Month: May 2019

What’s Going on in the Workforce

When we talk about the perils of automation, sometimes people think it’s just about jobs being wiped out entirely. Here’s a good look at how automation erodes jobs—as Colombians get paid $2/hour to drive robot delivery vehicles around campus, instead of a delivery biker getting paid $15 or more. And as one happy customer points out in this piece, you neither have to rush to meet a robot, nor tip it. 

And remember—when you see Ford talking about “remote operators” for their new combination of self-driving car & robot delivery person—we’re talking about someone in another country making $16 a day. 

The Aspen Institute has released a set of policy recommendations about how to deal with the way automation is changing the economy. 

The Perils of Trumpism

The Trump Admin CMS just issued a rule preventing states from deducting union dues and contributions for health and retirement benefits from home care workers’ paychecks. 

Organizing Theory

How do unions navigate #metoo complaints that result in the firing of a member who harassed or assaulted another? 

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

Activist startup guy takes on Airbnb, works with cities to help them better understand Airbnb data & its impact on rental rates. 

A UBI pilot project in Stockton, CA is giving randomly-selected residents $500/month in no-strings-attached income. How are they spending it? 

Live in the Mid-Atlantic and worry about plastic pollution? Try this experiment in zero-waste living, and order your Häagen-Dazs in stainless steel containers (also good for other every day items). 

Geeking Out

Today in “jobs I didn’t expect to be automated”: traffic cones. 

Want a job that only requires 30 hours per week of work? Check out this newsletter… 

Organizing Theory

What are the best digital tools for organizing? Check out the latest document from Blueprints for Change. 

Interesting long read—in Fortune, of all places!—about the internal struggle going on between employees and management at Google, when it comes to “don’t be evil” (and related business practices). 

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

“…how did we get to the point where one of our employees had to apologetically ask for financial support so she and her family could put a roof over their heads?” One CEO explains how he decided that he and his fellow execs should freeze their pay, so they could raise their starting pay to $15/hour for frontline workers. 

Honestly, who raised these people? Uber rolls out “please tell my driver to shut up” feature for Uber Black. 

What’s Going on in the Workforce

Cannabis delivery companies are “poaching” Uber & Lyft drivers by offering them better jobs with benefits. 

Use of construction robots is projected to grow tenfold by 2025, in this new industry report. 

Worried that your gig as a Lyft driver will be replaced by an autonomous car? Don’t worry, just become an autonomous car mechanic, says the company’s COO. 

Reputation, reputation, reputation

“…what it can do is pave an escape route from Facebook so worthy alternatives become viable options.” Why the Feds need to make friend list portability a thing, in regulating Facebook. 

Congrats to our friends and readers in San Francisco, which just became the first city to ban the use of facial recognition technology by city agencies. Don’t worry, your iPhone will still recognize you.

The Perils of Trumpism

Last week, the NLRB delivered a blow to rideshare drivers who were making assertions of employee misclassification, declaring that they should rightfully be considered independent contractors. 

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

The City of Chicago just released ride-share data on rides, drivers and cars in the city (de-identified, to protect rider & driver privacy).  Fascinating stuff—with just a couple of clicks, you can see that the vast majority of fares are $10 or less, with over a quarter of all trips at $5 or less.  No wonder drivers were striking last week!  (Some studies have found that ride-share drivers only keep around 1/3 of the fare per ride.) If you haven’t had enough schadenfreude in your life lately, check out this article about the first two days of Uber as a publicly-traded company. 

Want to fix America’s retirement crisis? Step one: Pay workers more. 

“When Americans think about fixing gender equality, they tend to direct their ire on the workplace.” The Atlantic takes a look at what happens at home when heterosexual wives out-earn their husbands—and how sexism in a marriage reinforces sexism in the workplace. 

Reputation, reputation, reputation

Amazon’s Alexa Echo Dot Kids is recording your children—and it’s not clear how they’re using those recordings, or how long they are saving them for. 

What’s Going on in the Workforce

“America’s labor ladder has a new bottom rung…” Axios takes a not-so-deep look at the top-line issues of the gig economy. 

Steve Greenhouse takes the opportunity offered by Delta’s anti-union gaffes last week to run down the many ways that companies fight unionization (and the amounts they spend doing it). 

The Perils of Trumpism

Unions have reduced ULP filings since the Trump Administration took over the NLRB, citing fears of bad precedent-setting decisions.