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 […]
unions
Cross-Class Alliances: Silicon Valley
On Labor Day, I thought, what better way to celebrate than to show up for cross-class picketing at a local McDonald’s? The first thing I saw was a line of yellow school buses bringing the picketers from the local labor council to the restaurant, partly because many workers rely on a bus, not a car […]
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 […]
Championing Postal Workers Is Good Class and Economic Sense
I watched the second Democratic debate hoping that Senator Bernie Sanders would clearly articulate an economic policy that would differentiate him from Hillary Clinton, that would advance the interests of American workers and that would easily resonate with the millions of debate viewers. Unfortunately he didn’t. Instead he continued to lash out at the one […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Imagining a Labor Day without a Labor Board (It isn’t Hard to Do)
Recently there has been much congressional skirmishing over the funding of the National Labor Relations Board, often referred to as simply the “labor board.” During the last year or so President Obama’s recess appointments to the labor board have also been widely discussed. But I am not especially interested in the details of the latest […]
President Obama’s Middle Class: the Rhetoric and the Reality
It should come as no surprise that President Obama focused on the “middle class” in his State of the Union speech. He mentioned that term six times, even calling it “our generation’s task…to reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth – a rising, thriving middle class.” What the president didn’t mention was the critical […]
Who represents the working class?
There was a time when if one asked, ‘Who represents the working class?’, a reasonable answer would have been the Democratic Party. But since Jimmy Carter that party has moved to the right, supports so-called Free Trade, champions legislation that fosters financial speculation, has forgotten the poor as a group worthy of aid, and goes […]
What’s needed at this political moment? 5 well-known leftists, 5 strong opinions
At the Working-Class Studies conference last weekend, I heard an amazing dialogue about class, race and movement-building by five progressive journalists and activist scholars: Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!, Frances Fox Piven, Bill Fletcher Jr. of Blackcommentator.com, and former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert of Demos, with conference organizer Michael Zweig, author of The […]
