Essential Workers

January 12, 2023

Tidbits – Jan. 12, 2023 – Reader Comments: Today’s McCarthyism in the House; Why Nurses Strike; New York’s Dems and Progressives; How Finland Is Teaching a Generation To Spot Misinformation; Rosa Luxemburg on Revolution; Ukraine Solidarity Network; Cartoo

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Reader Comments: Today's McCarthyism in the House; Why Nurses Strike; New York's Dems and Progressives; How Finland Is Teaching a Generation to Spot Misinformation; Rosa Luxemburg On Revolution; Ukraine Solidarity Network; Cartoons; more...

labor

January 8, 2023

During the Pandemic, Workers Were Told They Were Heroes — And Given Little To Show for It

Jamie McCallum Jacobin

At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the American working class faced a paradox: workers were told they were “essential” and touted as “heroes,” yet they were often treated as sacrificial lambs.

books

June 30, 2022

The Fire She Fights

Jane LaTour New York Labor History Association

Women working in the blue-collar “nontraditional” occupations, traditionally occupied by men, have been writing about their experiences, contributing to our knowledge of “the hidden history of affirmative action.” Here is such a story.

labor

June 7, 2022

‘This Is Our Time’: How Women Are Taking Over the Labor Movement

Chabeli Carrazana, The 19th USA Today

Over the course of the pandemic, the vast majority of essential workers were women. The vast majority of those who lost their jobs in the pandemic were women. And now the vast majority of those organizing their workplaces are women.

labor

April 19, 2022

Why Health Concerns Are at the Heart of the New Amazon and Starbucks Unions

Alexa Spencer Sacramento Observer (Word in Black)

Fueled by worries about COVID-19 safety and a lack of sick days, Black workers at the two corporate giants are leading the fight for union organizing.

labor

February 16, 2022

The Big Quit

Alice Herman Progressive Magazine

A national labor phenomenon known as “The Great Resignation,” or “The Big Quit,” began to take hold in January 2021 and has since grown. Millions have left their jobs.

labor

January 30, 2022

How Kroger Is Using DC Spin Doctors to Fight Their Unionized Workers

Andrew Perez Jacobin

Workers at the Kroger-owned supermarket chain King Soopers were recently on strike — a public relations nightmare. The solution? Enlist Beltway spin doctors to talk about how wonderfully the company treats its employees, actually.

labor

January 16, 2022

Kroger Employees in Colorado Have Had Enough — Thousands Are Now on Strike

Alex N. Press Jacobin

More than 8,000 workers at Kroger-owned King Soopers and City Market stores are on strike in Colorado. Their fight highlights the company’s long history of atrocious treatment of its workforce.

labor

January 3, 2022

COVID, Capitalism, and Collapse: A Roundtable Discussion with NYC Nurses and Teachers

Chris Brooks Strikewave

NYC teachers and nurses shine a light on the state of schools and hospitals as we near two years of the pandemic. Can workplace organizing stave off collapse and win a transformative political agenda?

labor

December 24, 2021

What Low-Wage Workers Understand About the True Meaning of Christmas

William J. Barber II TIME

photo of a canceled US Treasury check to american families with two children drawing in the foreground

One hundred and forty million Americans are poor or low-income in the richest nation in the history of the world. The steady growth of America’s GDP has not, in fact, been “good news for all people.”

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