Category Archives: Unions/Labor

Activism, Colleges & Education, Conservative Perspectives, Culture wars, Current Affairs, Signs of the Times, Unions/Labor, Work

Academic Tenure Will Soon Be Gone — Unless . . .

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[NOTE: one scholar cited here says that the number of tenured professors ballooned after World War II, when more Amerians, especially veterans, went to college, got advanced degrees and stayed on to teach.

Today, student body numbers are falling, but grad schools keep churning out new PhDs. So  there’s a glut, too many carrying big debt loads, faced with vanishing tenure prospects and exploitive work conditions. Because most are also more or less liberal, this makes the academy an easy target in the culture wars. Continue reading Academic Tenure Will Soon Be Gone — Unless . . . →

Commerce, Unions/Labor, Work

Breaking: Amazon & Starbucks Workers To Strike in the U. K. & U. S.

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Labor action on both sides of the Atlantic

CNBC — DEC 16 2022

Amazon workers will go on formal strike for the first time in the UK

Ryan Browne
KEY POINTS

Employees at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse in central England voted Friday to go on strike.
It will be the first legally mandated strike to take place in the U.K.
The walkout will add to the wave of industrial action happening across the U.K.

Hundreds of Amazon workers will go on strike, Britain’s GMB union said Friday, marking a first for the company’s employees in the U.K. Continue reading Breaking: Amazon & Starbucks Workers To Strike in the U. K. & U. S. →

Annals of Inequality, Commerce, or Worse, Signs of the Times, Social Justice, Unions/Labor

Txsgiving Turkey was a BIG Honking TURKEY for NC Furniture Workers

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Winston-Salem NC-United Furniture Industries Inc. has stopped production abruptly at its five Triad facilities — where it was reported to have had between 530 and 600 employees — as part of what appears to be an overall shutdown of the business.

Multiple media reports say employees in Winston-Salem, Verona, Miss., and Victorville, Calif., as well as delivery drivers, received emails from United’s board of directors late Monday and early Tuesday.

Continue reading Txsgiving Turkey was a BIG Honking TURKEY for NC Furniture Workers →

"Dog Days" Diversions, Activism, Current Affairs, Humor, Signs of the Times, Unions/Labor

This One Weird Trick Will guarantee to Fully Empty Your Brain Before Labor Day Brunch — Try It NOW!

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Labor Day Secrets:

How I Found the Right Job

In honor of Labor Day, here’s a first person report of someone who was not quite as successful as he had hoped to be in the job market:

As a young man

My first job was in an orange juice factory, but I couldn’t
concentrate on the same old boring rind, so I got canned.
Then I worked in the woods as a lumberjack, but I just couldn’t hack
it, so they gave me the axe.

After that, I tried out in a donut shop, but soon got tired of
the hole business, and the boss always had this totally glazed look.

I manufactured calendars, but my days there were numbered.

I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn’t suited for it. Mainly
because it was a sew-sew job, de-pleating and de-pressing, and the foreman couldn’t stop needling me.

After that I took a job as an upholsterer, but I never recovered.

In my prime

Next I signed on in a car muffler factory, but that was
exhausting.

I wanted to be a barber, but I just couldn’t cut it.

Then I took pilot lessons, but tended to wing it, and didn’t have the
right altitude. Continue reading This One Weird Trick Will guarantee to Fully Empty Your Brain Before Labor Day Brunch — Try It NOW! →

Colleges & Education, Current Affairs, Schools/Education, Signs of the Times, Social Justice, Unions/Labor

Cancel [At Least Some] Student Loan Debt: YES!

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[NOTE: In a better USA (a prospect rapidly receding on many fronts), canceling student loan debt would be part of a much larger, far-reaching higher ed reform program: tackling rampant tuition (& grade) inflation, restoring decent job security to the huddled masses of adjunct faculty yearning to breathe free, and make the rent (preferably led by tough-minded UNIONS), pushback on neo-fascist intellectual repression from one side and ultrawoke inquisitional orthodoxy on another; and lots more. (For details, cf., Sanders, Bernie, op. cit,)

But it ain’t happening. U. S. higher ed remains a multi-trillion steaming hot mess, especially for non-wealthy new students and young families.

So in the meantime, the Biden limited loan debt cancellation will be a boon to many. Let’s make it work til the stars align to make something more drastic possible. This piece presents a good case.)

New York Times — August 30, 2022

Why I Changed My Mind on Student Debt Forgiveness

By Susan Dynarski — Aug. 30, 2022

Professor Dynarski is an economist at Harvard University.

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As an economist who studies education, I long thought that forgiving student loans was a crude and inequitable tool for fixing student aid. College graduates, after all, are the winners in our society. College certainly changed my life: My father was a high school dropout, but his daughter is a Harvard professor. My student loans (which I paid off just a few years ago) were absolutely worth it. A bachelor’s degree, on average, puts graduates on a path to economic security.

Continue reading Cancel [At Least Some] Student Loan Debt: YES! →