Let's bring it.

Quite surprising. Here's an excerpt from the interview:

As always, we appreciate your support in whatever form it takes. Now over 50 million freelancers participate in the gig economy in the United States, and in 2023 it was projected to generate $455 billion. Many freelance workers work white collar freelance contracts across a number of industries, most notably tech, media and other creative industries. According to one survey, over 50% of gig workers reported to have experienced wage theft at least once in their freelance career. And due to the nature of contingent gig work, it can be difficult to compel employers to pay their freelancers once the project has been completed. Oftentimes, freelancers are left in a lurch after working for weeks or months on a contract and to find themselves unable to reach employers who owe them payment sometimes to the tune of thousands of dollars. That’s where freelance isn’t free, comes in legislation aimed at protecting freelancers from nonpayment by unruly employers First passed in New York City in 2017.

Freelance isn’t Free. Legislation has helped freelancers recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid invoices over the last seven years. Now backed by organizers at the National Writers Union and the Freelance Solidarity Project. Local and state governments are looking to enact their own freelance Isn’t Free Laws with me today to discuss all this are Eric Thurm and Keisha Dutes. Keisha TK Dutes is an audio producer and executive producer educator and on-air talent with experience spanning terrestrial radio online and podcasts since 2005. Her life and audio is all encompassing. Her most recent offering on NPR Life Kit is about how to mind your business, and currently she is helping people bring their podcasts to life via her company. Philo’s Future Media. TK also serves as a board member for the Association of Independents in Radio. Eric is the campaigns coordinator at the National Writers Union and member organizer with the Freelance Solidarity Project. Organizations that have advocated for freelance isn’t free legislation in places like New State and Illinois. Welcome to the show guys. Thanks so much for coming on this morning. Thanks for having us.

BTW, free-lancers count as "self-employed," right?

Here's an excerpt from the article:

Cancer Survivor and Retiree Advocate/UFT member Sheila Zukowsky said she celebrated the day she turned 65 because it meant she could finally start claiming her traditional Medicare benefits.

“I didn’t like turning 65 — but I could finally go to the hospital that was around the corner from my house where everybody took my healthcare,” Zukowsky said. “There was no longer a problem — I got great treatment and I’m here to today. There’s no way they’re gonna take away our Medicare. No matter what they do — we’re gonna fight like hell against them.”

The private health insurance industry’s hard sell — with it promises of reduced up front costs, dental coverage, gym memberships and the like — has resulted in more than half of all Medicare eligible recipients in the country now being enrolled in a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.

Many of those recipients, however, now regret being taken in by the Medicare Advantage sales pitch — and feel trapped.

Even Mayor Adams jeered Medicare Advantage as a “bait and switch” before winning election and doing an abrupt about-face after taking office.

A great many Medicare eligible recipients also do not even realize that a privatized, profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan is not Medicare — something that privatization advocates are loath to admit.

The Save Medicare Act, reintroduced in the House last year, seeks to prohibit giant insurance companies from advertising their profit-driven plans as “Medicare.”

“Michael Mulgrew keeps saying Medicare Advantage is just Medicare Part C — that’s an absolute lie,” Retiree Advocate/UFT member Norm Scott said on Friday. “We know the difference. I’ve been on Medicare for 14 years — I love it. I’ve had no problems.”

Retiree Advocate/UFT member Sarah Shapiro said, “It’s difficult when you know the city is fighting against you,” but that “it’s really difficult when you know the people in our union leadership are fighting against the rank & file — and the retirees.”

Fellow Retiree Advocate/UFT member Bobby Greenberg’s work on national labor campaigns with the American Federation of Teachers goes back a half century. What’s needed, and what Retiree Advocate/UFT promises, he said is a return to authentic union culture centered on empowering the membership

“[Mulgrew] said this is the best plan we can get — he still says that. That plan died — it was killed by us,” Greenberg said. “We’re winning because the guns have shifted from us — to the working teachers. Now, it’s their healthcare being attacked…what we need is a different culture. We need a culture that welcomes the members.”

Retiree Advocate/UFT Jonathan Halabi said the Retired Teachers Chapter had two critical jobs to do under Mulgrew and Murphy’s watch: protect pensions and healthcare. But they have failed at both.

“Medicare Advantage, Aetna, Alliance — that’s not protecting our healthcare,” Halal said. “That’s Mulgrew, Murphy, Mayor Adams, and the MLC endangering our healthcare…who knows what they have in store four our pensions? Reitrees will vote for the team that will protect our healthcare and our pensions.”

I still feel that this article from this point-of-view isn't telling us everything and I get the feeling that it's not simply a matter of the typical "rank-and-file versus corrupt union leadership" story, but we'll see.

I haven't really seen the union leaders quoted here.

But I could be wrong; I just feel that the article isn't really giving us the full story.

Turkey is going wild over this as well.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2010898

I understand this is mostly an empty gesture, but it does allow you to donate some money to the Trader Joe's Union, which is better than nothing.

Glencore continues being teflon mining op, china doing a cringe (via Huayou), kazakhstan boldly being a shithead

An excerpt from the article:

Gone are the days when former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz could argue that the company’s upstart barista network would be no more than a blip in the coffee behemoth’s history.

