Future of Work
Corporate Spies Keep An Eye On Organized Labor
Google’s computers are spying on its workers. Anytime a Google employee uses an online calendar to schedule a meeting involving more than 100 co-workers, management gets an alert—a great way for the anti-union corporation to sniff out union organizing efforts. Lots of...
Why Workers Like Victoria Need The PRO Act Now
Those bundles of joy cost bundles of money, so Victoria Whipple, a quality control worker at Kumho Tire in Macon, Ga., had been working overtime to get ready for her new arrival. She also got involved in union organizing at the plant, and management decided to teach...
The GM Strike: A Century of Context
Wars end with treaties. In the middle of the 20th century, the “class war” that finished off America’s original plutocracy ended with the “Treaty of Detroit.” Fortune, the business magazine, came up with that catchy turn of phrase back in 1950 to describe the landmark collective bargaining agreement that the United Auto Workers union had just reached with General Motors. What made the pact so historic? America’s most powerful corporation was essentially agreeing to “share the wealth.” Now UAW workers are once again making headlines, demanding just as they did decades ago that General Motors share the wealth with the workers who toil to create it. But GM workers today find themselves struggling in a far different — and more difficult — political and economic environment.
Wealth That Concentrates Kills
The weight of the wealth that sits at the top of America’s economic order isn’t just squeezing dollars out of the wallets of average Americans. That concentrated wealth is shearing years off of American lives. The latest evidence for that squeeze on American wallets comes from the Census Bureau. And increasing inequality, a just-released Government Accountability Office study makes clear, is killing many of us off before our time.
Google's Chance To Do Good For Gig Workers
Google is famous for workplaces called “campuses” where employees get enormous paychecks and enjoy all the perks of fancy private college campuses, including pingpong tables and other entertainment. But other workers who produce for Google across the country are not...
Don't Subsidize Companies That Silence Workers
Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue / flickr / cc Will America finally grant its workers First Amendment rights? The Constitution guarantees “freedom of speech,” the right to “peaceably assemble,” and the right to petition for “a redress of grievances.” Yet these civil...
In Praise Of Scabby The Rat
Giant balloons apparently terrify Peter Robb, who is Donald Trump’s hand-picked general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Big balloons shaped like rats, cats, pigs and cockroaches so frighten Robb that he has used his office to take extraordinary...
Can Business Put People Before Profits?
Jamie Dimon and friends. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons / Financial Times / cc Gordon Gekko found religion last week. Gekko, the lead in the 1987 movie “Wall Street” about capitalism gone corruptly amok, is most famous for his phrase: “greed is good.” Last Monday,...
Trump's Lies To Labor
Donald Trump: billionaire of the people. When he ran for office, he said, “The American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them.” And how’s that working out for the American worker? Not very well, actually, not very well. When it...
The Soul of a Union Man
Leo Gerard, a longtime contributor to OurFuture, retires Monday after 54 years as a union man and 18 as the International President of United Steelworkers (USW). We thank Leo for his leadership and tireless efforts for working people around the world. I was raised in...
