes (The Nation) The post Belabored Podcast #179: Samsung’s Labor Abuses appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] We hear a lot from politicians, doctors, hospitals, and insurers about how to fix the healthcare system—the same crowd that brought us our current disaster of exorbitant prices and overcrowded emergency rooms. But the people who actually deliver the bulk of everyday healthcare services are often overlooked in the politics of medicine: nurses. Unionized nurses are campaigning for sweeping changes to the healthcare system, including a national single-payer plan and safe staffing levels in hospitals. We talked to Cokie Giles of National Nurses United and Linda Aiken of University of Pennsylvania’s School of Nursing about how nurses see the current so-called “nursing shortage” and how to fix the system for good. In other news, Chris Brooks of Labor Notes dissects the latest debacle for United Auto Workers at the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant; union lawyer Tamir Rosenblum dives into the National Labor Relations Board’s war on Scabby the Rat and what it means for workers’ free-speech rights; Saba Waheed of UCLA Labor Center breaks down California’s bill to upgrade the gig economy; and we look at the digital media labor battles at Vox and Buzzfeed. With recommended reading on Youngstown’s overlooked black community, and why not a one-day work week? This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting as we soldier on through Trumplandia, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Why the UAW Lost Another Election in Tennessee (The Nation) Why the UAW Lost Again in Chattanooga (Labor Notes) Uber and Lyft Really Don’t Want California to Pass This Worker Rights Bill (CityLab) Michelle: Can New York Rein in Uber? (The Nation) Sarah: The Labor Movement Comes to Virtual Reality: Unionizing Digital Media (Truthout) BuzzFeed journalists just walked off the job in 4 cities. Here’s why. (Vox) Vox Media Employees Walk Out On Final Day Of Union Bargaining (Huffington Post) Deflate the Rat? Labor Board Asks Court to Stop Union Protest (Bloomberg Law) Conversation: Linda Aiken, Director, Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing Cokie Giles, Vice President of National Nurses United National Nurses United Medicare for All Campaign Michelle: More Nurses Means Better Care—So Why Did This Ballot Measure Fail? (The Nation) Nurses Have a Prescription for the Democratic Party: Back Single Payer (The Nation) Sarah with Mari Cordes: Emboldened Fight for Health Care as a Right (The Baffler) Linda Aiken, et al, Implications of the California Nurse Staffing Mandate for Other States (Health Services Research) Argh: Sarah: Nicola Davis, Just one day of work a week improves mental health, study suggests (Guardian) Michelle: Henry Grabar, The Nonwhite Working Class (Slate) The post Belabored Podcast #178: A Nurse’s Prescription for Fixing Healthcare appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] What if the best thing we could do for ourselves, the planet, and even the places where we work was—to do less work? It’s an idea with a long history in the labor movement, stretching back to the beginnings of industrial capitalism. Workers fought for the ten hour day, the eight hour day, days off. One of labor’s favorite slogans is, “We’re the people who brought you the weekend.” Maybe it’s time to revive these very old ideas for the challenges of a new generation of workers. Will Stronge is director of Autonomy, a UK-based think tank serving up research on the benefits of a shorter working week, and he sat down with Sarah to talk about the various ways that working less can improve our lives—and maybe fight climate change, too. We also check in on the latest struggle in West Virginia with educator Brendan Muckian-Bates of the WV United caucus, as teachers battle to stop yet another retaliatory bill, with graduate workers on strike at the University of Chicago, and a crackdown on journalists in the Philippines. For Argh, we remind you that robots are not the reason you’re losing your job, and that Trump’s trade policy is about enriching the already-wealthy, not helping workers. