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The Human Cost of a Cheap Manicure

Kim Kelly Teen Vogue
Teen Vogue runs an op-ed column, No Class, dedicated to worker struggles and the American labor movement. This week's column focuses on the troubling working conditions at nail salons and the organizing efforts to change them.

Friday Nite Videos | July 5, 2019

Portside
Warehouses | John Oliver. Line Rider | Hall of the Mountain King. Robert Reich: Should We Abolish Billionaires? What Antlers Can Teach Us About Cancer and Regrowing Limbs. We Tried Skating On Confederate Monuments for July 4th.

Warehouses | John Oliver

It’s easy to buy things online, and even easier not to think about how they get to you. John Oliver discusses what happens when you click “buy now.”

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‘Colony of Hell’: 911 Calls From Inside Amazon Warehouses

Max Zahn, Sharif Paget The Daily Beast
Between October 2013 and October 2018, emergency workers were summoned to Amazon warehouses at least 189 times for suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts, and other mental-health episodes, according to 911 call police and ambulance logs.

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Justice on the Job for Nail Salon Workers

Kressent Pottenger, Narbada Chhetri and Pabitra Dash New Labor Forum
New Labor Forum’s “Working-Class Voices” columnist Kressent Pottenger interviewed Narbada Chhetri, former nail salon worker and director of Organizing and Advocacy at Adhikaar (a social justice organization based in New York City with approximately eight hundred members serving the Nepalese and Tibetan community), and Pabitra Dash, nail salon worker and organizer at Adhikaar, about the poor working conditions of nail salon workers in the United States. Highlights of the interview follow.

New Study Reveals Just How Brutal Meat and Poultry Work Is for Workers

Elizabeth Grossman In These Times
The meat and poultry industry remains exceptionally dangerous, despite a decline in reported injuries and illnesses over the past 10 years, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. Further, says the report, the injury and illness rates reflected in Department of Labor numbers are significantly underreported.

The Freelancer Economy is Here. Should We Celebrate?

Kate Jenkins Working In These Times
The Freelancers Union’s attempt to claim 34 percent of the population as mostly delighted freelancers clouds our understanding of the need for reform. While the Freelancers Union is doing important work to support a select group of freelancers, its approach isn’t likely to work for other independent workers; those workers who are more replaceable may still need to go to war against industry leaders if they’re going to access acceptable working conditions.

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Work in the Age of Anxiety

Murray Dobbin rabble.ca
The rise of precarious labor in Canada, combined with the deliberate creation of fear through constant surveillance, the security apparatus and the demonization and criminalization of dissent, starts to answer the question of why there is no militant resistance to savage capitalism or even sustained social solidarity.

Poor Parents Need Work-Life Balance Too

Michelle Chen The Nation
The “Schedules that Work” bill (introduced by Representatives George Miller and Rosa DeLauro and Senators Tom Harkin and Elizabeth Warren) is the proletarian answer to the workplace “flex” policies that are common in corporate offices. After all, poor parents need flexibility more than anyone, as they cope with the chaos of economic hardship and work unstable jobs with few benefits..
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