“The Right to a Future” kicks off a week of climate coverage, starting September 15, by Intercept reporters working across our beats. The effort is part of Covering Climate Now, a project co-founded by The Nation and Columbia Journalism Review, in partnership with The Guardian, that “aims to convene and inform a conversation among journalists about how all news outlets can do justice to the defining story of our time.”  More here.

Drivers will likely get health care and paid time off under the law.
“This is a victory to savor,” tweeted Nicole Moore, an Uber driver and organizer with Rideshare Drivers United.
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In a public hearing on the topic Wednesday in Denver, labor advocates pushed for two key changes. They want all industries covered under state rules, and they want a minimum salary cutoff for when overtime must be paid added.

“Workers need to be paid fairly for the work they do,” argued Marilyn Winokur, a Denver resident, with the Colorado Industrial Areas Foundation. “It is not good for Colorado workers to be overworked and underpaid.”
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Sara Nelson talks to family members of victims of 737 Max crashes before a House subcommittee hearing in Washington DC, on 17 July. Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
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Earlier this year, staring down the longest government shutdown in US history, Nelson gained national attention when she called for a general strike as a way of pressuring Donald Trump and Congress to act. The idea was radical – and supporters say it set in motion a series of events that brought the weeks-long shutdown to an end.

“People think power is a limited resource,” she said in Atlanta. “But using power builds power.”

Nelson has struck a chord with progressives and grassroots activists who have amplified calls for her to run for labor’s top job: president of the nation’s largest federation of unions, the 12.5 million-member AFL-CIO.  More

To our thinking, the lesson of Walmart is that substantial gun reform may eventually succeed in Congress, if enough puppets of the gun lobby are run out of office. Ordinary citizens can further the cause by putting pressure on corporate America.

​"The shareholders’ resolution was drafted by a group of religious leaders — the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility — and a grassroots advocacy group — the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation."   More from CST Editorial.
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The large gap between the share of workers who want a union and the share of workers who are in a union underscores that our system of labor laws is not working. Fundamental reform is required to rebuild worker power and guarantee all workers the right to come together and have a voice in their workplace. Efforts are underway, including legislation like the Protecting the Right to Organize Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, and innovative projects focused on the reconstruction of labor law. Until meaningful policy changes are made that take worker power seriously and restore a fair balance of power between workers and employers, our economy will continue to leave behind most of the workers in it.  More in TPM
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SECTORAL BARGAINING IS THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN LABOR UNIONS By Dylan Matthews (Vox)
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Long-run wage stagnation for lower-wage workers—and rising inequality between high- and middle-wage workers—seems to indicate a modern labor market in which many workers have little bargaining power. In the middle of the 20th century, more than 30 percent of U.S. workers were members of a union: a core institution that provides workers with bargaining power. Today, after a long decline that took place almost entirely within the private sector, just 10.5 percent of workers (and 6.4 percent of private sector workers) are union members. We find that the decline in private sector union membership has been driven by falling union density both within industries and within states, with a smaller role for shifting industry composition. The decline in union membership is economically important: unions lift wages, reduce inequality, and shape how work is organized, among other effects. We examine options for reinforcing enterprise-level unions as well as other models for collective bargaining and enhanced worker voice.  More from the Hamilton Project here.
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Neto's Tucson: Ana Chavarin is a single mom, an immigrant and a success
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I just read a long piece by Nelson Schwartz about Project Quest -- our job training program in the southwest and Midwest.

It's very positive toward the program overall.  But there's a huge hole in this story -- papered over by a vague line or two about 'community groups' in an impoverished area of San Antonio that started the effort 27 years ago.
That 'community group' had a name -- Communities Organized For Public Service (COPS), one of our earliest affiliates.  The key person who spearheaded the organizing, designing, implementation, and expansion of Project Quest also has a name -- Sr. Pearl Cesar.