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Tag:Silicon Valley

Fighting Workplace Caste Discrimination: An Explainer — Part I

Mar 4, 2022 Priya Kamath

This post is the first of a two-part series that addresses caste discrimination in American workplaces. Part I, below, discusses the history of the Indian caste system and how caste discrimination may surface in American workplaces. Part II describes where caste may fit in existing anti-discrimination doctrine, proposals for reform, and recent developments. Setting the […]

January 5, 2021
News & Commentary

Zachary Boullt

A rare move within the tech industry, a group of more than 400 Google works have unionized. The Alphabet Workers Union, affiliated with the CWA, formed as a minority union with the goal of structuring activism at Google. The unionization move comes after years of activism related to workplace harassment, pay structure, and ethical issues, […]

June 23, 2020
News & Commentary

Zachary Boullt

While individual labor unions and labor groups have continued calling for disaffiliation with police unions, the largest national labor unions’ leadership has largely closed ranks and defended including police unions. One striking defense of police unions recently came from the AFL-CIO’s President Richard Trumka, who defended police unions by analogizing them to employers at an […]

December 7, 2018
News & Commentary

Jenny Braun

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report: unemployment remains at 3.7% for the third month, and the U.S. added 155,000 nonfarm jobs. Reactions are mixed; while the report is “weaker than expected,” it is also a sign of an expansive and overall healthy economy, note commentators in the New York […]

November 4, 2018
News & Commentary

Jenny Braun

Commenting on the Google walkout last Thursday, Professor Brishen Rogers told CNBC that the “numbers and level of coordination involved” were “unprecedented” in the tech sector. In white-collar tech, where employers pose as “family” and salaries are high, unions are nearly nonexistent; many watching the walkout, however, spot on the horizon a new phase of […]

Today’s News & Commentary — August 29, 2018

Aug 29, 2018 Jenny Braun

The prison strike enters day nine, as the estimated 900,000 incarcerated laborers (out of a population of 2.4 million) demand “an immediate end to prison slavery.” Sarah Holder of City Lab, quoting ACLU National Prison Project’s David Fathi, breaks down the cold truth behind a high incarceration rate: both public and private employers have a […]

August 17, 2018
News & Commentary

Vail Kohnert-Yount

In the forthcoming September issue of Vanity Fair, Uber engineer-turned-Silicon Valley watchdog Susan Fowler examines the future of the gig economy. In her piece entitled, “What Have We Done?: Silicon Valley Engineers Fear They’ve Created a Monster,” Fowler recalled from when she worked at Uber how the company manipulated fares to “trick” drivers into working longer […]

August 14, 2018
News & Commentary

Vail Kohnert-Yount

President Trump acknowledged on Twitter on Monday that the White House required staff to sign nondisclosure agreements, which his aides have declined to confirm for months. Although legal experts say such agreements are essentially unenforceable for government employees because they infringe on First Amendment rights, the admission raises the question of how nondisclosure agreements—even those that are […]

July 25, 2018
News & Commentary

Vail Kohnert-Yount

Today, Bloomberg reported that for the first time in Google’s twenty-year history, the number of people working for the company who aren’t classified as Google employees exceeded the number who are. Google’s Alphabet Inc. employs thousands of contract workers, who wear red badges to distinguish them from full-fledged staff. Many of these laborers are skilled workers […]

July 5, 2018
News & Commentary

Jared Odessky

This week, attorneys for Browning-Ferris Industries and the Teamsters union argued before a D.C. Circuit panel over whether the panel should continue to review the NLRB’s 2015 decision in Browning-Ferris. In that case, the Board adopted a loosened “indirect control” standard for joint employer status to determine that Browning-Ferris was the joint employer of workers […]

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OnLabor

Law. Workers. Organizing.

OnLabor is a blog devoted to workers, unions, and their politics. We interpret our subject broadly to include the current crisis in the traditional union movement (why union decline is happening and what it means for our society); the new and contested forms of worker organization that are filling the labor union gap; how work ought to be structured and managed; how workers ought to be represented and compensated; and the appropriate role of government — all three branches — in each of these issues.

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Fighting Workplace Caste Discrimination: An Explainer — Part I

January 5, 2021

June 23, 2020

December 7, 2018

November 4, 2018

Today’s News & Commentary — August 29, 2018

August 17, 2018

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