Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
To understand the feeling of crisis that many see in higher education right now, it’s useful to start with some figures from 40 years ago. In 1974, the median American family earned just under $13,000 a year. A new home could be had for $36,000, an average new car for $4,400. Attending a four-year private…
Yeah, it’s not the real Labor Day, but we’re still offering discounted subscriptions with this link today. Support our work and subscribe, or get a friend a gift subscription. At the end of the nineteenth century, the American labor movement was among the most militant in the world. From the stockyards of Chicago to the…
Imagine you are a woman in public service in any number of states across this country. You spend your career teaching, nursing the elderly back to health, assisting the unemployed in their job search. After many years of working hard, playing by rules, supporting your children to get them through college, you retire. If you’re…
The unemployment rate is low by any historical standard at 5.1 percent. Businesses are complaining of worker shortages in industries like health care, construction and trucking. Household-name companies like Walmart and McDonald’s have announced increases to their pay for low-wage workers. Add those together, and it would seem to point to 2015 as the year…
Councilmember Laurie Cumbo and Assemblywoman Diana Richardson rallying with tenants outside of 285 Schenectady on Wednesday night (UHAB) Dozens of Crown Heights tenants and allies gathered for a candlelight vigil near the corner of Schenectady Avenue and Union Street last night, in solidarity with 55 families at 285 Schenectady and 1646 Union who will…
click to enlarge The Whole Foods market near Lake Merritt in Oakland was the site of a bloody “altercation” between a security guard and a black customer last night, according to a witness and the Whole Foods store. Facebook user Zoe Marks shared three graphic photos of the victim of the attack, who she says…
If you know your argument that restaurant owners universally revile the idea of an increased minimum wage is complete bullshit, that’s still OK! You can just make shit up, as one of the main restaurant industry lobbyists recently did. Lobbyist-mercenary and aspiring Nazgul Richard Berman recently launched Faces of 15, a shill website devoted to…
paging_filter The News Guild — known until recently as the Newspaper Guild — has traditionally been the union for American journalists who produce written work. Lately, though, in the digital-media business, it has been overshadowed by the Writers Guild of America-East union, which has organized the editorial staffs at digital-only news outlets Gawker Media, Salon…
Screenshot via financial icon Rihanna’s “Pour It Up” music video If you type “will millennials…” into Google, the first suggestion is “will millennials ever be able to retire?” It’s a question that trumps almost any other conversation about millennial life. We’re the generation least likely to be on track for retirement and most likely to…
Uber’s Travis Kalanick. Photo: Heisenberg Media/Wikimedia Commons An employment lawsuit against Uber can now proceed as a class action after a judge certified a class of 160,000 Uber drivers in California. Four drivers brought suit against Uber in 2013 alleging worker misclassification—according to them, they are employees of Uber, even if the company treats…