Original Content
I recently talked to Michelle Miller & Jess Kutch from coworker.org about their efforts to create an online organizing and leadership development tool for workers. Watch the video here.
What’s Going on in the Workforce?
“…a capacity for greed that would make Gordon Gecko blush…” How much do you know about the history of tipping? Not enough, I’m guessing.
Sarah Jaffe takes a look at how TaskRabbit’s new algorithm for matching “Taskers” with folks looking for gigs on the site is remarkably akin to good old fashioned piece work.
The rules for creating worker-owned co-ops are different in every US state. Shareable has a great post about how to find out what the laws are in yours.
Curious to know if you might fit into the corporate culture of a company? There’s an app for that. Good.co measures your culture-fit potential through quizzes.
“…machines don’t replace humans under conditions of prosperity for all humans—they do so under capitalist market conditions in which machines are chose because they are cheaper and more docile than humans: they don’t object, talk back, organize, strike, slack.” Zeynep Tufecki is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers about robots and work.
Organizing Theory
Thinking about using social media to target a company’s brand? Read these lessons from Ultraviolet & Greenpeace, on what’s worked for them. Here’s another good example of social media making change in the food industry. “Companies are now trying to ensure that their products are not the next pink slime…”
If you’re planning on launching a digital tool to increase transparency, read this guide to the fundamentals…
The cell-phone unlocking bill that passed Congress last week was partially launched by an online petition. But organizers didn’t stop with digital activism, they focused on offline actions too.
From Partners
The folks at Little Sis are doing an amazing job of cataloguing the social relationships of people with power in the US. They’ve just unveiled a new tool, Oligrapher, that’s designed to help people make visual sense of those relationships.
Geeking Out
Emotional robots? But what if we like the emotionless kind? http://bit.ly/1suiqso Now pancake-flipping robots, on the other hand… And while we’re looking at robots—what could you do with an extra finger or two?
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
When co-ops go wrong… Carl Ratner, on the corrupting influence of corporate co-ops.
Climate change could cost us the equivalent, in productivity, of the entire labor force of Connecticut being wiped out.
Brazil’s Free Fare Movement has been pushing back against public transit fare hikes through a series of highly public actions and traffic shutdowns.
Is SeeClickFix transforming local politics in the US? Maybe, a little bit.