February 2021

February 26, 2021

Sidney's Picks: Deregulation & Amazon Vote-a-Rama

The Best of thte Week’s News:

Electricity deregulation cost Texans $28 billion extra over 20 years. (WSJ)
The Senate Parliamentarian rules that a $15 minimum wage can’t be part of the COVID relief package. (Rolling Stone)
U.S. labor law is broken, but what would an Amazon union drive look like under Canadian labor law? (Nation, Jacobin)
Amazon-owned Twitch bans Amazon’s union-busting ads. (Vice)
Hillman board member Danny Glover joined voting Amazon workers in Alabama. (Portside)
Amazon accused of meddling with mysterious mailbox and McDonald’s surveilled organizing workers. (Vice)

February 19, 2021

Photo credit:

CIA del foto, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News:

Texas’s electrical grid came within “seconds and minutes” of permanent destruction. (Texas Tribune)
Amid a historic union drive, Amazon changed the timing of traffic lights, presumably to thwart organizers. (NYT, Verge, More Perfect Union)
How Prop 22 is “Uberizing” the US workforce, killing jobs and spooking unions. (Bloomberg)
Postmates drivers are being scammed and robbed at an outrageous rate. (Markup)
“A Position of Subordination and Dependency”: British court rules that Uber drivers are entitled to benefits. (NYT)
As nursing home workers died of COVD, regulators looked the other way.(CNN)
Making poor parents work more and parent less isn’t a policy triumph. (NYT)

February 12, 2021

The Best of the Week’s News:

Pandemic UI has run out in rural Pennsylvania and people are hurting. (Belt)
Amazon workers in Bessemer, AL began voting by mail to decide whether their location will unionize. (Slate, Guardian, CBS)
Some Amazon workers are looking ahead to an organized future, while Amazon is spending over $3200 a day to defeat the organizing drive. (WBUR, Intercept, TNR)
Philly is facing an avalanche of evictions, and court documents still don’t ensure due process for tenants. (Philly Inquirer)
NYC shelter exec Victor Rivera has been fired and placed under criminal investigation after a Times investigation aired allegations of sexual violence and financial impropriety. (NYT)

February 5, 2021

Photo credit:

The Globe in the New York Daily News Building, Wally Gobetz, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News:

Ahead of historic Alabama union vote, Amazon fights dirty. Warehouse workers in Chicago push back against Amazon’s new “megacycle” shifts. (WaPo, Vice)
A chemical leak claims the lives of 6 poultry workers in Gainesville, Georgia. (Nation)
The Republicans escalate their war on voting rights. (MoJo)
Rise again! The New York Daily News union is back after 25 years in the wilderness. (NYT)