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California’s Proposition 22 locked in a second-tier status for gig economy workers through a ballot initiative in November, but Uber and Lyft drivers, among other gig workers, haven’t stopped organizing for better, in California and around the country. In today’s episode we dig into the issue in depth, first with Nicole Moore, a California driver with Rideshare Drivers United, who tells us about the organizing going on to fight for workers’ rights after Prop 22, and then with economist Marshall Steinbaum, who has studied the bill and its potential to spread across the country, and shares some thoughts about how to stop it.
Since we have a new administration taking office this week, we also look at our incoming Secretary of Labor and consider the damage Trump did to workers on his way out the door. And we discuss a new ban on products from China’s Xinjiang region, where forced labor is estimated to be rampant, and the arrest of striking essential workers right here in New York. For Argh, we point out that COVID-19 is a workplace disease, and the collective organizing of musicians.
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News
1,400 Workers in the Bronx Are on Strike for a Livable Wage (Jacobin)
The Business Rules the Trump Administration Is Racing to Finish (New York Times)
Tracking the Trump Administration’s “Midnight Regulations” (ProPublica)
The US is intensifying its crackdown on forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region (Quartz)
For ex-union official turned mayor, priorities have shifted (Boston Globe)
Five reasons Marty Walsh could be an excellent choice for secretary of Labor (The Hill)
OPINION: We Can Do Better Than Marty Walsh (Strikewave)
Conversation
Rideshare Drivers United on Twitter
Marshall Steinbaum on Twitter
Michelle: A Blow for Labor Rights in California (Dissent)
Uber brands gig companies’ efforts to reshape labor laws as ‘IC+’ (Marketwatch)
Argh, I wish I’d written that!
Michelle: Josephine Shetty interviewed by Alexander Billet, Musicians Need to Organize Collectively, as Workers (Jacobin)
Sarah: Justin Feldman, Coronavirus Is an Occupational Disease That Spreads at Work (Jacobin)
The post Belabored: Stopping the Spread of Prop 22 appeared first on Dissent Magazine.
Source: Belabored