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White Working-Class Voters and the Future of Progressive Politics

Michael Zweig New Labor Forum
The working class constitutes roughly 63 percent of the U.S. labor force. Crucially, it consists of both men and women and is multiracial and multiethnic.2 White people are, of course, a big part of the working class, but if we settle on “the white working class” as a class in itself, and with the force of white supremacy, even a class for itself, we lose track of the role blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and other non-whites play in the working class.

NLRB files complaint against VW over practices at Tennessee plant

Nick Carey Reuters
The complaint is part of a lengthy battle over the NLRB's recognition of the vote by roughly 160 skilled workers at VW's Chattanooga plant in Tennessee to be represented by the United Auto Workers union. The German automaker has argued against allowing a small group within the plant to have union representation, maintaining that all 1,500 hourly workers should be treated as one unit.

Interview: The Pitfalls of 'Buy American'

Chris Brooks Labor Notes
What is the impact of “Buy American” fervor? Chris Brooks interviews Dana Frank, author of Buy American: The Untold Story of Economic Nationalism, about the history and impact of these campaigns.

Face It: We are All Sickened by Inequality at Work

Sharan Burrow Hazards Magazine
Job insecurity or job discrimination based on class, gender or race, is bad for your health. It is a perversity of work that the language of ‘risks and rewards’ is used to justify soaring boardroom pay packets and the growing income inequality at work. But the workers most frequently compelled to take genuine risks – to life, to limb, to health – are those who receive the lowest financial rewards.

Hacked Records Show Bradley Foundation Taking its Conservative Wisconsin Model National

Daniel Bice Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Records make clear the Bradley Foundation no longer simply favors groups promoting its signature issues: taxpayer-funded school choice and increased work requirements for welfare recipients. It now regularly funds nonprofits that are, among other things, hostile to labor unions, skeptical of climate change or critical of the loosening of sexual mores in American culture.

The NC Legislature's Curious Anti-Union Project

Rob Christensen Raleigh News & Observer
The advantages for Republicans to weaken labor are obvious. Not only are they disarming a political adversary, but they are helping their business donor base in a state that already has some of the stingiest unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, one of the lowest minimum wages, and so forth.