California Bill Would Let Gig Workers Organize for Collective Bargaining

Jennifer Van Grove Los Angeles Times
Gig workers include Uber and Lyft drivers, DoorDash and Postmates food delivery drivers, Handy house cleaners and Amazon "flex" workers who deliver packages. They are technically independent contractors who set their own terms of employment — taking as many or as few jobs as they want — but they have no control over wages, which can be changed at a whim by the companies in charge.

And Counting

Peter Neil Carroll Portside
On February 28 2016, Delmer Berg of northern California died. He was last known veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade--the 2800 American volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War. Here is a tribute for them all.

Matthew Desmond's `Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City'

Barbara Ehrenreich The New York Times
Matthew Desmond is an academic who teaches at Harvard - a sociologist or, you could say, an ethnographer. But I would like to claim him as a journalist, and one who has set a new standard for reporting on poverty. In Milwaukee, he moved into a trailer park and then to a rooming house on the -poverty-stricken North Side and diligently took notes on the lives of people who pay 70 to 80 percent of their incomes for homes that are unfit for human habitation.

Why Virginia’s Open Shop Referendum Should Matter to the Entire American Labor Movement in 2016

Douglas Williams In These Times
Republicans in Virginia have proposed a referendum in November to strengthen the state's existing open shop laws. In this, an opportunity presents itself that labor unions must take. Our goal should not simply be to defeat the proposal: it should be a realignment of the conversation surrounding the role in labor unions in Virginia’s—and America’s—political economy.

Dark Money The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

Greg Waldmann Open Letters Monthly
One of the cornerstones of the campaign Senator Bernie Sanders is waging for the presidency is his opposition to our corrupt campaign finance laws. He often names the Koch brothers as a prime exhibit of the dangers of unregulated big money in politics, and for good reason. In her new book, Jane Mayer traces how the Koch brothers are trying to buy our politics. Greg Waldmann introduces us to what Mayer has found.

Tech Workers Should Unionize

Hamilton Nolan Gawker
The fact that your company gives you good free lunches and shuttles to work and nice paycheck does not change the fact that you could get more by negotiating together, as a union. Anyone smart enough to get a job at Google is smart enough to grasp these facts.