-
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
Archives
The State of the Working Class
Listen to Working-Class Perspective editor Sherry Linkon's recent interview about Working-Class Studies on KERA's Think with Krys Boyd.Links
Blogroll
Author Archives: Working-Class Perspectives
Essential Workers Take Action
During the pandemic, the working class that had been invisible to many suddenly became “essential.” In some cities, people came on their balconies in their homes to applaud these workers whose jobs in food service, to health care, transportation, and … Continue reading
The Bear and the Contradictions of Work
Hulu’s series The Bear, oddly labeled as a comedy, takes viewers inside a hectic, crowded, struggling Chicago sandwich shop that Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen Wright) inherited from his brother, Michael, who committed suicide. The store is a chaotic mess and … Continue reading
Posted in Class and the Media, Contributors, Issues, John Russo, Sherry Linkon, Work
Tagged contemporary work, great resignation, quiet quitting, The Bear
2 Comments
Working-class Academics in Poland: Translating working-class studies into the post-communist context
When I encountered Western working-class studies for the first time, I was a little bit confused. Being born in Poland a few years before the democratic change of 1989, I was raised to value Western culture over so-called “relics of … Continue reading
Posted in Class and Education, Contributors, Guest Bloggers, Issues
Tagged working class in Poland, working-class academics
1 Comment
Media War in Ukraine: Class and Gender
Like all physical conflicts, the current war in Ukraine is also an ongoing war of narratives, in this case one making heavy use of visual imagery. As they have played out, the threads of these narratives have a telling sequence … Continue reading
Hope and Concern: The WCSA’s 2022 Award Winners
Great plagues subvert our expectations about how things work, opening up new opportunities and widespread mobilization for social change. According to one massive study of historical epidemics, “civil unrest” often follows – as we are seeing now. Whatever direction the … Continue reading
Posted in Allison L. Hurst, Class and Education, Class and Health, Class and the Media, Class at the Intersections, Contributors, Issues, The Working Class and the Economy, Understanding Class, Working-Class Culture
Tagged WCSA, work and class, working-class poetry, working-class studies, Working-Class Studies Association
1 Comment
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
Working-Class Perspectives 