The gig economy provides no safety net for its workers, but some activists are hoping to change that.
Jobs
Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants helped organize far-reaching workers’ rights campaigns in industries that mainstream unions had thought to be untouchable.
New York City’s Liberty Cleaners co-created an innovative training program that’s providing the skills to bring about their vision of the gig economy.
“When I think of the many ways we—laborers, neighbors, people in community with one another—are failing each other, I think first and foremost of the institution of work as we know it.”
The Dutch art of niksen—intentionally doing nothing, letting the mind wander—is much needed in our over-scheduled lives.
From The Current Issue
Our work environment is deeply dysfunctional. But making systemic change requires understanding how we got here.
From The Current Issue
Long-underpaid undergrad students who work on campus are increasingly seeing the value of their labor and organizing unions.
From The Current Issue
Young workers, women, and people of color are combining digital innovation with old-school face-to-face organizing to build a new labor movement.
From The Current Issue
And it’s not over.
From The Current Issue
Activists have long suggested that oppressive institutions should be abolished rather than reformed. The same could be said about labor.
Solving the Mountain State’s endemic issues means a return to old-fashioned virtues of neighborliness and diligence.
From Amazon to Starbucks, employees are demanding better pay and working conditions from companies that have long had a free hand to maximize profits at any cost.
Rubynell Walker-Barbee shares her story of service workers organizing in Georgia.
Can learning labor history give us hope for the future of unions?
Bad managers, burnout, and health fears are causing record numbers of workers to quit the industry for good.
Evalynn Romano, the daughter of custodians, offers clear, achievable solutions to affirm the dignity and health of this largely BIPOC workforce.
“Slow work is an exercise in doing less, and more aspirationally, doing nothing.”
Today’s subminimum wages are a legacy of racist policies that date from the Civil War.
Talks of work-life balance often exclude low-wage women workers of color. Including them means investing in basic policies like equal pay and paid time off.
Domestic care workers have been overlooked in the economy and as political actors for too long.
Movements such as the four-day workweek, right to disconnect, and fair workweek aim to save our sanity and the planet.
5 meditations on what “enough” means, from food to rest to diversity.
It’s time to catch up with the global community in enacting a permanent national paid leave policy and other caregiving supports.
It’s going to require government investment in both women employees and entrepreneurs.
Biden’s infrastructure plans promise not just to boost the economy, but to fundamentally redefine the role of government.
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