Month: February 2017

“…there’s more money in profiling people as high-risk or low-risk than there is in solving their actual health problems.”

Reputation, reputation, reputation

“…there’s more money in profiling people as high-risk or low-risk than there is in solving their actual health problems.” Cathy O’Neil, on what your free Fitbit might be costing you or others.

Interesting piece from Reuters on how police union contracts protect bad cops.

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

Wanna save the world’s beaches? Drink more beer.

Next up to experiment withl basic income? The Canadian province of Ontario, which will run BI experiments in 3 cities this year, partly to aid people who’ve lost manufacturing jobs that have ended.

Bill Gates explains why we should be taxing robots.

Organizing Theory

“At least they knew what everybody was doing. They could disagree, but at least there was some sort of possibility of coherence, and occasionally they could converge, as they did on the March on Washington.” The great Marshall Ganz, on why we can’t look to the DNC to save our movements (or to any other explicitly partisan organization).

Taking a page from some programs that provide legal services for immigrants, the Philly Gay Lawyer is raising money to create a mobile law clinic that can help LGBTQ people in rural areas with legal services on a pro bono basis.

From Partners

Wanna propose a workshop for the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy? Submit here, by March 15th.

What’s Going on in the Workforce

Last week, UPS tested a new delivery drone that pairs with a truck to deliver one package, while the driver & truck deliver a different one—potentially miles away.

We talk a lot about the need to wrap the social safety net AROUND the gig economy—here’s a new study that has concluded that the gig economy IS the new social safety net.

Nick Hanauer and David Rolf follow up their 2015 call for portable benefits with an article that fleshes out more of the practical details of how that might work.

Legalize it.

(Baked goods, of course. What did you think I meant?)

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

California may legalize the home-cooked food sharing apps, allowing your baked goods to be monetizable.

Data activism helped prove that Airbnb was hiding listings by multiple-apartment owners from regulators in NYC.

The Institute for the Future has funded four fellowships to help teams figure out how to make sharing economy work more sustainable. Hint—lots of worker cooperation.

And speaking of worker-coops, here’s a new one in DC that’s based on giving returning citizens a chance at a new life, through work.

Reputation, reputation, reputation

Welp. It was great to be able to use a smartphone during international travel for the, what, 10 years that lasted? For more on the (scant) previous case law involving phone searches, read this.

You wanna give a training on digital security, but don’t know where to start? Check this out.

Organizing Theory

The fine folks at Campaign Zero have released a new set of infographics detailing how to fight police violence in the Trump era.

Geeking Out

An amazing piece about what it was like to grow with a father who was a leader of the 1981 PATCO strike.

Sigh. Someday, I’ll retire and just watch Amazon robot videos all day.

What’s Going on in the Workforce

A Brazilian judge orders Uber to pay its drivers benefits, finds that they are employees. Uber, predictably, appeals.

Maybe if you don’t have answers for important, known questions—don’t set yourself up to look the fool, by engaging in a Facebook Live chat, hmm?

Peer-to-peer lending comes to worker organizations?

Original Content

This month’s new tech wants to give worker organizations the ability to facilitate peer-to-peer lending within their community of members.

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Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

eBay CEO Pierre Omidyar just announced that he’s donating $500,000 to a basic income experiment in Kenya.

While we’re on the topic of crowdfunding, here’s a new site set up to allow legal organizations to raise money to fund lawsuits. Perhaps a more timely crowdfunding has never happened…

Organizing Theory

Micah Sifry’s got a great analysis of why Organizing for America never activated supporters of Barack Obama’s, post-election in ways that could have helped build a real movement.

The Perils of Trumpism

By the time you read this, who even knows how many more times Andy Puzder’s confirmation hearing will have been postponed? Here’s a good look at how Puzder and Trump differ on Future of Work issues.

ProPublica takes a look at what a new hire in the DoL could mean for wages in the building trades.


What’s Going on in the Workforce

Looks like manufacturing workers at Tesla’s plant in Fremont, CA may be seeking to organize.

What changes might lawyers be seeing in the workplace, with the advent of robo-law? h/t to reader Scott Mintzer for sending me this one.

Ford’s jumping into the self-driving car space, and just sunk $1B into a new startup that is focused on it.

Perhaps the least-cried-over group to be losing their jobs to automation will be Goldman Sachs traders.

Geeking Out

This robot arm can’t kill its coworkers, but it might kill their jobs by self-replicating.

Lenderly: peer-to-peer lending within your union or worker center?

How our organizations can better help people navigate the financial ups and downs of work as it becomes more precarious is a hot topic within the economic justice world these days. When the majority of Americans don’t have $500 in savings, we know that it is very hard to deal with routine “emergencies”–like an ER visit, an unexpected car repair, or a broken hot water heater.

Most of us are familiar with peer-to-peer lending programs like Kiva, which allow entrepreneurs and individuals around the world to borrow small-ish amounts of money, to fund business expansion or home improvements, without going through established banks. Lenders are partially repaid on a regular basis, until the entire loan is paid off–which can help both solve an immediate financial need for the borrower, and also establish a credit history for the borrower.

A new platform, Lenderly, developed a tool to refine this kind of peer-to-peer lending within existing networks. The site originally launched with faith communities in the US, and are now expanding their back end to be available for unions or worker centers who want to help facilitate loans between their membership.

Potential borrowers set up a specific funding request for between $300 to $5,000, and can specify the purpose of the loan with options like “take a class” or “pay medical bills.” The site acts as a guarantor of the loan–and will run a credit check on borrowers before making the loan request “live.” Borrowers also get to determine the length of time they will need to pay back the loan, up to two years.

Lenderly runs both the back end administration, adding their functionality to an existing website. It also helps borrowers get the word out about their loan request, by publicizing it to other people within that organization’s community.

Crowd-funding alone won’t fix income inequality, of course–but it might make it more possible for people to survive until we can build a more fair society.

Interested? Head over to lenderly.co and hit the “contact us” button–and let them know you heard about it on HtU.

“Liberals are very good at using technology to organize, but conservatives know how to use it to spread a message.”

Organizing Theory

How did tens of thousands of people end up at airports on the weekend that the Muslim ban went into effect? Mic takes a look at the organizing that went into it.

“Liberals are very good at using technology to organize, but conservatives know how to use it to spread a message.” And on the other side of the aisle, how have conservatives jumped all over Facebook Live as an organizing tool?


Reputation, reputation, reputation

There’s been a lot of news lately about rogue Twitter accounts, run by federal employees. Here’s a good, detailed piece on how to stay safe, if you’re running such an account.

Uber’s had it’s share of reputation management issues lately—with 200K riders deleting the app, in response to their CEO’s perceived support of Trump.


Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

The Guardian recently calculated that a hard Brexit (i.e.—ending migration from the EU) would mean Britons have to work at least an extra year before being able to retire, because of the significant role migrants currently play in their workforce. I wonder if some enterprising think tank is doing a similar study for the US, if Trump gets his way?

India may be the next country to run some kind of basic income experiment.

From Partners

The National Academy of Social Insurance just released this report to the New Leadership & American People on Social Insurance and Inequity.

And NELP/the Roosevelt Institute have recently partnered on this report on ensuring economic security for gig workers.

What’s Going on in the Workforce

Sure, you could call in sick. Or you could just send the telepresence bot that is controlled by your brain…

A Florida court just dealt a blow to at least one Uber’s driver’s ambition to be classified as an employee.

Whole Foods (a worker-owned coop in MN, not that one) just voted in a union.

Events

The ILO is having a retreat in Geneva in April to discuss “The Future of Work We Want.”