I guess you could call me a liar. Back when I had fundraising responsibilities at several small nonprofit organizations, I lied to foundations all the time. I assumed, often correctly, that funders wanted to believe that their money would directly bring about specific program impacts, so I told them it would. That meant hiding some […]
Labor movement
The Work to Be Done This Labor Day
On Labor Day 2018, it’s hard to maintain hope. Many will labor on Labor Day (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Growing up in a blue-collar union household, working on holidays was considered a boon). Many labor in worse conditions than our parents and grandparents. The Gig Economy The gig economy leaves millions on their […]
Janus v AFSCME:
What the Supreme Court May Strip from Workers The roar of the approaching storm can be both heard and felt in workplaces across the United States. The prospects inherent in a much anticipated – and in many places feared – Supreme Court decision in the case Janus v AFSCME has the political Right giddy. Among […]
Trump One Year Later: Most of Us Live in Dread
I had a discussion with my doctor late spring 2017. I was having gastrointestinal issues, and I said to him that I kept wondering whether the anxiety that I felt about the Trump regime was affecting me physically. My doctor responded very seriously and with a straight face. He replied that many of his patients […]
Beyond Trump: Donald Trump Needs Our Racism
Part of the White, Working Class, and Worried about Trump (#WhiteWorkingClassVsTrump) Campaign*: Throughout the 2016 election cycle, the U.S. electorate has subjected to overt and systemic racism from the Republican candidate Donald Trump. We have also borne witness to Trump exploiting white racial fears in order to garner the support of white people, in particular the white […]
SCOTUS: Public Sector Unions Safe for Now
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it was deadlocked in the case of Friedrichs v California Teachers Association (representing 325,000 teachers in 1,000 school districts). The 4-4 vote, for now, leaves undisturbed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which found itself bound by a prior SCOTUS precedent upholding a system […]
Class and the Labor-Environmental Divide
How do we address the deep class and culture divide that has opened up between workers and environmental activists? We are heading to a potentially severe clash between green advocates who advocate for reducing carbon emissions and labor-community activists concerned about jobs, racial equity and reducing extreme wealth inequality. Both the climate crisis and the […]
Where is labor on Labor Day 2014?
With every passing year, Labor Days becomes increasingly surreal. Labor, as a movement, receives decreasing attention and, to the extent to which Labor Day is acknowledged, it tends to be in the context of work alone. This may sound strange except when you remember that both the original Labor Day—May 1st—as well as the US-constructed […]
Open Shop Trend Makes Organizing “the Organized” Top Union Priority
For many years, American unions have been trying to “organize of the unorganized” to offset and, where possible, reverse their steady loss of dues-paying membership. In union circles, a distinction was often made between that “external organizing” — to recruit workers who currently lack collective bargaining rights — and “internal organizing,” which involves engaging more […]
Against Silencing Race & Class Resistance, in Ferguson & Everywhere
Recently I read an essay on the Huffington Post written by Baptist theologian and activist, Jeff Hood, about developments in Ferguson, Missouri. Hood took issue with clergy on the scene who asserted to African-American protesters, “If we remain peaceful then we will get what we want!” On the contrary, Hood argued, suppressing anger in the […]
Labor Day, American Values and the Status Quo
For the past two years I’ve traveled across the country to film festivals, labor events and public forums to show my documentary, “Farewell to Factory Towns?” With Labor Day on the horizon, I’d like to offer a few thoughts on the reactions of audiences to the film. While relatively diverse, the audiences generally support the […]
Beneath the Veneer of Harris v. Quinn
Harris v. Quinn is a recent Supreme Court opinion, featured often on the news, holding that “partial” public employees – home health care providers – should not be “compelled” to join a union or, put in less charged language, to contribute to union representation in their workplace even when a majority of employees has voted […]
“Sixteen Tons” brings mine wars of ’20s and ’30s alive
“Are the mules okay?” Not to diminish hard-working mules, but the mine boss’s urgent question after an accident captures the cruel reality thrust upon generations of underground coal miners, whose toil fueled America. That authentic quote valuing mules over expendable common laborers jumps off the pages of “Sixteen Tons,” (Hard Ball Press, 2014), described as […]
Grassroots Voices Rising for a New Economy
Imagine an event where the people in control were the house cleaners, the nannies, the family farmers and the unemployed! A little over two weeks ago I attended the joint organizing summit and member assembly of National People’s Action (NPA) and National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA). Entitled Rising Voices for a New Economy, the four-day […]
Trying to survive on $8.25 an hour
On Thursday December 5th in 130 cities across the country fast food workers walked off their jobs calling for $15 in wages and the right to form a union. In Oakland, CA, hundreds of supporters joined the action at a local McDonalds during the lunch rush hour, successfully interrupting business as usual. The crowd was […]
Isn’t it Time for All Workers to Have More Job Security?
The United States is alone among industrialized countries in allowing workers to be considered “at will” employees and dismissed for any reason – justified or not, unless protected by a union contract or individual agreement. Labor should seize the opportunity to champion the passage of “just cause” dismissal standards into state laws. It’s a labor […]
The Worker Center Boogyman
Lately the Chamber of Commerce (the Chamber) has been complaining loudly that Worker Centers are a kind of front group for unions. Worker centers are community-based and community-led organizations that engage in a combination of service, advocacy, and organizing activities to provide support to low-wage workers. The vast majority of the Centers were created primarily […]
Why I became an adjunct (against the advice of everyone that I knew…)
When I was finishing my master’s degree in creative writing I started telling my professors and family members that when I graduated I wanted to “go into teaching.” I got a variety of responses. When I was lamenting a missed a job opportunity, one teacher responded: “Good. Being an adjunct teacher was the worst job […]
Destroying Labor Law in the “Sharing Economy”
Many a magazine, including the usually liberal New Yorker, has gone ga-ga about Taskrabbit, AirBnB, Elance, and other new companies that in one fell swoop make a mockery of fair labor practices, regulated consumer products, minimum wage, and taxes. In a rather lengthy article in which a New Yorker writer gushed about her Taskrabbit experiences, […]
Labor Day, 2013: Realities and Hopes
I like to listen to Bruce Springsteen’s “Wrecking Ball” album from time to time, at moments when my spirits need lifting up. In “Jack of All Trades,” the protagonist does outdoor work, carpentry, auto repair and farming (“I’ll harvest your crops”). Given the recent one day strikes in some 60 cities by fast food workers, […]
