Belabored Podcast #19: The Politics of Time

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis. The nineteenth episode of Dissent’s Belabored podcast opens with some recent labor news: students getting involved in a Nissan union drive; the United Food & Commercial Workers union returning to the AFL-CIO; Chicago issuing a request for proposals for more charter schools; and interns excluded from sexual harassment protections. Then Josh and Sarah discuss her recent In These Times feature on what the “work/life balance” debate leaves out. How do sex, race, and class shape what counts as “work” and as “life”? Why do these conversations neglect a life for women outside productive or reproductive labor? Is it time for labor to demand the right to free time? Links for those following along at home: Sarah’s In These Times piece on “Opting for Free Time” Related stories by the New York Times’ Magazine’s Judith Warner, Time’s Lauren Sandler, and The Nation’s Bryce Covert Sarah at Jacobin on “A Day Without Care” Pro Publica’s Blair Hickman and Christie Thompson on “How Unpaid Interns Aren’t Protected Against Sexual Harassment” WBEZ on Chicago’s request for charter proposals Josh’s interview with SEIU President Mary Kay Henry Roger Bybee on the Nissan plant and its fat subsidies for low wages Joe Atkins at Facing South on students’ organizing with Nissan workers. Pieces we wish we’d written: Christina Caldwell, “Abortion Heat Hits Alabama’s ‘Saturday Women,’ Women’s e-news Steven Greenhouse, “The Workers Defense Project, a Union in Spirit,” The New York Times The post Belabored Podcast #19: The Politics of Time appeared first on Dissent Magazine.