Since March, my mother has worked twelve- to fourteen-hour days, seven days a week, processing thousands of COVID-19 tests. As one of over 6,700 medical laboratory technologists working in Ontario, she works toward fulfilling the government’s quota of 16,000 tests per day. But my mother is not a stranger to long hours or the threat… Read more →
Tag: Labor
The Universal Basic Income and the Myth of the Housewife
A recent article by Amber A’Lee Frost in Jacobin magazine argues that presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s proposal for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) would be bad because the US had already tried a version of it, and, as an experiment, it was an abject failure. According to Frost, the people who last received a UBI… Read more →
The Absence of Presence: Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
This is a book that might leave most readers frustrated about the state of things. It’s also a book that I wish didn’t need to be written but was glad I came across. Caroline Criado Perez patiently demonstrates that collecting data mostly on men and applying those findings to people in general might be erasing… Read more →
Museum Educators Unite: Unionizing the Lower East Side Tenement Museum
On April 15th, 2019, a group of workers in the Lower East Side Tenement Museum’s departments of Education, Visitor Services, Retail, and Advance Sales voted 72–3 to join United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2110, joining a growing movement of museum professionals forming unions in New York City. The Tenement Museum is a unique institution. Housed… Read more →
Housewives Against Dictatorship: The Bolivian Hunger Strike of 1978
On December 28, 1977 four women and fourteen children arrived at the offices of Archbishop Nelson Manrique in La Paz, Bolivia and began a hunger strike in the highest capital city in the world. Aurora de Lora, Nely de Paniagua, Angélica de Flores, and Luzmila de Pimentel had travelled two hundred miles from the mining… Read more →
How Dusty are Your Baseboards?: The Politics of Domestic Labor
Recently I attended a bridal shower that provided a rare occasion for chatting with girlfriends sans partners and kids. Upon returning to my seat from a second visit to the brunch buffet, I noticed two concurrent conversations going on either side of me. Although occurring separately, both conversations centered on cleaning- specifically, house cleaning and… Read more →
We Need a Robin Hood Tax for Welfare Relief
By Austin C. McCoy
I wish I found the idea of cutting $39 billion from the federal government’s food stamp program (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP) during a recession unbelievable. But, as usual, House Republicans continue to thwart all belief and reason. Some Republicans like Paul Ryan (R-WI) are concerned about the program’s sustainability. They worry that the size of the program will not shrink fast enough over the next four years. However, as Travis Waldron of Think Progress notes, SNAP is based upon income and not employment, therefore explaining the program’s projected marginal decrease.