Working Life

When we come out of the immediate pandemic crisis, then, maybe we can have some accounting of who and what is responsible for the needless deaths of thousands of people—and among the “who” would be, say, politicians who are making themselves look like heroes today—I’ll just say, randomly, New York politicians—even though they sat on […]

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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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Last week I asked everyone to consider the coronavirus pandemic as a pretty clarifying picture of class warfare—who are the people who get hurt most when millions of jobs go away or at best are in limbo because of a nationwide shutdown? It’s working people, minimum wage workers, service workers—almost none of whom have enough […]

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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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You may remember me using this before because the idea comes up again and again in the struggle of workers to get some power at work. In his ballad “Pretty Boy Floyd”, Woody Guthrie sang these words: “Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered I’ve seen lots of funny men; Some will rob you with […]

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I try to mostly stay away from long monologue and ruminations, leaving the topics to be explored in conversations with my guests. Today, a little change because of the issue—I’m going to dig into a recent important study that shows what is pretty obvious to anyone looking at the numbers—Medicare for All saves money and […]

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It’s easy to get dragged into a negative head space if you do any kind of politics or movement building work—it’s hard out there and too often we have a tendency to focus on the really bad stuff, like “the planet is burning up and imploding” or a few people own more wealth in the […]

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Hypocrisy is pretty much a given when you are in politics. I’ve pointed out the particular hypocrisy of all those flag-waving politicians who shout a full-throated “I support our men and women in uniform” but, then, cut benefits for vets and cut funds for the VA. Today, I hone in on another hypocrisy: politicians who […]

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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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With the Iowa caucuses just a few days away, I thought this would be a good time to devote the entire episode to progressive candidates who I’ve been talking to over the course of a number of weeks, with many more to come throughout the year. Today, you’ll hear from three women candidates—two are running […]

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