All because they chose profits over humane working policies. What this fight is really about: the persistent difficulty some large corporations have in understanding that their workers are human beings, and not just one more piece of machinery.
Rampant outsourcing, financialization, monopolization, deregulation, and just-in-time logistics are the culprits. Our supply chains were designed for maximum profit rather than getting things to people, problems that arose in the pandemic folded in.
If Uber and Lyft had treated workers as employees, the two TNCs would have paid $413 million into the state’s Unemployment Insurance Fund between 2014 and 2019.
The pitfalls of renting a ridesharing-based transit system instead of paying the mortgage on lasting public-infrastructure investment are already becoming clear.
China’s ambitious infrastructure Belt and Road Initiative is about building knowledge and not just things. It has grown by leaps and bounds while America’s geopolitical vision has become increasingly isolationist, paranoid, and confrontational.
The government’s proposed railway reforms will force yet more traffic onto the country’s overcrowded roads, even as people in the provinces and regions lose mobility, convenience, and time.
Madeline Janis, who pioneered local hiring agreements, is now enlisting cities to have railcars and buses made in America—by union workers.
From sufism to reggae, from construction work to driving taxis, it has been a colorful ride for one of the co-founders of a taxi drivers union in New York.
Buses, trains, bikes, and walking represent more than an efficient means of getting from one place to another. They move us toward a brighter future because of the many social and economic benefits they foster.
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