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting as we soldier on through Trumplandia, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: University of Chicago Graduate Workers Holding a Labor Action—Here’s What to Expect (The Chicago Maroon) West Virginia Senate passes sweeping education bill to ban teacher strikes (ThinkProgress) Rappler-CIA plot claim is attempt to cut funding, Philippine journalists say (CPJ) Conversation: Will Stronge, Autonomy The Shorter Working Week: a Radical and Pragmatic Proposal (Autonomy) The Shorter Working Week: a Powerful Tool to Drastically Reduce Carbon Emissions (Autonomy) Will Stronge: Work and free time: a new social settlement (openDemocracy) Michelle: How Would You Feel About a 4-Day Workweek? (The Nation) Sarah and Michelle: Belabored Podcast #160: When One Job Isn’t Enough (Dissent) Argh: Sarah: Brian Merchant, ‘Robots’ Are Not ‘Coming for Your Job’—Management Is (Gizmodo) Michelle: Dean Baker, Trump’s Trade War with China Benefits Big Corporations—Not Ordinary Workers (In These Times) The post Belabored Podcast #177: More Hours for What We Will, with Will Stronge appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] This week we bring you excerpts of a conversation on labor organizing in a changing economy, hosted by the Sterling Network in New York City. We brought together unconventional strands of the labor world to think about how to build movements creatively and effectively while working on the margins of society. Here, Bhairavi Desai of New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Bianca Cunningham of Labor Notes, and Valeria Treves of the LIFT Fund talk about how the labor movement can evolve to become more inclusive, powerful, and responsive to the needs of diverse working-class communities. In other news, we’ve got Walmart workers and garment workers crashing shareholder meetings, fast food with a side of harassment and supersized rage, and cabbies caught in a ponzi scheme. With recommended reading on the theory and practice of organizing, and the thankless work of dementia care. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting as we soldier on through Trumplandia, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: McDonald’s investigated over racism and harassment claims in Brazil (Guardian) Garment Workers Protest Low Wages At Ross Headquarters (SFGATE) Bernie Sanders is planning to crash Walmart’s next shareholders meeting and argue hourly workers deserve a spot on the company’s board (Business Insider) ‘They Were Conned’: How Reckless Loans Devastated a Generation of Taxi Drivers (New York Times) Conversation: Bhairavi Desai, New York Taxi Workers Alliance Bianca Cunningham, Labor Notes Valeria Treves, LIFT Fund Sarah: Brooklyn Wireless Workers Vote to Save Their Union (Dissent) Michelle: New York’s Taxi System Is Broken—Can This Workers’ Plan Fix It? (The Nation) Sarah and Michelle: Belabored Podcast #175: Shut off the Apps, with International Striking Uber and Lyft Drivers (Dissent) Argh: Sarah: Alyssa Battistoni, Spadework (n+1) Michelle: Anonymous, “I have to treat patients like objects”: the harsh reality of working in dementia care (Guardian) The post Belabored Podcast #176: Talking Union in NYC appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] Ride-share drivers around the world turned off the app and turned up the noise at Uber’s international headquarters as the company went public, and helped to change the narrative from that of massive profits to one of disappointment. The drivers around the world are asking for their share of the value created—which is, as we’d note, most of it! We spoke to drivers and organizers in New York, Los Angeles, and the UK. We also checked in on potential labor law reform on the national scale and farmworker labor reforms in New York. We followed the continuing teacher strike wave to South Carolina, North Carolina, and Oregon. And we took some time to remember friend of the show Dan Clawson, labor scholar and unionist, who we lost this week. For “Argh,” we think about whether “the dignity of work” is a concept worth saving, and offer a reminder that the Green New Deal must go beyond the roots of the original New Deal and be antiracist and anticolonial from the start. News: NY Farmworkers to rally in Albany for labor protections (AP) With PRO Act, Democrats Commit to Dramatic Labor Reforms (New York Magazine) Thousands of North and South Carolina teachers are protesting — but not just for the reasons you might think (CNN) Thousands of Oregon teachers push for more school funding at rallies around the state (KPTV) Sarah: In Nick of Time, Portland Teachers Make Deal to Avert Strike (In These Times) Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel: Who Controls Our Time? (Labor Notes) Conversation: The Ride-Hail Strike Got Just Enough Attention to Terrify Uber (Slate) New York Taxi Workers Alliance Rideshare Drivers United Independent Workers Great Britain Argh: Michelle: Sarah Jones, “Joe Biden Should Retire the Phrase ‘Dignity of Work’” (New York Magazine) Sarah: Dalia Gebrial, “As the left wakes up to climate injustice, we must not fall into ‘green colonialism’” (The Guardian) The post Belabored Podcast #175: Shut off the Apps, with International Striking Uber and Lyft Drivers appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] Marching from the checkout line to the picket line, Stop & Shop workers staged the biggest private-sector strike in years, and came away with a pending contract agreement this week. More than 30,000 workers across New