On Monday, President Trump’s administration “proposed deep spending cuts” in the U.S. Labor Department’s budget for the second consecutive year. The administration requested a 21% budget reduction over current levels for fiscal year 20... More »
In an interesting take, Austin Frakt at the New York Times, discusses how a healthy economy can shorten life spans—at least in the short term. According to Frakt, this counterintuitive finding (counterintuitive because economic growth promotes higher li... More »
For over a century, workers and their organizations have struggled to raise labor standards and expand employee rights and benefits. Whatever the benefits to workers and the society, to any one private firm those laws represent a tax on employing human labor,... More »
The challenge of automation is in many ways continuous with the challenges of “fissured” work – to use David Weil’s influential formulation. In particular, both trends are driven in significant part by the costs and risks of employing human beings. According... More »
The labor world took notice when Andy Stern emerged from a years-long deep dive into the future of work, and concluded that the future will bring a lot less work. His book, Raising the Floor, helped to spur a debate over the universal basic income (UBI), incl... More »
A New York Times piece covers the impact of drug tests (and drugs) on the economy. In particular, it profiles various manufacturing companies in the Midwest, revealing the challenges they face filling jobs due to the proportion of applicants who fail drug tes... More »
The distinction between work and leisure time has become increasing hard to identify. As other authors on the blog have demonstrated, technology plays a huge role in collapsing this distinction. Perhaps more disturbing than always being on call is the idea tha... More »
The New York Times weighs in on the effect that Trump’s “Hire American” order may have on tech worker visas. According to the Times, the order “represents a small win for bigger tech companies,” but may hurt smaller technology co... More »
The New York Times weighs in on the effect that Trump’s “Hire American” order may have on tech worker visas. According to the Times, the order “represents a small win for bigger tech companies,” but may hurt smaller technology co... More »
Last month, a Fusion article warned women to beware of “the guy who talks a big game about gender equality… then turns around and harasses you, assaults you, or belittles you,” coining the term, the “woke misogynist.” The same warning can be made about corpora... More »