Tag: work
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The Performing Arts Proletariat vs. The Band Directors
As long as music has existed musicians and performing artists have always been considered laborers of their craft which is their music-making and performances on stage or the road. Even in larger ensembles like the orchestras and choirs of Bach and Handel, there were still amateur musicians who performed alongside the greats. When doing so…
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18 Tips from a Veteran Union Organizer
Workers need bread, but they need roses too. Labor unions generally focus on negotiating wages, benefits, fair work rules, and safety. That’s all very essential. But one thing we often fail to do is acknowledge workers’ need for recognition. People have dreams and values, along with a desire to be respected and to connect to…
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Decades After Nike Promised Sweatshop Reforms, Workers in This Factory Were Still Fainting
Workers have fainted for years inside Cambodia’s garment factories, where more than 57,000 people now produce Nike goods. People at Nike’s suppliers fainted en masse in 2012, 2014, 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to news reports at the time, part of a string of events in which thousands of Cambodians got sick, vomited or collapsed…
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AI (so-called) is made possible by a hyper-exploited human workforce
These workers are the lifeblood of the burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) industry. Without them, products such as ChatGPT simply would not exist. That’s because the data they label helps AI systems “learn”. Self-driving cars, for example, rely on labelled video footage to distinguish pedestrians from road signs. Large language models such as ChatGPT rely on…
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Beat the Heat: How US Workers Are Winning Fans, AC, and Even Heat Pay
In 2022, the latest year for which we have data, 43 U.S. workers lost their lives to heat on the job. That’s up from 36 in 2021, and we can expect this cruel number to keep climbing. But from warehouses to coffeehouses to construction sites, workers using solidarity and creative action—even without the protection of a union…
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How University of California Researchers Began Refusing Military Work
As unionized workers in higher education, we are positioned to intervene at the very beginning of the military supply chain. The Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions issued an urgent call on October 16 to stop arming Israel—including the specific request to disrupt military funding and military research.
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Management Rights: A Pitfall When Negotiating Your First Contract
In the past year, retail and service sector workers have started organizing unions with success in companies like Starbucks and Amazon. The negotiation process for their first contracts is challenging, with employers seeking language that weakens the union. Management rights clauses have become a point of contention, as employers aim to limit union rights. Changes…
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Why is free time still so elusive?
Many economists see the status quo mostly as a choice: People would simply rather have more money. So they prioritize work over free time. However, in the past, many economists assumed that people’s need for more stuff would eventually be met. At that point, they would choose more free time.
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Socializing Energy
To regain lost momentum for an energy transition, climate and energy justice campaigners can learn from Berliners’ victorious referendum in support of a radical expropriation housing in 2021. This not only followed a strategy that put the costs on the corporations rather than people, it also goes beyond traditional public ownership to explore models of…
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The Death of Slavery, The First Dawn of Freedom
An organized clandestine underground network to resist the slave state was not inevitable. The path of fatalism and despair, a pale specter that still haunts many would-be rebels today, was just as likely. In those days, given the seemingly low odds of success, an overwhelming feeling of helplessness doubtless consumed many hearts. Courageous people, most…
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