Spring 2024

This week on Belabored, we speak to activists with the Retail Action Project and Women Employed about the impact of unfair scheduling on the lives of retail workers. We also discuss the Supreme Court drama over employer-sponsored health insurance and reproductive rights, “the end of jobs,” labor protections for unpaid interns, Wall Street’s attack on Los Angeles, TaskRabbit, and more.

This week, Belabored talks to political scientist Adolph Reed about his recent article in Harper’s magazine, examining the broad prospects for today’s left, the need to focus on inequality, why the labor movement matters, and why Democrats relying on big money donors is like keeping a Komodo dragon in your bedroom. Plus: a strike in Vermont, a lawsuit at McDonald’s, a modest proposal for executive salaries, and more.

This week, Belabored examines the history and ongoing impact of the 2012 Chicago teachers’ strike with Micah Uetricht, author of Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity. Plus: uprisings by UPS workers in New York and IBM workers in China; labor abuses by the Pentagon overseas; the White House’s plans to expand overtime pay; and more.

This week, Belabored talks to Melissa Gira Grant, whose new book Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work dismantles the myths surrounding sex work and challenges us to think about sex work in the same framework in which we put other kinds of labor. At the heart is the question: should workers have to love their work in order to be able to demand rights and protections on the job?

Belabored talks to San Francisco-based journalist Julia Carrie Wong about Silicon Valley gentrification and with Jobs with Justice organizer Kung Feng about the response of community and labor groups to the tech sector’s growing presence. Plus, gender inequities in house work, the exploitation of temp workers, and updates on labor struggles across the country.

In news: United Auto Workers’ defeat in Chattanooga, Tennessee, port truckers and wage theft, minor league ballplayers suing over wage violations, the U.S. government’s reliance on sweatshops, the strike by University of Illinois faculty, and why the Congressional Budget Office is wrong about the minimum wage. And Portland teacher Elizabeth Thiel on militant teacher unionism in Oregon.

Could banking at the post office be a boon to low-income communities and a major challenge to Wall Street? Sarah and Michelle discuss with Dave Dayen. Plus the latest news on teachers and nurses organizing for workplace rights, how Wal-Mart’s anti-labor actions may be undermining its bottom line, a legal victory for immigrant guestworkers, and the crowdsourced sweatshop.

Joanne Barkan has spent years researching and writing about the ideology of billionaire ed reformers. She joins Michelle and Sarah to talk about her work. And in labor news, London’s public transit workers go on strike; Tennessee may yet see a unionized auto plant; NFL cheerleaders rise up against wage theft; and workers rise up against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

Special guest Heather McGhee of Demos responds to the President’s address with policy solutions that could alleviate income inequality and joblessness. Meanwhile, working people take action against inequality at the grassroots level.

This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Harris v. Quinn, a case that could break public-sector unions around the country. Sarah and Michelle talk to Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein, the authors of Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State, about the case, the formation of home care workers’ unions, and the potential ramifications for all public sector workers.

Sarah and Michelle talk with Max Fraser about new tactics in labor militancy, which he explores in his new article in Dissent. Plus: standoff over unemployment benefits in Congress, changes in the ranks of the Chicago teachers’ union, expanded pre-Kindergarten in New York, and worker uprisings in Cambodia.

This week, a special discussion of Sarah’s investigation into temping in manufacturing. Plus, SeaTac’s fight for $15 an hour, Portland teachers’ fight for a fair contract, and Congress’s fight over whether the unemployed should get their benefits, and a labor uprising in South Korea.

Sarah and Michelle look back over the year in labor: the good news and the grim, the under-the-radar stories and the big wins. They also look forward to next year and make some (hopeful) predictions. Sarah and Michelle also bring you up to date on the latest labor news, including unexpected unions gaining a toehold in fast food.