Working Life

The other night I was watching an episode of Season 3 of Ozark and there was a scene in which the mother, played by Laura Linney, walks out of a supermarket with her son, both of them pushing a shopping cart. My head went immediately to, without a thought: I hope they sanitized that bar […]

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 When I have snuck out briefly in the past couple of weeks to safely get a few items at the supermarket, I made sure to thank the workers in the aisles and my cashier for being on the job, and I also tell them be safe and careful. They are supremely vulnerable to getting […]

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Pandemics might be one of the single best mass events to shine a light on class warfare, especially in the U.S. Rich people don’t have to worry about getting sick—they can afford extensive care in a country in which millions of working-class people can’t even afford to see a doctor for a run-of-the-mill reason. If […]

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It’s pretty likely that when you cut into a nice juicy roast chicken at home or in a restaurant a worker in some poultry processing plant was injured cutting up that chicken into commercial pieces. And in some cases, it’s even worse: in January, two workers in poultry plants were killed in the space of […]

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“Economic inequality is out of control. In 2019, the world’s billionaires, only 2,153 people, had more wealth than 4.6 billion people.” Those two sentences lead off Oxfam’s annual look at inequality. This year, Oxfam looks at unpaid and underpaid care work and the global inequality crisis. I speak with Paul O’Brien, Vice President of Policy […]

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WASHINGTON, January 15—Today, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-V.t.) spoke in opposition to the United States, Mexico, Canada Free Trade Agreement (USMCA) in the U.S. Senate. The following are the Senator’s prepared floor remarks: “Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the NAFTA 2.0 trade agreement negotiated by Trump. “This agreement is opposed by labor unions like […]

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Most people, when they walk out the door to go to work, don’t think, “damn, I’m going to get killed today or seriously ill with a chronic disease”. Yes, if you work in a mine or on a construction site, you are more aware of the dangers. But, most people just assume work is a […]

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As the New Year beckons, there’s good news and bad news on wages. The good news is something I’ve been able to talk about for the past few years at the end of each year—come January 1st, a whole lot of people are going to see their paychecks increase because of some state and local […]

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Shut your damn mouth or be deported. That’s basically the upshot of what happened to Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma, who wanted to tell the truth about the collapse of the under-construction Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans but, two days after he was hurt in the disaster, Joel found himself dragged off by ICE into […]

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I love the bosses who wring their hands when workers try to unionize, the ones who say, “don’t you love us? Aren’t we good to you”? That isn’t the point. Everyone needs a union so workers together don’t ever have to rely on just good feelings from employers. Which is what I talk about with […]

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