England stopped work for about three weeks, while their union, UFCW, kept the pressure on in talks over what many dismissed as a “union-busting” contract proposal. In the end, they won pay raises, preserved healthcare and pension benefits, and reached a deal over protecting contract terms for future workers. We caught up with two veteran Stop & Shop workers to talk about the strike and what it says about the labor movement today. In other news, we look at academic union organizing at University of Pittsburgh and Rutgers, struggles of factory workers in Bangladesh’s garment sector with union organizers Mousumi and Sima, and the perils facing construction workers in New York. With recommended reading on child labor “kidfluencing” on social media and student debtors and radical faculty smashing the ivory tower. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting as we soldier on through Trumplandia, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: Pitt Graduate Student Union Worker killed by falling crane counterweight in NYC (AP) Rutgers reaches contract agreement with faculty to avoid disruptive strike (NorthJersey.com) Amidst Wave of Deadly Fires, Bangladesh Government Threatens to Expel the Only Credible Building Safety Program in the Country and Further Suppress Workers’ Rights (Clean Clothes Campaign) Conversation with Jose Lopes and Celene Blaisdell: Stop & Shop Reaches Tentative Contract Deal, Ending Strike (Bloomberg) UFCW Announces Tentative Agreement for Stop & Shop Workers (UFCW) Stop Shopping At Stop & Shop (Jacobin) Argh: Sarah: Julia Carrie Wong, ‘It’s not play if you’re making money’: how Instagram and YouTube disrupted child labor laws (Guardian) Michelle: Ann Larson, Academia, Grassroots Organizations, and Debt: Towards a Genuine Collaboration (Public Seminar) The post Belabored Podcast #174: Stop & Strike appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] From the beginning, video games have been both a form of work and a form of rebellion against work, so it’s fitting that this week we talk about the work of making games with Jamie Woodcock, author of the new book Marx at the Arcade. We trace the history of games from the military-industrial complex to today’s multi-billion-dollar industry, and look at the workers who have made all that possible, from the factory floors to newly unionized game programmers. We also take a look at the potential strike in New York’s famed pre-kindergarten program, and the end of a three-week strike at the University of Illinois Chicago. And we hear about how poor people wind up getting audited by the IRS, and a new bill to tackle workplace harassment after the revelations of the #MeToo moment. For Argh, we consider the organizing happening along the border, on the Mexican side, and demand that we repeal Taft-Hartley, already. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting as we soldier on through Trumplandia, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News: BE HEARD in the Workplace Act Would Help Create Fairer, Safer Workplaces for All (National Partnership for Women & Families) U of Illinois Chicago Grad Assistants End Strike (Inside Higher Ed) UIC GEO Where in The U.S. Are You Most Likely to Be Audited by the IRS? (ProPublica) Some NYC Pre-K Teachers Can’t Make Ends Meet. Now They’re Preparing to Strike. (New York Magazine) Sarah: The Fight for Universal Pre-K: New York Charts a Checkered Path Toward Equal Early Education (Truthout) Conversation: Marx at the Arcade: Consoles, Controllers, and Class Struggle by Jamie Woodcock (Haymarket Books, 2019) Notes from Below Game Workers Unite! IWGB Launches UK’s First Ever Union Branch for Video Game Workers Argh: Michelle: Alex Campbell, Amazon says it’s a leader on fighting climate change. 5,000 employees disagree. (Vox) Sarah: C.M Lewis, Labor has opposed Taft-Hartley for decades. Here’s why it’s time to repeal it. (Strikewave) (Subscribe to the Strikewave newsletter) The post Belabored Podcast #173: Wages for Warcraft, with Jamie Woodcock appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] Capitol Hill is abuzz with the Green New Deal—an ambitious agenda to tackle climate change, disrupt neoliberal economic policy, and decarbonize society by 2030. But is the rest of the economy, and its workers, ready for the kind of dramatic transformation that the climate change movement is calling for? We talk to Rusty Hicks of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, a group of some 800,000 workers across the region who are rallying behind a resolution supporting the Green New Deal, passed unanimously by the executive leadership board. We discuss how labor can break out of the traditional “jobs vs. the environment” paradigm and mobilize for a just transition in the workplace and across all communities. In other news, we look at two new reports about how our jobs are getting