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Profits Over People: Frontline Workers During the Pandemic

Martin Hart-Landsberg Reports from the Economic Front
Across the 13 companies in our analysis, revenue was up an average of 14% over last year, while profits rose 39%. Stock prices rose on average 30% since the end of February. In total...

Why Nursing Home Aides Exposed to COVID-19 Aren’t Taking Sick Leave

Shefali Milczarek-Desai and Tara Sklar The Conversation
nursing aide helping older man Our research, drawing on interviews with nursing aides and emerging studies of other essential workers during COVID-19, shows how employee policies, particularly for low-paid aides, have sharply raised the risks...

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How to End ‘Women’s Work’

Anna Louie Sussman The New York Times
A pair up gloves with skill of a man's job on one side and the pay;  and a woman's job on the other. What so many of today's most underpaid and essential workers have in common is simply that they are women. Are we willing to re-examine the assumptions embedded in what we have been told are “free markets” for labor?

Corona Couture and the Fast-Fashion Face Mask

Ella Egidy Jacobin
woman making a COVID-19 mask The fast-fashion industry has long been known for exploitative practices, which have continued during the pandemic, despite the health risk to garment workers. “Fashion masks,” substitute actual protection for mere simulation.

Tidbits - Sept, 3, 2020 - Reader Comments: NBA Strike for Justice and Black Lives Matter; Organizing on Local Issues; No Problems with Mail-in Voting in Mass. Primary; Policing Debate; Tribute to Essential Workers-this Weekend; Resources; Announcements

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Reader Comments: NBA Strike for Justice and Black Lives Matter Inspires Country; Organizing on Local Issues; No Problems with Mail-in Voting in Mass. Primary; Policing Debate; Tribute to Essential Workers-Labor Day Weekend; Resources; Announcements;

Why Does Essential Work Pay So Little... And Cost So Much?

Rebecca Gordon TomDispatch
bus driver waering mask and gloves Students tend to measure fair compensation on two scales. How many years of training and/or dollars of tuition did a worker have to invest to become “qualified” for the job? And how important is that worker’s labor to the rest of society?
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