every statement by a humanitarian aid / health care worker includes a declaration like this one, every single one says that nothing in their lifetimes compares to what Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza
Mar 25, 2024 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I hope people, especially in the US labor movement, read this one and think seriously about what our brothers and sisters in Palestine are enduring. imagine what we would do if it was happening to workers here
I imagine the CEO of a tech conference will be fine but the many, many regular people experiencing this is really remarkable
Jul 28, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
I wrote about Thomas Bradley, who signed up for a hotel shift via Instawork, a temp-job app. When he arrived to work, he saw he was being used as a strikebreaker. He joined the picket line, the app suspended him, and now the workers are striking over it. jacobin.com/2023/07/southe…
This story has it all: predominantly Latino
@UNITEHERE11 members at the Laguna Cliffs hotel striking in solidarity with workers, many of them black, who were enlisted as strikebreakers, in the first strike against what I'm personally calling "Uber for strikebreaking."
May 1, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
For International Workers’ Day, here’s a little reflection on the state of the US labor movement: some exciting developments, some concerning ones, but as I often find myself telling people lately, now is the time to commit to the cause of labor. jacobin.com/2023/05/labor-…
A far-from-exhaustive look at last week's labor news offers a representative snapshot: the newly elected UAW president visiting the slightly-less-newly elected Teamsters president, the Starbucks fight still dragging on, and new organizing in logistics and higher ed.
Sep 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
meanwhile, the carriers are preparing to lock out workers as they’d rather do that, with all the costs to the public that’ll follow, than agree to workers’ very reasonable proposals. entire situation is shameful
anyone pressuring workers to sacrifice things like “the right to go to a doctor without being fired” because their role in the US economy is too important has things totally backward. the employers are choosing to create this situation, they’re to blame
Jul 21, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
sharing this one again because it’s a black-led independent union of Amazon workers in the South using tried-and-tested tactics to build support and shop-floor power. CAUSE estimates it now has 700 workers interested—far more people should know about them jacobin.com/2022/07/north-…
people know that the ALU’s story is in large part about racism—Chris was denied promotions, assumed to be dumb, and the ALU continues to be subject to a racist campaign by Amazon. what may not be as clear is that racism at Amazon motivates almost every other organizing drive too
Jul 21, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
ICYMI: I spoke to Starbucks workers in Ithaca, where the abrupt closure of a unionized store and the reduction of hours at other locations has led to a dire situation for @SBWorkersUnited members. They say the company is doing its best to crush them. jacobin.com/2022/07/starbu…
One barista called Starbucks’s union-busting “economic and psychological warfare.” Another recently collapsed from hunger. Many others are quitting—one store voted 19-1 to unionize, and even the lone no vote quit out of frustration with the union-busting. jacobin.com/2022/07/starbu…
Jul 20, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This spring, workers at an Ithaca Starbucks unionized and went on strike. Then, the company said it was permanently closing the location. Those workers remain jobless, and their counterparts at other unionized Ithaca stores are in trying circumstances too. jacobin.com/2022/07/starbu…
The workers at the closed store are meeting with Starbucks to negotiate what happens now, but they say Starbucks has reason to drag negotiations out. They won’t get transfers to other locations until all is settled, and some feel that the company is hoping to starve them out.
Jul 19, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
I wrote about @CarolinasEmpow1, a union of Amazon workers at a warehouse in North Carolina. If you’ve been following the ALU in Staten Island, you’re going to want to learn about this union too. jacobin.com/2022/07/north-…
Meet Reverend Ryan Brown, a former pastor in the Baptist church and current Amazon worker of several years, who is the union's president.
Apr 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
“Still, as Alex Press, who covers the labor movement for the left-wing magazine Jacobin wrote, this victory was ‘an upset for which there are few parallels in the US labor movement’s post-Reagan history.’” damn, very true theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Amazon is a great case study for @AdamSerwer’s point. when it put out a statement “in solidarity with the Black community” during the Floyd protests, I asked black Amazon workers who’d been fired for organizing about it (one of them was Chris Smalls) jacobinmag.com/2020/06/amazon…
Apr 13, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
On Monday, I watched one of Eric Adams’s homeless encampment sweeps. The policy is pure theater, a waste of time and resources that does nothing to address the reasons people lack housing. jacobinmag.com/2022/04/eric-a…
There’s a long history of New York mayors conducting sweeps, but in contrast to de Blasio, Adams has made the removal of homeless people from public spaces a priority. As for why that is, the mayor would like you to know that it’s not because business groups want him to do it.
Jan 12, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I wrote about that new survey of workers at Kroger, one of the largest private employers in the United States, which finds that homelessness and food insecurity are rampant among the workforce. jacobinmag.com/2022/01/report…
Workers’ responses are really damning. One concluded their response with, “Haven’t eaten in 3 days actually cuz I’m so broke.”
Oct 22, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
a lot of first- and secondhand accounts of the working conditions that led to Halyna Hutchins’s death are flying around among IATSE people, but I haven’t confirmed them. if anyone can actually speak to what happened, feel free to DM or email me
can’t pretend to know if “nerdbot” is a reliable source but this accords with what I’ve heard—safety meetings scrapped, crew had walked and been replaced, gun wasn’t checked. as to the very specific, unreal allegations being passed around in DMs, those really require confirmation
Oct 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
so, a large employer whose workers are unionizing is sending those workers anti-union materials that include a citation of something I wrote
specifically, under a talking point about how long the bargaining process can take, they include the sentences I’ve highlighted, followed by a link to the article, which is here: jacobinmag.com/2021/06/jane-m…
Oct 20, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I was on @democracynow this morning to talk IATSE and strikes! Thrilled that my first time on the show was alongside Chris Laursen, a John Deere worker who is on strike
one thing I didn’t have time to talk about but wish I had is the UAW referendum on democratic elections of top union leaders. it is very much related to the question of whether workers can seize this moment. here’s a good article on it labornotes.org/2021/09/auto-w…
