Savannah port truckers organizing; Seattle fast food workers striking; Chicago teachers suing; and a bankruptcy judge’s blow to retired mineworkers. Sarah discusses the new NYC bike share program through a labor lens. Josh talks about the first prolonged strikes by US Walmart employees. And find out how to participate in Belabored’s new explainer!
Gar Alperovitz argues that a return to the welfare state is now rendered impossible by globalization and ecological brinkmanship; state socialism is equally unacceptable, but something more just and viable is possible.
The D.C. Circuit is the training ground for the Supreme Court and the place where much of the nation’s regulatory framework is decided. In its current form, it is one the most dangerous courts in the land.
Josh and Sarah interview Gabriel Thompson, biographer of Fred Ross, the little-known organizer who trained Cesar Chavez. They also discuss the latest strikes by low-wage workers, a strike in Dubai of immigrant workers, & more.
One of the most vibrant intellectual discussions in China this year, and one of the CCP’s cheapest propaganda campaigns, began with a tweet on Weibo, China’s premier micro-blogging service and anointed online town square.
In 2012 the Chinese government announced that for the first time in history, more people lived in its cities than in the countryside. It’s the result of an urbanization campaign that the country’s leadership has promoted, with spectacular results.
Obama’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board rejected, new strike authorizations, and Sarah and Josh discuss the state of fast food workers’ organizing efforts. They interview journalist Jake Blumgart about recent developments around anti-sweatshop activism, at-will employment, the future of Atlantic City, and high-stakes testing at a sushi restaurant.
On May 2, as President Obama arrived in Mexico City, hundreds gathered outside the heavily fortified United States Embassy to protest his visit, U.S. immigration policies, and U.S. economic and political influence in the region.
The last year has seen a dramatic uptick in press coverage of Chinese environmental issues. There have also been a number of books published on the subject, with more due out soon. So this seemed a good moment to get in touch with Ralph Litzinger, an anthropologist based at Duke University.
Many people have been criticizing President Obama for dithering over what to do in Syria. Not me; dithering seems an entirely rational response to what’s going on there. The difficulty is that we don’t really know what we want to …
Young people in China are divorced from their country’s recent history. With no memory of Mao Zedong, they can glean little from a censored environment. Their parents, by and large, don’t talk about their experiences
Sarah and Josh discuss port trucker organizing in Savannah, fast food strikes in St. Louis, and one union’s experiment with using collective bargaining as a weapon against big banks. Then they consider the anti-union record of Obama’s new nominee for the Commerce Department, and the Democratic Party’s future with organized labor.
A great human disaster is now unfolding in the Eurozone countries that have agreed to slash spending, wages, and living standards. One facet of this story that has received too little attention is the effect of these measures on the health of these nations.
Sarah and Josh interview Hyatt hotel housekeeper Cathy Youngblood, a leader in UNITE HERE battling with the hotel giant, on Obama’s choice of a Hyatt heir to run the Commerce Department, and her “Someone Like Me” campaign calling for a worker to be added to Hyatt’s board. Plus labor news and “I wish I’d written that!”
There is much to be learned from the lives and times of Ed Koch and David Dinkins, New York’s last two Democratic mayors. Their New York may not be as far away as it feels at the center of a thoroughly sanitized Times Square.