On Tuesday, Starbucks Workers United (SBWU)’s parent union and Starbucks announced that they had reached a “foundational framework” for substantive negotiations over a range of issues.

“The fight is worth fighting for. This victory alone proves that no workplace is out of reach for organizing,” fired former Starbucks barista Alicia Flores of Portland, Oregon told In These Times, speaking in a personal capacity.

The two sides hope the agreement will form the basis for contract talks at nearly 400 union shops, the resolution of ongoing litigation, and an agreement over rules governing future organizing at Starbucks locations. While the publicly announced details of the agreement include few specifics and even fewer guarantees, the barista network has won at least the potential for negotiations over a first master contract.

“This agreement…is a very, very big deal,” said Dave Kamper, Senior Strategist at the progressive think tank Economic Policy Institute. “Starbucks Workers United has shown that determined workers, willing to use all the tools of worker power at their disposal…can bring companies to the bargaining table.”

Starbucks also announced that, as a measure of good faith, it will provide credit card tipping and other benefits to union stores that it has provided to nonunion stores since May 2022.

Some SBWU members were reluctant to speak to In These Times about the framework. But those who did open up were enthusiastic.

“I’m excited for the gang at SBWU to bargain a fair contract and to hopefully get reinstated as a fired worker,” said Flores.

Similarly, barista James Greene of the Pittsburgh area, also speaking in a personal capacity, said that he is “encouraged by the company’s [message]” and hopes “we can negotiate in good faith soon.”

A milestone battle and victory for Starbucks Workers United!

Read the rest of the article through the link up top (which also talks about labor and the anti-Zionist movement in the USA).

Pretty bad.

The book is this one:

Check it out.

If you get a big enough tip that makes the news, but denies a fancy treat, might make a "buisness decision".

https://www.facebook.com/masonjarcafe210

According to a Spookbook post paid the taxes on it and they really care about their workers and didn't make the decision in haste.

T-Bone Slim, born on this day in 1880, was an IWW member, working class songwriter, and author. Due to his popular, labor themed tunes, Slim was dubbed the "laureate of the logging camps".

Born Matti Valentin Huhta to Finnish immigrant parents in Ashtabula, Ohio, Slim became an itinerant worker after leaving his wife and family in 1912. It isn't known when Slim became a Wobbly, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), but he first appeared in the IWW's press in the 1920 edition of the IWW Songbook.

Slim became one of the IWW's most famous writers during the 1920s and 30s, and many people would buy the "Industrial Worker" just to read his articles - one ad from the paper read "there's a lot more in Industrial Solidarity and Industrial Worker than T-Bone Slim's columns".

Slim did not presume his working-class readership to be unintelligent people, making use of complex wordplay and experimental writing techniques, playing with ambiguity, satire and surrealism.

Slim was also well-known for his songs, such as the "Lumberjack's Prayer", a parody of the Lord's Prayer about the poor quality of food available for the working class, and "The Popular Wobbly", which experienced a revival among civil rights activists during the 1960s.

In spite of his renown in radical circles during his lifetime, many details of Slim's life remain unclear. During the mid-1930s, he settled in New York City, where he worked as a barge captain on the docks.

In May 1942, Slim's body was found in the East River. His cause of death remains unknown and has been subject to speculation. Following his death, Slim largely faded into obscurity, especially compared to more famous IWW-associated writers such as Joe Hill.

Slim's songs have been preserved, however, re-published in editions of the Little Red Songbook and covered by musicians such as Pete Seeger, Utah Phillips, and his own great-grandnephew, John Westmoreland.

Until recently, there was thought to be no surviving photographs of Slim, however, in 2019 two photos were discovered and published by Working Class History in a Newberry Library collection.

hello everyone - happy Black history month 🌌 here's a massive archive list of Black and Marxist writing and film (with downloads!) to check out xoxo

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I guess some Ivy kids are alright

Newton teachers have won through their "illegal" strike almost everything they bargained for.

4 yr contract

• Significantly increased salaries for all aides -with some increases totaling 50%

• Adjustments to salaries for increased cost of living

• Additional social workers at the elementary level

• Additional staff to reduce class sizes at the high school level

• Expanded parental leave (60 days, 45 paid)

• Guaranteed student admittance for non-resident school system staff

• Agreed-upon procedures for educators on directed growth plans

• Adjustments to funding of insurance benefits and healthcare structure

The union will pay the fines in full, all $600k + of them.

The win does come after 11 days of missed school and the Governor threatening binding arbitration. I wonder if she will try to get rid of the law making teacher strikes illegal after this.

Big fat L for kulak NIMBYs who earlier voted to keep taxes low and not raise pay for the teachers. They were caught pulling the ladder from under them. Tough.

In preparation for the presidential visit Thursday, UAW Region 1 headquarters in Warren, Michigan was transformed into a virtual bunker. The building was encircled by heavy-duty municipal dump trucks filled with road salt to protect the president from attack. Secret Service agents, Michigan state police and local cops from Warren and nearby Centerline blocked all streets leading to the UAW hall and kept protesters hundreds of feet away.

New Settlers chapter just dropped.