Labor Day Roundup

 

A few links for Labor Day (but for the real labor day, see our May Day post):

• Look for the Union Label:  Hat-tip to Steve Couch (via FB) for this 1982 classic ILGWU TV ad.
• Fast-food workers’ protests around the country point up the gap between image and reality.  From Slate; hat-tip TM.  The idea is that post WWII, unions themselves helped create the image of workers as (white) male breadwinners in manufacturing jobs; now unions trying to organize fast-food workers have to overcome that mythology. The 1982 ad confounds this somewhat. Plus, the low-wage workers organizing across the country are doing a pretty good job of it–I think the media coverage has been great. Our annual labor issue (still in production) has a cover story focusing on that organizing, by sociologist Nicole Aschoff.
• Speaking of which, from the East Bay Express, Fast Food Workers Strike for Better Pay and Working Conditions. There’s been lots of coverage in the media–this piece talks about support from politicians and unions, e.g. the BART workers.
• From Heidi Shierholtz and Larry Michel of EPI, A Decade of Flat Wages.
• Last but not least: Richard Wolff in The Guardian:  Organized Labor’s Decline in the U.S. is Well Known, but What Drove It?  He touches on key themes we address in our upcoming labor issue, including an interview with Barry Bluestone on Detroit’s bankruptcy, and an article by Nancy Folbre on the economics of worker co-ops.

That’s it for now. Happy Labor Day!

–Chris Sturr