The New Labor Forum has launched a bi-weekly newsletter on current topics in labor, curated by the some of the most insightful scholars and activists in the labor world today. Check out some highlights from the latest edition below.
In this issue of Highlights, appearing just after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, we take up two related issues: the attack on public sector unionism embodied in the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case, now before the Supreme Court; and the crisis of mass incarceration. Both of these dilemmas profoundly and disproportionately impact African-Americans. Public sector jobs provide decent wages and job security to fully 20 percent of black workers. The potential evisceration of those unions essential to making these good jobs will therefore disproportionately affect African-American workers and their communities. And for over half a century, public sector jobs have served as a bulwark against the ubiquitous job discrimination, unemployment and bad jobs that have contributed to exceedingly high rates of black incarceration.
Contents:
