Belabored Podcast #6: “That Can Get You Fired”
Belabored Podcast #6: “That Can Get You Fired”
Obama’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board rejected, new strike authorizations, and Sarah and Josh discuss the state of fast food workers’ organizing efforts. They interview journalist Jake Blumgart about recent developments around anti-sweatshop activism, at-will employment, the future of Atlantic City, and high-stakes testing at a sushi restaurant.
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This week’s Belabored podcast opens with a rundown of recent headlines, including a circuit court rejecting President Obama’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, and strike authorizations by legal services staff, stadium concessions workers, and sub-contracted Target janitors. Sarah and Josh discuss the state of fast food workers’ organizing efforts—which this week included a strike in Milwaukee and the release of a report on wage theft in New York—and the challenges of maintaining momentum and attention. Then they interview journalist Jake Blumgart about his recent stories on anti-sweatshop activism, at-will employment, the future of Atlantic City, and high-stakes testing at a sushi restaurant (full disclosure: the unions representing stadium workers and Atlantic City casino workers are both affiliated with Josh’s former employer, UNITE HERE). Blumgart also previews his forthcoming review of the latest Star Trek movie.
Links to follow along at home:
Josh’s reporting on judicial challenges to Obama’s NLRB appointments, and on Twin City Target janitors organizing.
Sarah’s reporting on organizing by port truckers in Georgia (discussed on last week’s episode).
Josh on Wednesday’s fast food strike in Milwaukee, and Sarah on last month’s in New York.
Jake Blumgart’s recent articles “Sweatshops still make your clothes,” “It’s All Too Easy to Get Fired in America,” “Has Atlantic City Reached the End?” and “A Swank Sushi Joint Gets a May Day Scolding From Angry Workers.”
Blumgart’s book review in the current issue of Dissent.
Finally, here are the stories we wish we’d written:
Sarah Nicole Prickett, “Who Are the People That Get to Make This Thing We Call Art?”, Bullett
Gordon Lafer, “Discipline and Punish: The New Unemployment ‘Reform’”, Labor Notes
