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Subscribe to Working-Class Perspectives - Working-Class Perspectives offers weekly commentaries on current issues related to working-class people and communities. Contributors discuss a variety of issues, from what class means to how it intersects with race and gender to how class is shaping American politics. We welcome relevant comments of 500 words or less.
For questions or comments about this blog, e-mail Sherry Linkon. For assistance with news stories about working-class politics and culture, call or e-mail John Russo, 330-207-8085. Categories
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The State of the Working Class
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Author Archives: Working-Class Perspectives
Envisioning a 21st-Century Worker-Centered Social Compact
On June 2-3, 2022, my colleagues at Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor & the Working Poor will host the next installment in a series of convenings, webinars, and discussions we inaugurated in April 2021, inviting a wide range of … Continue reading
A Movement Moment and a Real NLRB
Finally, it’s a new morning for workers in America. For at least a brief time, while the Biden administration is alive, even if unwell, and the Supreme Court has not yet brought the darkness and ended our parade, opportunity is … Continue reading
Posted in Contributors, Issues, Labor and Community Activism, Understanding Class, Wade Rathke
Tagged labor movement, labor organizing, NLRB
2 Comments
Why Dems Should Act Now on Pro-Consumer Legislation
Democrats and Republicans these days agree on almost nothing. They rely on separate sets of facts and hold wildly divergent world views. Yet they have reached consensus in one area: consumer protection. And that hasn’t been good news for the … Continue reading
Why There’s More Labor Media Coverage
It seems like workers and their unions are in the news more than ever lately. Starbucks baristas, Amazon warehouse workers, John Deere strikers, and even New York Times tech workers, who just unionized, have all starred in the recent swell … Continue reading
The Power of Recognizing Higher Ed Faculty as Working-Class
Just over 20 years ago, Michael Zweig published The Working Class Majority: America’s Best Kept Secret. At that year’s How Class Works conference at SUNY Stony Brook, academics from history, political science, labor and industrial relations, and other fields debated … Continue reading
What bell hooks meant to me
In the final month of a horrible year of many tragedies and too many deaths, we lost bell hooks, a writer, scholar, and activist whose work has had a profound influence on many of us. I want to add my … Continue reading

Pandemic Cuts: Deepening the Higher Ed Divide American mythology promises upward mobility, and college can provide an important first step up the class ladder. With the rise of the “knowledge economy” and the decline of industrial jobs and unions, some … Continue reading
Posted in Understanding Class
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Building Back Better?
As we await U.S. Senate action on President Biden’s Build Back Better plan, it is worth reflecting on what the past few tumultuous months have meant for U.S. workers. Much has happened in the short time since the summer drew … Continue reading
Will Democrats Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth?
This has been a month of bad news for the Democratic Party. The conflicts around the infrastructure and Build Back Better bills and the November election results make clear that Republicans hold significant advantages with voters on critical issues including … Continue reading
Posted in Understanding Class
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Dirty Jobs, Essential Workers, and the Infrastructure Bills
Current negotiations over the second infrastructure bill may remind a lot of people of Mike Rowe’s oddly popular series Dirty Jobs. Which makes sense. Watching a man stumble around inside a sewage tank as he gags loudly and directs us … Continue reading
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