More than 80,000 unionized Kaiser Permanente employees plan to strike in October, marking the biggest labor action in the country in over two decades. According to the Los Angeles Times, the strike comprises a coalition of about 300 Kaiser Permanente unions, and will largely exclude doctors, registered nurses, and mental health workers, though it will […]
Economics
The Big Fight, Not the Little Fight
NEW YORK—In April of 2016, I went to a huge Bernie Sanders speech in Washington Square park, which spilled out into the surrounding streets around NYU. Last night, I went to a (not quite as huge, but still big) speech by Elizabeth Warren, in the same park, under the same noble white arch. What’s the […]
Subway Got Too Big. Franchisees Paid a Price.
A Subway in Queens.CreditCreditAn Rong Xu for The New York Times Operators say they’ve lost their stores to conflicted managers over petty infractions, like cucumbers sliced too thick and sabotaged meatball bags. A Subway in Queens.CreditCreditAn Rong Xu for The New York Times Manoj Tripathi couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had a vendetta against […]
The Revolution Will Be Cooked
Illustration: Benjamin Currie/GMG THE FUTURE OF LABORWhat’s next for work and workers Every morning, the Portland chapter of the Black Panther Party had a routine. Just before 6 a.m., a driver would pick up former U.S. Navy cook “Big Jeff” along with a heavy haul of food, and they would head over to the […]
Who Works Engineering at Skullcrusher Mountain?
Quitting immediately is a privilege, what do we do when we can’t? Recent events at The Markup have given us a rare public flogging of a management decision. Executive management is America’s highest paid working classification but consequences for when they do a bad job seem increasingly unlikely. This has led to a rise in […]
How Fortnite’s success led to months of intense crunch at Epic Games – Polygon
The popularity of Fortnite has been transformative for Epic Games. But the game’s explosive growth led to months of intense crunch for Epic employees and contractors, some of whom say they felt extreme pressure to work grueling hours to maintain Fortnite’s success and profitability, resulting in a toxic, stressful environment at the company. In a […]
The Gig Economy’s Unhappy Middle Class – OneZero
Uber, Lyft, Postmates, and Deliveroo. These words are now part of our everyday lexicon. The gig economy has changed the world. I find it hard to remember when I didn’t see hundreds of delivery scooters zipping around the city near our office. Nor do I easily recall when it was unusual to see somebody happily […]
Tech Needs More Conscientious Objectors – The New York Times
American companies continue to build surveillance tools that are used to violate human rights. Workers who refuse to comply deserve protections. Mr. Poulson is a former research scientist at Google. ImageA protester outside Google’s London headquarters in January urging the company to scrap the Dragonfly project, a censored search engine for China.CreditCreditBen Stansall/Agence France-Presse — […]
Google Walkout Organizers Say They’re Facing Retaliation | WIRED
Two employee activists at Google say they have been retaliated against for helping to organize a walkout among thousands of Google employees in November, and are planning a “town hall” meeting on Friday for others to discuss alleged instances of retaliation. In a message posted to many internal Google mailing lists Monday, Meredith Whittaker, who […]
Instagram Memers Are Unionizing – The Atlantic
Instagram memers have had enough. They generate the engagement that helps keep Instagram growing—but, they argue, the multibillion-dollar platform doesn’t pay them for their work, or give them any control. So they’re fighting back. And before you write off IG Meme Union Local 69-420 as a joke, the organizers of the collective would like you […]