At Letters From Earth, Andrew Evans celebrates the wonders of farming and crafting clay pots — two occupations based on making something out of dirt with honest labor.
labor
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Chaotic Nature of Working at Victoria’s Secret
Shopping mall staples rely on “call-in” shifts, and the legality of this system, which may prevent part-time employees from finding other work and pursuing higher education, is in question.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Fair Hours Have Once Again Become a Basic Concern In Worker Organizing
Along with wages and conditions, hours used to be a basic concern in worker organizing. During the heyday of the struggle over hours, in the century before World War II, the demand was always for fewer of them. The “Lowell Mill Girls” agitated for a 10-hour day, and the Haymarket strikers wanted to get down […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why Certain Workers Are More Vulnerable to Wage Theft
The problem of wage theft is not confined to any one industry, ethnicity, size of business, or corporate structure, says Labor Commissioner Julie Su. Each year, California loses approximately $8 billion in tax revenues to wage theft, and Su’s office has investigated millions of dollars’ worth of violations committed by, among others, a hospital, assisted living […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Meals Behind Bars: A Reading List
Three of these pieces look at what mealtime is like on the inside, from an examination of chow hall food to stories of inmates’ ad-hoc cell-made meals to an in-depth look at a commissary food that’s both dietary supplement and currency for thousands of inmates. A fourth adds a different dimension, revealing how some of the foods on our own tables are the product of prison labor.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Meals Behind Bars: A Reading List
Three of these pieces look at what mealtime is like on the inside, from an examination of chow hall food to stories of inmates’ ad-hoc cell-made meals to an in-depth look at a commissary food that’s both dietary supplement and currency for thousands of inmates. A fourth adds a different dimension, revealing how some of the foods on our own tables are the product of prison labor.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Painful Business of Running a Franchise
It’s not just the workers who get a lousy deal. Over the years, Bob Baber, the Quiznos franchisee, became increasingly frustrated by the terms of his contract. One of the issues that galled him the most was that Quiznos was allowed to (and did) place additional sub shops in his franchise area, creating what he […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why Would Anyone Want to Lower the Working Age for Children in Bolivia?
“I’d gone to Bolivia because some NGOs and activists there have been trying—seemingly against all good sense—to lower the legal working age from 14 to six years old. And this was not the doing of mine owners or far-right politicians seeking cheap labor like one might expect. Instead the idea has been floated by a […]
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A Longreads Guest Pick: Kate Cox on Jennifer Gonnerman's 'The Deliverymen's Uprising'
Kate Cox is a freelance writer and editor living in New York. Nobody will say this, but the secret to New York City survival is a sturdy emotional filter. The flipside of said filter is that hundreds of our daily encounters fail to penetrate: the deli guy, the dry cleaner, fellow commuters—we so rarely engage […]