Hi folks–another exciting announcement this week–Julia Carrie Wong is joining us as a new writer on the blog. Look for new original content to start rolling out in the week of March 10th!
Organizing Theory
“We are a struggle machine, if we choose to see ourselves this way.” Great video interview with Change to Win’s Valerie Alzaga about the international organizing model used by the SEIU Justice for Janitors campaign—including how the union saw changing their organizing model for existing members as a critical piece of strengthening the ability to organize new workers. Long, but super worth it.
Americans are watching even less live TV than ever—ditching it in favor of mobile video. What does this mean for people who are buying campaign ads?
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
Car sharing moves further into the EU, with new service, Wundercar, launching in Berlin. Meanwhile, could self-driving cars upend the concept of car-sharing?
Peers & Social Capital Markets are hosting a two-day conference in San Francisco in May, to talk about the sharing economy. To get updates, click here.
Are all for-profit firms inherently cooperatives?
From Partners
In the US and looking for state-specific data on income inequality? Check out this new report from the Economic Policy Institute, featuring work by friend-o-the-blog Mark Price, the most profane economist I know.
Geeking Out
Amazed by some of the Olympic coverage? Thank a camera mounted on a drone.
What’s Going On in the Workforce?
These college students are pushing a crazy idea in income egalitarianism—namely, that the president of their college shouldn’t make more than 10X the salary of their lowest-paid workers.
Freelancers in the EU have launched a fundraising campaign to be able to lobby in Brussels, to make sure freelance labor is counted, and to ensure they’ve got a seat at the table when new laws are being written. The goal? 5,000 euros.
I’d be curious to hear the Teamsters’ side of this story, but it sounds like UPS did some smart thinking about how to roll out computer-assisted route-mapping to their drivers—and saving 98 million minutes of idling time in one year is no joke.
“A world in which a healthy adult has the reasonable expectation of earning a decent living while working full-time at a market wage is absolutely a world in which the dignity of work is a useful social value to cultivate. In a world in which that is not a reasonable expectation, the dignity of work can be a harmful concept.” ~The Economist. Let that sink in.
It’s a common theory that the easiest jobs to automate are the ones that require the least education—but that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening.
Sometimes I feel like we’ve got a problem of overwork AND a problem of underwork. Can we just get some balance?
Awesome look at regulations on the use of temp workers, in the US and around the world, from ProPublica.
Reputation, Reputation, Reputation
Are we allowing ourselves to be shut out of options in life because we’re trapped in algorithmic prisons?