Belabored Podcast #35: Highs and Lows of the Year in Labor

Subscribe to the Belabored RSS feed here. Subscribe and rate on iTunes here. Check out the full Belabored archive here. Tweet at @dissentmag with #belabored to share your thoughts, or join the conversation on Facebook. Belabored is produced by Natasha Lewis. As 2013 winds to a close, Sarah and Michelle look back over the year in labor: the good news and the grim, the under-the-radar stories and the big wins. They also look forward to next year and make some (hopeful) predictions. Sarah and Michelle also bring you up to date on the latest labor news, including unexpected unions gaining a toehold in fast food and Internet retail and a new bill for national paid family leave, and wind up with a holiday-themed “Argh! I wish I’d written that.” In the News: Amazon Workers in Germany Strike Again Amazon May Get its First Labor Union in the US Some Fast Food Workers Will Form Union Michelle: National Paid Family Leave May Finally Be on the Horizon Sarah: Kirsten Gillibrand’s five-point family policy plan Year in Review The Good: Michelle: California Domestic Workers Win Long-Sought Bill of Rights Michelle: Domestic Workers Sow a New Global Movement Sarah: Black Friday Protests Embolden Walmart Workers Sarah: Fast food strikes in New York Should We Raise the Minimum Wage? 11 Questions and Answers Minimum wage of $11.50? Washington DC to raise minimum wage in 2016 The Bad: Michelle: Pension Panic Fueled by Anti-Worker Politics? Straight talk about Detroit, Illinois pensions #PensionTheft: Public Workers Under Attack in Illinois Michelle: Immigration Reform: Corporate Demands Trump Human Rights (account required) Michelle: Migrant Women Bring Voices to Capital A Guide to S.744: Understanding the 2013 Senate Immigration Bill What Happened to Immigration reform? The Underreported: Michelle: A New Day, A New Danger: Temporary Workers Face Safety Hazards at Work Michelle: Farmworkers Face Silent Spring in the Fields Fertilizer Plant That Exploded in West, Texas Faces $118,300 in Fines Terror in Texas Sarah: Nurses Taste Victory in Battle that Shook NY Politics Hope for Next Year: Michelle: Minimum-Wage Hike Won’t Appease Bangladeshi Workers Michelle: From Dhaka to Broadway, Protests Target Bangladesh Factory Death Traps Sarah: Standardized testing for kindergarteners? Sarah: New York’s dissident teachers’ union caucus not giving up Stories We Wish We’d Written: Michelle: Stephanie McMillan, Common Dreams: Why Environmentalists Should Support Working Class Struggles Sarah: Kevin Hartnett, the Boston Globe: Was Dickens’s Christmas Carol borrowed from Lowell’s mill girls? The post Belabored Podcast #35: Highs and Lows of the Year in Labor appeared first on Dissent Magazine.