more dangerous and less regulated, a labor-backed campaign to shield immigrants from deportation, and two uprisings in higher ed, among faculty in Philadelphia and student interns in Quebec. With recommended reading on applying the strategies of labor organizing to push for a green economy, and how we think about our free time. News: Michelle: Declining Federal Oversight of Workplace Safety Could Have Fatal Consequences (The Nation) Is Gig Work a Job? Uber and Others Are Maneuvering to Shape the Answer (New York Times) “Pay Your Interns Now” (Jacobin) The Dream and Promise Act Could Put 2.1 Million Dreamers on Pathway to Citizenship (Center for American Progress) Conversation: Rusty Hicks, Secretary Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Shows the Way to a Green New Deal (LA Fed) Labor Network for Sustainability: Labor and the Green New Deal (Labor Network for Sustainability) Labor Unions Are Skeptical of the Green New Deal, and They Want Activists to Hear Them Out (Intercept) The Green New Deal and the case against incremental climate policy (Vox) Argh: Sarah: Will Stronge, Work and free time: a new social settlement (openDemocracy) Michelle: Jane McAlevey, Organizing to Win a Green New Deal (Jacobin) The post Belabored Podcast #172: Putting Climate Justice to Work, with Rusty Hicks appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] Some of the finest classical musicians in the world are on strike this week. Performers in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, members of the Chicago Federation of Musicians Local 10-208, are walking the picket lines thanks to demands for givebacks in their contract. To explain the strike as well as the life of a working concert musician, we speak with Robert Kassinger, a bassist with the orchestra and part of the union’s leadership. We also speak with Anthony Ciampa of the New York State Nurses Association about the major strike vote taken by that union recently, and Ariane Hegewisch of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research about a new report on how automation will affect women workers. We also look at more proposals for paid family leave, and a potential union staffers strike. For Argh, we consider whether a clothing brand can eliminate all distinction between work and play, and the undying myth of meritocracy. News: New York Nurses Prepare to Strike over Patient Ratios Gillibrand Pans GOP Paid Leave Proposal How Do The Different Childcare And Paid Family Leave Plans Stack Up? Trump’s Parental Leave Proposal Is Pure Hypocrisy Union Employees Authorize A Strike Against Their Own Union Women, Automation, and the Future of Work, Institute for Women’s Policy Research Conversation: The Chicago Symphony Goes on Strike over Pension Plan Argh: Sarah: Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, Outdoor Voices Blurs the Line Between Working Out and Everything Else Michelle: Nathan Robinson, The Guardian, Meritocracy is a myth invented by the rich The post Belabored Episode #171: Orchestra on Strike! with Robert Kassinger appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] By now you’ve heard of the spectacular rise and fall of the Amazon HQ2 Deal in Queens. Faced with a barrage of anti-corporate outrage, deep local skepticism, and a political gridlock, the king of digital commerce did a total 180, deciding abruptly that it would take its business elsewhere. The collapse of the negotiations marked a victory for community organizing, but thwarting the Amazon invasion is just one act in a broader drama about urban development and the power multinationals like Amazon hold over our social and political landscape. We speak with Camille Rivera, National Political Director of the Retail, Wholesale Department Store Union, about what happened, and what labor can do to make economic development in our cities fairer for all. In other news, we talk to Uber drivers struggling for just jobs in the UK, explore the Rust Belt uprising that has triggered one of the biggest strikes under Trump, with UE’s Jonathan Kissam, and look at fast fashion’s labor crisis in Bangladesh and teacher radicalism in Oakland. With recommended reading on the social power of a living wage, and a new campaign to decriminalize sex work in New York. