Event • London

Work Won’t Love You Back at the Open University

As we are approaching international workers’ day, come and join Sarah Jaffe as she talks about why Work Won’t Love You Back – a book in which she examines the prevalence of the ‘labour of love’ myth: the idea that certain work is not really work, and should be done for the sake of passion rather than […]

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Labor Looks Up After Amazon Union Vote on the Laura Flanders Show

I was particularly pleased with this appearance because my first real job in the media was working on what was then GRITtv with Laura Flanders, and one of the reasons I wanted to work for her was that people had recommended her to me as one of the few people actually covering labor in the media back then (2009, my goodness). So it’s always a joy to return to talk with Laura, the boss who was, as I said in my book acknowledgements, the exception that proves the rule that bosses won’t love you back. 

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Al Jazeera English

Retailers in the United States have been criticised for praising their staff as “heroes” for working during the coronavirus pandemic – while at the same time ending a system in which they receive extra pay for dangerous conditions. Unions are calling on companies such as internet giant Amazon and supermarket chain owner Kroger to reconsider. I spoke to Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi about the cuts to “hero pay” and workers’ struggle for safe conditions on the job.

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The Real News Network: Workers Are Fighting Back

I joined Jaisal Noor at The Real News Network to talk about the  unprecedented challenges workers are facing now, and how they’re finding new ways to organize for basic protections during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Democracy Now: “This Is a Win for Our City”: Chicago Teachers Celebrate End of Historic Strike After 11 Days

(Part One, Part Two below)
Teachers in Chicago are heading back to school Friday, marking the end of a historic eleven-day strike that had shut down the nation’s third-largest school district. After weeks of tense negotiations, the city agreed to reduce class sizes, increase salaries by 16 percent over the next 5 years and bring on hundreds more social workers, nurses and librarians. The union demanded that teachers be able to make up the full eleven days of school before agreeing to return to work and eventually settled with the city on five days. Earlier this week, 7,500 public school workers with the Service Employees International Union, who had been striking also settled with the city earlier. I joined Democracy Now alongside Stacy Davis Gates, the Executive Vice President of the Chicago Teacher Union.