What Does the New Doctor Who Offer Working-Class Whovians?
The new season of British Sci-Fi show, Doctor Who has created a buzz due to the casting of a woman to play the Doctor for the first time in the show’s fifty-five-year history.
Read more →posts categorized asLaborOnline
Working-Class Politics and The Foremen Problem
In a recent unpublished paper, Larry Bartels (author of Unequal Democracy) and Kathrine Cramer (author of The Politics of Resentment), reported a finding sure to surprise many who have been blaming “the white working class” for the election of Trump: “Contrary to much recent speculation regarding the political impact of long-term income stagnation, we find a strong correlation between upward economic mobility and increasingly conservative economic and political views.” Go figure.
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Is the Fever Breaking? Ground Zero Youngstown
Two years ago, I described the Youngstown area as “crossover ground zero” for Donald Trump and the politics of resentment in working-class and rust belt communities. In local rallies during the 2016 campaign and since he took office, Trump has repeatedly promised an economic renaissance and immigration reform.
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Laura McEnaney on her new book, Postwar
Our series of interviews with authors of new books in labor and working-class history continues. Laura McEnaney’s Postwar: Waging Peace in Chicago, is being released by the University of Pennsylvania Press today. McEnaney, a professor of history at Whittier College, answered questions from Jacob Remes.
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#MeToo and McDonald’s
It’s been a long time since a strike in the US directly targeted sexual harassment. But on Tuesday, women workers took direct action against their bosses and brought the #MeToo movement to McDonald’s.
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The $15 Disney Minimum Wage, Historic?
Over the better part of the last year (July 2017-August 2018), Disney cast members in both Anaheim and Orlando have been negotiating with Disney and have signed what has been called a historic contract. A true David and Goliath story, they and their unions have been going toe to toe with one of the most sophisticated, cut-throat, and best funded legal teams in the world, and they seem to have won at least a partial victory.
Read more →Labor Song of the Month: “Harry Bridges”
Nowadays, the name Harry Bridges elicits no response from the average American. Some San Francisco Bay Area residents might connect his name to the large plaza outside the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero running alongside the bay.
Read more →What’s up with wages? Nothing, and that’s a problem (not a puzzle)
Increasing inequality is a pressing problem requiring serious research and vigorous debate as we strive for policies that improve people’s opportunities and outcomes. One direct way to tackle this challenge is to confront the problem of pay, especially in the United States, where our public culture has long correlated hard work with personal worth and our public policies have wedded social benefits to employment via tax credits, health care insurance and pensions.
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Middle-Class Influence vs. Working-Class Character
“Jesse” is one of a cohort of 80 students sociologist Jessica Calarco observed from the 3rd through the 5th grades and then revisited in middle school for her new book, Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School.
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The Fight for Good Jobs and a Democratic Economy
Jonathan Kissam, historian and Communications Director for United Electrical Workers Union, digs into the past for some ideas for the future, in a post originally written for their website blog.
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