What’s Going on in the Workforce?
Sarah Jaffe has a great long read in Al-Jazeera about worker-owned coops in the US, particularly focusing on the struggles involved in setting them up. And Abby Scher has a good look at how solidarity economy activists in Reading, PA are working to promote co-ops and other forms of community-owned wealth in that city. Incidentally, Forbes estimates that if Apple were a worker-owned coop, every employee would earn over $400K per year.
Geeking Out
Voice recognition software gets to be the butt of lots of jokes (and I’ll always love Siri for the way she pronounces “Conshohocken”), but it’s getting so good that we’ll soon live in a world where “devices don’t have keyboards.” I guess I won’t need those haptic gloves anymore…
Robotic spider dress that protects my personal space? Where have you been all my life?!?
Organizing Theory
Thinking about organizing a skillshare in your community? Here’s a good walk-through of every step of the planning process.
From Partners
Strong work from Moshe Marvit about the right’s new push on Right to Work—passing local ordinances.
“I realized my work wasn’t necessary.” And here’s this week’s Studs Terkel Working update from In These Times—meet The Data Entry “Associate.”
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
What happens to a town when Wal-Mart moves out, especially after it’s destroyed every business?
Could we socialize life-saving technology to decrease inequality?
I’m always a fan of ways of organizing against the robot apocalypse—but are we really losing the moral high ground on basic income to libertarians & right-wingers?