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting as we soldier on through Trumplandia, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News EU retailers may cut ties with 532 RMG units (New Age) Progress made since Rana Plaza collapse at risk (Clean Clothes Campaign) IWGB launches campaign demanding TfL and Mayor take action over driver exploitation (IWGB) UE News Bernie Sanders Is Making a National Issue of This Strike (The Nation) Oakland school board cancels meeting, citing fear of safety as teachers picket outside (East Bay Times) Tentative agreement reached in Oakland teacher talks (East Bay Times)   Conversation Camille Rivera, National Political Director of the Retail, Wholesale Department Store Union (RWDSU) ‘Wrong Side of History’: In Queens, Amazon Deal’s Demise Reveals Deep Divisions (New York Times) Who’s Responsible For Amazon Quitting Queens? (Gothamist) How the NYC Left Took on Amazon and Won (Jacobin) Argh, I Wish I’d Written That! Michelle: Matthew Desmond, Dollars on the Margins (New York Times Magazine) Sarah: Melissa Gira Grant, The Police Act Like We Are Nothing (The Appeal) The post Belabored Podcast #170: An Amazon Autopsy, with Camille Rivera appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] It’s been a week of labor whiplash as federal workers returned to work, but remained wary of more chaos ahead amid ongoing gridlock on Capitol Hill. We talk to Sara Nelson, the flight attendant and union advocate whose leadership and call for a general strike helped end the shutdown, and George Faraday of Good Jobs Nation, about the impact of the shutdown on federal subcontracted workers and the ongoing privatization crisis in government. In other news, we discuss the Colorado teacher strike and aftermath, Honduran farmworkers mobilizing for union rights under the Fair Trade label, the track record on corporate abuses and civil rights lawsuits, and a new bill for fast food workers’ rights in New York—with additional comments from NYC Council member Brad Lander on the victory against Amazon (more to come on that in future episodes). With recommended reading on the challenge of the Green New Deal and the problems with Alfonso Cuarón’s celebrated movie Roma. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting as we soldier on through Trumplandia, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News Michelle: Corporations Have Paid Out at Least $2.7 Billion in Civil-Rights and Labor Lawsuits Since 2000 (The Nation) Michelle: The Supreme Court’s War on Class-Action Lawsuits (The Nation) Denver Public Schools, union reach tentative agreement to end city’s first teachers strike in 25 years (Denver Post) Denver teachers “elated” to be back in classrooms following deal to end strike (Denver Post) Denver Students Stage Their Own Walkout in Solidarity With Striking Teachers (Splinter) Why we fight. DCTA Strike (Colorado Education Association) Michelle: Labor Unrest Is Erupting on Honduran Plantations—And Rattling the Global Supply Chain (In These Times) After Winning a $15 Minimum Wage, Fast Food Workers Now Battle Unfair Firings (New York Times)   Conversation Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO General Strike 2019 George Faraday: Over 1 million federal contract workers may be jobless Because of Trump Shutdown (Good Jobs Nation) Argh, I Wish I’d Written That! Michelle: Paul Mason, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal is radical but it needs to be credible too (New Statesman) Sarah: Sophie Lewis, I Like Being Dead (Blind Field) The post Belabored Podcast #169: Shutting it Down, with Sara Nelson appeared first on Dissent Magazine.

[contentblock id=belabored-info] After six strike days, the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) won a sweeping new contract that included changes not just in wages and class sizes but in policing in schools, green space, charter school colocations, and much more. Arlene Inouye was on the bargaining team, and she joins us to explain what they got, how they did it, and what’s next. We also check in with West Virginia educators voting for another walkout, the end of the government shutdown, Trump’s proposed changes to apprenticeships, and the T-Mobile merger. For argh, we consider why we pretend to love our jobs, and why Starbucks workers don’t love Howard Schultz’s run for president. This week’s show was supported by our monthly sustaining members. If you think our work is worth supporting as we soldier on through Trumplandia, please consider becoming a member today. If you’re interested in advertising on the show, please email ads@dissentmagazine.org. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips, email us at belabored@dissentmagazine.org. News General Strike: The Fierce Urgency of Now (AFA-CWA) Only one Republican has signed on to a bill guaranteeing back pay for federal contractors (Vox) Deregulating Apprenticeship (Inside Higher Ed) West Virginia United: A Rank-and-File Caucus Michelle: How Corporate Monopolies Are Dragging Down Your Paycheck (The Nation)   Conversation Sarah: ‘This Is Much Bigger Than Us, Than Our Union, Even Than Our City’ (The Nation) Argh, I Wish I’d Written That! Michelle: Erin Griffith, Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work? (New York Times) Sarah: Maxwell Strachan, Here’s What Starbucks Is Telling Employees To Say About Howard Schultz (HuffPost US) The post Belabored Podcast #168: Victory in L.A., with Arlene Inouye appeared first on Dissent Magazine.