Month: February 2019

“A $15 minimum wage is an antidepressant. It is a sleep aid. A diet. A stress reliever.”

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

“A $15 minimum wage is an antidepressant. It is a sleep aid. A diet. A stress reliever. It is a contraceptive, preventing teenage pregnancy. It prevents premature death. It shields children from neglect.” I rarely share reporting from the NY Times, because frankly, they don’t need the little added reach HTU provides. But this piece, on new research about the many salutary effects of a living wage, especially on the children of workers who get raises, is a tour de force. 

You’ve read it here for years—now the president of SAG-AFTRA agrees. When organizing gig economy workers, look at the models built by actors, musicians, and other itinerant performers. 

Cities are rethinking their relationship to Amazon, after demands by immigration activists that the company stop colluding with ICE.

Organizing Theory

Interesting look at how Working Washington is helping gig workers—particularly delivery drivers—figure out their REAL pay, using an online calculator they built that factors in the costs of doing the job. 

From Partners 

Wanna see how much money schools in your state are missing out on, due to corporate tax abatements? Check out this report from Good Jobs First. 

Reputation, reputation, reputation

Arrested people have to give up rights to their “voice print” to be able to make phone calls, in some jails—but no one seems to be able to say if those voice prints will be deleted, if they are found not guilty, or charges are dropped. 

What’s Going on in the Workforce

Microsoft employees are calling out their employer for continuing to develop products for the US Department of Defense, this time seeking to stop the company from selling augmented reality headsets to the military. 

Startups in the freight industry continue to expand in the US, as we all order more stuff. And Uber hints at international expansion of Uber Freight. And while we’re on the subject of Uber (and when aren’t we, frankly?) — the company is experiencing slowing growth and declining revenue, which may be problematic for its IPO plans, later this year. 

“This is bigger than Amazon.”

Organizing Theory

“This is bigger than Amazon.” An amazing look at the community organizing that led to Amazon’s pulling out of Queens—as well as what that means for similar campaigns in Nashville and Northern Virginia. Congrats to all my friends who have been in this fight! 

Is this what work-to-rule looks like in lawyer? 12,501 Uber drivers have filed for arbitration since August 2018. 

SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign is fighting a case at the NLRB that claims that janitors picketing the property that they work in (while being employed by a subcontractor) is a secondary boycott. 

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

Finland’s basic income experiment (which only funded people who were unemployed) has succeeded in making those people happier—but hasn’t changed whether they got jobs (do we all need jobs, to be happy?). 

Controversial take: capitalism can ruin anything, even solar panels on your roof. 

Facing South takes a look at how the Green New Deal can help the South close its energy-efficiency gap. 

Geeking Out

Your job-killing robot of the week—this one installs drywall. 

Reputation, reputation, reputation

Still not creeped out by Amazon’s facial recognition technology? What if it’s being used to track you at work? 

What’s Going on in the Workforce

Freelancers who bill by the hour are more likely to be stressed over feeling like they’ve got to be “always on.” 

2 million workers (most of them women) had to quit their jobs in 2016, because they couldn’t find adequate, affordable child- or elder-care. We need an holistic solution. 

Shocking possibly no one who knows me in real life, I too have been fired for not smiling enough. Now, fast food workers in New York are taking on their bosses’ ability to fire at will. 

“Undervaluing low-wage work as ‘low-skill’ is often untrue and unfair…”

What’s Going on in the Workforce

“Undervaluing low-wage work as ‘low-skill’ is often untrue and unfair, but it also undermines our economic future.” Byron Auguste breaks down why workforce development needs to acknowledge the many skills that low-wage working people bring to the table, and stop cutting them out of opportunities. 

Workers at meal-prep-kit company Blue Apron are suing their employer for wage theft. 

Last week’s story about Instacart stealing workers’ tips to pay wages has now morphed into this week’s story about Amazon Flex stealing workers’ tips to pay wages. The moral of this story? Tip in cash when you can. 

Thanks to organizing work by Warehouse Workers for Justice and the Warehouse Workers Resource Center, Walmart announced last week that it’s taking back control of warehouses that had been subcontracted in the Inland Empire and Illinois.

Events

The MIC (Media Inequality Change) Center is hosting a day and a half-long conference in Philly on March 25-26, called “The Platform Economy & the Future of the City.” 

Organizing Theory

I have…so many questions.  

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

After the news that Amazon, thanks to activism from thousands of New Yorkers, might be rethinking their quest to rake in $3B in tax subsidies to build a second headquarters in Queens emerged, groups in other HQ2 finalist cities are saying, “don’t look at us, Jeff!” 

“The problem is the growing certainty that you were sold a false bill of goods about the immeasurable value of higher education, and that’ll you’ll be forever paying down the cost of a broken dream.” Buzzfeed takes a look at how making sure people attain a college education went from a social responsibility to an individual one. 

Nancy Leong, on the problem of making diversity a “value” that can be commodified. 

“Long Lyft, Short Uber”

Geeking Out

“Long Lyft/Short Uber” In the run-up to both companies having their IPOs this year, one financial analyst says Uber’s a bad bet. 

What’s Going on in the Workforce

Data & Society looks at the labor involved in beginning to use new technologies in grocery stores and family farms in a new report. 

“The employer power and suppressed worker voice that precipitated the tragic fire have reemerged in today’s labor market.” What does the workplace of today have in common with the workplace of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire era? Excessive employer surveillance, at the expense of workers. 

From Partners 

Here’s a great piece of work (and petition) from my friends at Working Washington, about the way Instacart is using customers’ tips to pay employees’ wages.

The Opportunity Agenda takes a look at the best practices around engaging celebrities in political and social issues. 

Organizing Theory

When was the last time you did any craftivism? 

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

Open Markets Institute takes a look at how grocery store consolidation is affecting family farms and workers’ wages. 

Texas organizers are wondering who influenced a new rule in the state that classifies gig workers who get work through online platforms as “marketplace contractors” instead of workers, for the purposes of avoiding unemployment eligibility.